Admissions scandal reveals why America's elite colleges are under fire

The elite colleges are already one of the favorite targets of President Donald Trump. Their large endowments have been affected by the GOP's 2017 tax law. The FBI found Tuesday that America's most expensive and selective universities were the most expensive and selective in the country. They are also fighting misuse charges to decide who will be invited to sign up.

The charges that have been unveiled – that dozens of wealthy and famous parents have literally been able to write a check to allow their children to access the best American schools – are certain to confirm many suspicions: that the method proven "Successful college admissions, as the plan leader said, are money. Many colleges recruit more students from the top 1% of the highest paid than the bottom 60%. The frantic race to admissions took on an ugly aura.

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"It just revealed the old secret that money pays a lot," said Anthony Jack, assistant professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. "We are convinced that entering these places depends in some way on the work you have done or the expression you have expressed through test scores, tests or extracurricular activities. This is really not it. Rich people, especially wealthy white citizens, have been doing it for a long time. It's just very public. "

Kellyanne Conway, senior advisor to the Trump administration, is attacking the scandal in a tweet: "@LoriLoughlin & @FelicityHuffman charged with lying and buying places at the university. They feared that their girls are just as stupid as their mothers. "

Federal accusations are coming as American confidence in higher education has shown signs of erosion in recent years. Many, in the era of Trump, believed that colleges welcomed wealthy and indoctrinated students with leftist ideas. And in particular, they emerge as Harvard and the University of North Carolina defend their use of the breed in confessions – what the Trump administration has pursued – to combat the kind of privilege presented in the admissions program massif.

William Singer, who ran a fake university consulting firm that bribed college coaches and administrators and helped students cheat on college entrance exams, told a parent involved : "There is an entrance door that allows you to enter alone. The back door is done through the advancement of the institution, which represents 10 times more money. And I created this side door. "

Singer, who pleaded guilty several times, was the brain that allegedly bribed college coaches and administrators – with about $ 25 million in payments over seven years – and paid the college entrance exam administrators to allow students cheat during their tests.

Dozens of wealthy parents – including "Desperate Housewives" star Felicity Huffman, Lori Loughlin, famous for "Full House", and her husband, clothing designer Mossimo Giannulli – were indicted. Georgetown coaches, USC, UCLA, the University of Texas and other schools are also facing charges. Officials said the investigation was continuing and that more individuals could be charged, possibly including students. However, officials also said that some students were unaware of the manipulation of the process by their parents.

The involvement of celebrities has attracted extra attention and Donald Trump, Jr., is making fun of them on Twitter. He resurfaced a 2016 tweet from Huffman asking "What are your best" hacks "for back to school?" And said, "I'm learning new ones as we speak. Stay tuned. "

The scandal calls into question everything from admission preferences for alumni and athlete children to the weightings admitted by admissions officers based on the weighting of students in that which concerns the effectiveness of tests like ACT and SAT, which have long shown that they favor wealthy students.

"There is no doubt that this ongoing scandal will further damage the credibility of the ACT and SAT scores and will strengthen the optional testing movement," said Bob Schaeffer, a long-time critic of standardized tests who leads a group called FairTest. "How can an admissions office determine which partitions are legitimate, which are powered by expensive (legal if ethically questionable) test steroids and simply manufactured?"

The colleges were on the defensive. Yale University, whose former women's football coach was accused of accepting a bribe to help a student to be admitted, presented herself as the victim.

"As indicated by the federal indictment, the Department of Justice believes that the Office of Undergraduate Admissions Yale was the victim of a crime committed by his female football coach, who "No longer at the university," said a university spokesman in a statement. .

Schools that were trained in wrongdoing, including Georgetown, USC and Yale, issued statements that they were cooperating with the authorities. Representatives of college associations reacted with horror.

"This is an unfortunate example of our efforts to bypass and manipulate the college admissions process, particularly to enter highly selective colleges," said Stefanie Niles, president and vice-president of the college. National Association for College Admissions. Communications at Ohio Wesleyan University.

"If these allegations are true, they go against the essential premise of a fair and transparent admission process in colleges," Ted Mitchell, chairman of the US board of directors, said in a statement. education, the main lobbying group of the higher education sector. antithetical to the core values ​​of our institutions, swindles students and families and has absolutely no place in American higher education. "

The NCAA said the allegations were "troubling and should be of concern to all of higher education."

The scandal attracted the condemnation of the entire political spectrum. Experts from the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank influencing the Trump administration, have disappointed the experts.

"Higher education policies have always favored elites," said Mary Clare Amselem, Heritage Policy Advisor at Heritage. "What is obvious is that our higher education system has become less of a place that encourages students to pursue studies in the real world. Congress could change that by limiting the uncontrollable loans granted by the federal government to student loans and dismantling the monopoly of accreditation that allows this obsolete college system to infect and grow. "

Moreover, the Committee of Advocates for Civil Rights recognized by the law, which defended the use of race by the universities for admissions to court, stated that this incident was a reminder of the reasons for the positive action to be taken. allowed in admissions.

"We are asking for more transparency and transparency in the admission process from thousands of outstanding color candidates who wish to be admitted to our colleges and universities each year, but whose qualifications are being questioned as a result. of race-sensitive admissions, "said Kristen Clarke, chairman of the group, said in a statement.

The charges reopened criticism of a long-standing legal way of paying to access college: through large donations and lifelong donations.

"It's not surprising that one of the pillars of this business was the fact that it was easy to get students involved in athletics," said Jack. "Everyone wants to focus on Black or Latin American students or positive action based on race, but we forget that legacies are stimulated and that there is no moral argument in this regard. Athletes have a boost and there is no moral argument for that. Both of these arguments are financial. These two arguments concern the dollar. "

The Harvard admissions officer during a trial on the use of the breed in admissions last year admitted to having added children and donor relatives to his list of people. Potential students that he monitors closely, even if he did not know they would otherwise be strong candidates. .

Harvard was not involved in Tuesday's charges, but defends his use of the breed in confessions as part of a lawsuit that garnered support from Trump's Justice Department. The Department of Justice is also investigating the use of race in admissions to Yale and would be probing the early admission policies of decisions made by at least seven elite colleges.

According to the prosecution documents, Singer acknowledged the legal means of being admitted, but told his clients that the job would not be as safe.

"Because the back door, when you go to institutional advancement, as you know, everyone has a friend of a friend who knows someone who knows someone but which has no guarantee, they will just give you a second look, "he said. . "My families want a guarantee."

Michael Crow, president of Arizona State University – a public school designated by Giannulli as a school to which he did not want his daughter to go – was criticized by the colleges that provoked him.

"What we understand now is that some schools have advanced so much the notion of selectivity and elitism that they grant an aristocratic status to attendance, which is actually different from that of graduates. It's a force of corruption, "said Crow.

"It's the latest fruit of the tree of elitism. The tree of elitism says that there are only a few branches with their excellent fruit, so you must be able to do anything, no matter what for reach these branches. "