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Writer: Kimani Leftridge
Over the past few weeks, the public has seen several well-off families be exposed for paying their student’s way into prestigious colleges. After it had been made clear that their student does not have the academic ability to be admitted, parents would opt to pay off admissions staff and others in order to get their child access to the school. This scandal kicked off with the exposure of “Full House” actress Laurie Loughlin and her daughter Olivia Jade. Loughlin was implicated as part of a large college admissions bribery scam and said to have paid $500,000 for both of her daughters to be recruited onto USC’s crew team. Although recruiters at the college have come out and said that this claim was false, this news story facilitated a much-needed conversation about what lengths rich families will go to to get their children into these renowned schools.
Several other celebrities have also been implicated in the wake of this scandal, such as Felicity Huffman, Bill McGlashan and even the president Donald Trump has been accused of having his parents bribe his way throughout all of his schoolings. So far, it has been reported that parents have paid off SAT/ACT proctors, coaches, and even college administrators to help get their kids into elite schools. Amidst these discoveries many people have expressed that this strategy used by rich families has been going on for years, and even centuries. Many are confused at the surprised reactions of others, claiming that much like the trend of sexual assault in Hollywood, this is something everyone knew about and no one talked about.
Now that the embarrassing truth is finally being discussed, a multitude of questions has been raised. How will those implicated actually be punished for their actions? It is common knowledge that those in society who are apart of the elite class or the “one percent” often escape any real consequences for criminal behavior, will this be an exception? What steps will these schools take to prevent this type of behavior from continuing and do they even wish to do so? At the moment the public has only seen celebrities implicated in this scandal, what about the rich families with “old money” that don’t have any of the fame but twice the wealth? It is unrealistic to think that they have not employed any of the strategies we see being used for their own kids. And to many, the most important question, what about the students who aren’t as well off financially? These families have effectively stolen spots away from them so, will there be any action taken to repay the families that have been affected by this scandal?
All in all, this scandal has exposed some horrific truths about rich families and what they will do in order to maintain their distinguished images. It seems as though they treat education as a commodity, instead of a means to improve social mobility. It has been argued that oftentimes the rich students involved rarely care about their education and have not had to perform well academically their entire lives. And the reality is, due to their socio-economic status, they don’t have to. However, the diploma from these elite schools is used to flaunt the social capital that they possess and nothing more, effectively rendering the true purpose of education useless.
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