College Admission Scandals - What's the Difference?

Vanity | 5/26/2019 | Self

[John123]

On one hand you have spoiled, unmotivated and wealthy scions that just don't care and well-meaning parents push them into college to "make something positive happen." However, they can afford their college education.

On the other hand, a vast majority of young adults who never had a job and know nothing about finance, signed documents promising to honor their college loans. Know this, the Millennials will be the largest voting block and WILL elect someone who will make laws forgiving their college debts. Taxpayers (read You) will be on the hook.

[John123]

Why are people "offended" the wealthy is buying their way into college and at the same time, have no intention of ever repaying the college loans they signed?

[LRoggy]

The stupid thing about this is that Loughlin’s daughter was very successful and didn’t need college. Mom really screwed the pooch on that one.

[BradyLS]

I think you’re saying that it’s always been this way, so why the outrage?

Nobody liked it then, either so I’m not about to like it now.

The difference today is the veneer of service other activities to appear “well rounded.” It’s the added phoniness on top of the test cheating and other ways of “getting over.”

[C210N]

The people doing this are not necessarily imaginative. They have the MO paved thru their political leadership.

These Pochahontas wannabees see nothing wrong with checking the affirmative action box, nothing wrong with making tons of money off of it. Ergo, nothing wrong with the extension to that thinking - paving similar ways for their kids.

This is why leftist slippery slopes are so troublesome... they seem to always lead to higher-angled slopes.

[nathanbedford]

Why the rush to forgive federal tuition loans is merely a symptom of our broken politics, from a reply of a month ago:

When a nation, a business, or a family shirk their responsibility to budget their affairs it generally means there is a moral breakdown somewhere. The purpose of a budget for the government is to submit to the people's representatives in such a transparent way that the people's representatives votes on the allocation of resources as well as the imposition of taxes can be determined up or down by the electorate. When our government proceeds for decades on continuing resolutions, the system breaks down, representative democracy is frustrated, graft and corruption and crony capitalism thrive.

All of this is made possible by the practice of simply borrowing money without consideration of the long-term costs to society and certainly to the next generation. This power to borrow money is unique to postwar America as the world's superpower and reserve currency. This, coincidence of factors permits our government to print money almost at will, to receive funds from foreign countries because we are the reserve currency and the largest economy, to avoid inflation by the additional coincidence of cheap Chinese goods to import, cheap labor to import keeping domestic wages down, and the digital revolution keeping costs overall down.

For the time being there seems to be no present-day economic consequences to running up a staggering debt of $22 trillion. There are no political consequences for doing so and there will be no political consequences so long as there is no pain. Indeed, the political consequences run the other way because those who complain about overspending tend to lose elections. Those who promise to keep the music playing tend to win elections.

[bkopto]

The wealthy buying their kids way into college happens all the time in other countries and it’s not a problem. In this country, academia has this holier-than-thou attitude, pretending not to be influenced by money, but they are just as motivated by the love of money as the rest of the world is. The are all frauds.

[TnGOP]

This admissions scandal has gotten under my skin more than other "beautiful people" displays of arrogance.

As a parent of a daughter graduating college in August with zero debt after 4 years scrimping and doing without, I will be highly perturbed if college loans are forgiven.

A little bragging from a proud dad: Biology degree. 3.7 GPA. In Costa Rica right now studying leaf cutter ant habits. I am SO proud of her. She is also my familys first college grad.

[ClearCase_guy]

I know a lot of voters don’t use logic, but this issue seems very half-baked to me.

If I were 14 or 16, I’d vote for the candidate who told me that he’s make college free for me. Yippee! Only problem: 14 and 16 year old don’t get to vote.

If I were 23 and up and some politician told me that younger people would get free college, I’d feel resentful — I’m saddled with massive debt, but people 5 years younger than I will get a free ride: it’s not fair.

If I were 23 and up and some politician told me that my debt were cancelled, that’s fine for me — but does college then become free for everyone younger? Do I have to pay for them? Forever? That seems pricey. At least my college loans had an end date.

If we are going down this road, I think you need to make college free for future generations and cancel the debts for all those who have graduated. This is massive. Forever. And “free” college will only get more expensive. That’s the way the game is always played.

I understand the initial appeal of such promises, but it’s really not a good deal for anyone.

[John123]

Would you agree to this... capital is a scarce resource. And the modern inefficient allocation of resources to college degrees, auto loans and credit card debts... all for “stuff” which are a very poor rate of return is a losing proposition?

[ReaganGeneration2]

Something, someday, will trigger a massive national tax revolt.

The fake Wall Street Bailout didn’t do it.

Likely a Reparations taking, or a 401k tax, or a Social Security collapse would.

Will a Student Loan Bailout trigger it? So many sacrificed to themselves and their kids thru college debt-free, and so many skipped college due to lack of money...

[steve in DC]

Trying to live up to the legacy of the Kennedy clan, one could assume.

[John123]

I can tell... you sound like a world class saver and planner (like me). There are very few of us... Congrats and good luck.

[John123]

Something, someday, will trigger a massive national tax revolt.

Keep an eye on Illinois. They should be the canary in the mine so to speak.

[pepsionice]

Kinda in agreement.

My brother went the route of two years in community college, and went on the cheap scale to arrive at an electrical engineering degree (taking six years from start to finish). He owed nothing at the end, and my dad might have been totally out on $20k (from 1980s cost levels).

There would be a lot of anger by people who went the hard route and paid off their degree along the way....if forgiveness were the government gimmick.

[Ken H]

Hopefully she doesn’t encounter a bullet ant, which I believe are native to that area. Those things are just plain nasty.

[caddie]

The cure for this is already taking place.

First of all, the "Can't-do-without-an-Ivy-diploma" world is kind of fading away...lots of reasons: phony degrees and accomplishments and intense commie indoctrination the main ones. They have devalued their own degrees.

Next the brick and mortar college experience is obsolete. It's just too slow and expensive. Kids will start fulfilling lots of high school requirements in grade school and online. And lots of older kids will spend minimal time or no time getting up to the bachelor degree level on a traditional campus.

And this new breed will be focused, autodidactic, and un-brainwashed.

You see this now in the so-called "Home Schooling" movement. These families are producing such tremendous graduate-products at such a low cost and with such a low social morbidity and no brainwashing. And these graduates are already assuming places of leadership in our society.

You have to look for this in our kinds of blogs and news sources though...the mainstream wants to keep it all hush-hush.

Finally the Educational Establishment will either adapt to compete with the new pacesetters or they will deteriorate further.

Right now most of their public high school grads can't read, so they really have no options but copying the methods of the pacesetters.

Go and see what some home schooled-then-college-educated students are doing.

Lots of stuff going on out there that is good.

[Alberta's Child]

As far as I'm concerned, there's nothing wrong with bribing your way into college as long as we live in an age where racial discrimination is legally permitted in the admissions process.

The big red flag here for me was that none of these rich white kids failed out of school after they were admitted through "fraudulent" means. This tells me they were well qualified for admission, but simply had to overcome a racial/ethnic barrier that had been put in their way.

At the end of the day ... who really gives a damn about how people get admitted to colleges that are turning out increasing numbers of uneducated young adults anyway?

[Alberta's Child]

It's worth noting that the entire student loan industry has nothing to do with helping kids pay for an education. It has everything to do with two things:

1. It subsidizes institutions of "higher education."

2. It grew rapidly after 2008 because the home mortgage market collapsed, and banks needed other customers who would be willing to borrow enormous piles of money for "assets" with inflated values.

[xrmusn]

My ‘biggest’ question is...

If they are going to jail the givers of the bribes, when are they going to start jailing the receivers ALL OF THEM of the bribes.

Still takes 2 to tango.

Right from the lawyer that instructs you how to bribe the coach to the board ‘living’ off the ill gotten money.

But I don’t entirely disagree with whoever said ‘WGAF’ as long as we have quotas, special bennies (think E Warren - who should be under the jail AND even BObama IF the ‘documents’ declaring him an ‘African’ on a student visa etc) are correct.

[neverevergiveup]

"Why are people "offended" the wealthy are buying their way into college and at the same time, have no intention of ever repaying the college loans they signed?"

It's a very valid question. Higher education has to be reformed, dramatically. When you have 'not for profit' universities with huge endowments (Harvard ~ $38.3 billion, Yale ~ $29.4 billion, Stanford ~ $26.5 billion, etc.), and you expect the US taxpayers to pick of the cost of tuition for their students, something is very, very wrong.

The boards of most universities are populated with wealthy and connected people, and the major concern of most if not all universities is their bottom line, and expansion that others pay for. They don't even dip into their endowments to build new buildings. They find new donors for those things. They turn a blind eye to indefensible things their faculty do (e.g. sexual harassment and other inappropriate behaviors, collusion with reviewers and government administrators in order to get grants funded and papers published, fudging or overstating data, etc.), as long as those faculty are bringing in money and/or stature.

While they are sitting on these huge endowments, they are also taking millions/billions of taxpayer dollars in every year for research. The top 20 receiving NIH grants received a total of ~ $3.6 billion last year from the NIH alone. The Dept. of Education has a projected outlay of $45.4 billion for 2019 - a good chunk of it going to universities and student aid (that ultimately goes to the institutions they are attending). Add to all of that the money coming from other government agencies and from private sources and industry and it is an astounding amount.

And, for this, students get taught by teaching assistants, teaching itself is looked down upon and something to be avoided by many faculty. Further, these universities are full of people who feel the same way Peter Strzok feels about the 'smell' of Trump voters at the Walmart.