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The fraud scheme of rich parents convinces a whole social class that the system is rigged and that some are massively more equal than others.
How much does a private university education cost?
Last week, I asked this question to a group of senior high school students in Compton, one of the poorest communities in the Los Angeles area. There was a long pause.
"Thousand dollars?" Shyly asked a young man.
"Five thousand," said another, more assertive.
With great courage, I managed to get the class to $ 30,000, before giving them the correct answer: more than a quarter of a million dollars.
That's the amount you need to get an undergraduate degree in one of America's top private schools, including some of those mentioned in the college admissions scandal that broke out this week. Many offer generous scholarships and many students benefit from government financial assistance; Yet, thousands of people who hope to go there have to scramble for breathtaking amounts of money.
I was expecting gasps when I said "a quarter of a million," but I did not get them. Indeed, for boys and girls growing up in Compton and in other poorer areas of southern California – whose livelihood is essentially $ 25,100 or less (the official poverty line in 2018 for a family of four) – a quarter of a million is an inconceivable number. It's $ 10,000. The same goes for $ 1,000.
Most of these families have not saved anything. They belong to the 40% of Americans who do not have more than $ 400 in cash or in a bank and the 39.7 million who live in poverty.
They endure stress, fear, uncertainty, unemployment, health problems and mental health problems; they shelter in homes where several residents share one or two rooms, where the threat of eviction is permanent, where there is no private place to study, where the time free is devoted to junior tasks that can help the family's finances, rather than reading or continuing studies; they come from neighborhoods where gangs, drugs and crime rampant, dragging their children with the force of a neodymium magnet, far from the tenuous promises of a distant future.
No carrots were hanging in front of these kids, no incentive for long-term success. From the first day, middle class members are taught that if they are A or B now, they will receive X or Y as a reward later; but "later" does not count when your goal is simply to reach the future.
Children who can succeed in this environment do so against extraordinary odds. Because success is not a tangible thing: it's the kind of opportunity they see in movies and magazines, as disconnected from their daily lives, as in the mansions and mansions of Hancock Park and Palisades . – which may be a few kilometers away, but this distance seems wider than an ocean.
Cynics who oppose "positive discrimination" have no idea that returning to university from these roots requires exceptional energy and willpower, and a willingness to challenge laws of gravity. This requires an inner strength that always rubs against self-doubt, a willingness to embark on a journey as dangerous as the one ever undertaken by Lewis and Clark.
They are not aware of the reality of these children – like a teenage girl I met and who has to study in bed with a flashlight under the covers, wake up in the middle of the night to do so because a Half a dozen people sleep the same room and it's too noisy when they are awake. Or another young woman who wants to improve her English and who would willingly spend two hours or more reading every night – the amount that a counselor is advised – except that she has to help her grandmother to clean up, because her father is disabled and his mother unemployed.
In recent weeks, I have met many young people like this one while several colleagues and I have gone to a dozen high schools in the South and East of Los Angeles , as well as others in Compton and Inglewood, to present a new program, the Young Professionals Award, which will kick off this summer.
The stock market is a joint venture between THRBig Brothers Big Sisters and several leading media companies (WME, Amazon Studios, Imax, Entertainment One and Starz) have worked over the past year to address the lack of diversity in Hollywood's power centers. In collaboration with three major universities (USC, Emerson College and Howard University), we have created a program that offers a special program for juniors and high school students, offering paid internships, college scholarships and possibly jobs . The idea is to attract the best and brightest teens and to open their eyes to a multitude of entertainment opportunities, putting them in touch with mentors who will guide them – we hopefully – until the end.
The package is not cheap. It costs $ 10,000 or more per student, not to mention the internships and the infinite time that volunteers have to devote to each of them. You thought boys and girls were jumping on the opportunity to be included.
And yet, I am shocked by the few candidates. Even with the support of the Mayor of Los Angeles, superintendents from the Compton and Inglewood School Districts, and deeply engaged school principals, only 10% to 20% of students who attend our presentation submit an application. Because they have reached the age of 15 or 16, they have already come to believe that the system was rigged against them. They have already, consciously or unconsciously, erected an invisible wall between them and success. Sixty-six boys and girls promised to attend one of our presentations last week; only 16 did it. Then the school counselor apologizes. "They have so little confidence in themselves," he said, "they will not take the risk."
These children live light years away from the offspring of men and women who allegedly participated in a vast educational plot, corrupting public servants to have their children go to a good college or another. They live in a galaxy different from the one in which an actress can consider giving $ 15,000 in bribes to a scammer just to raise her daughter's SAT score by 400 points. The idea that a disadvantaged teenager could achieve a result comparable to that of his score of 1420, while he has no advice, no tutoring, no preparation and no conditioning at the thought that last years before these exams, goes beyond. the realm of imagination of most poor teenagers.
There seems to be no connection between these teenagers and those of Hollywood clans trapped in a scandal that engulfs lawyers, businessmen, fashion designers and investors, all of whom have a wealth that people in poorer communities can only dream. And yet there is.
It is not simply that, by inflicting their child on a university that he does not have the right to attend, he takes a place in another that deserves it fully.
It is not simply that they develop an application process with many problematic aspects – from over-reliance on SATs (which focus on middle-class children) to an acceptance of "Legacy" contenders to a rule look for sports stars who can barely keep themselves afloat in matters of studies.
It is because such actions convince a whole social class that the system is rigged. This persuades them that it is useless to fight, because the fight is already stacked. This hammers home the lesson that has been transmitted to them throughout their life: namely that in this land of equality, some are massively more equal than others.
I hope that Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin will not be guilty (and that they certainly deserve the presumption of innocence) because it would break my heart to think that, in trying to help their own children, they have hurt so much others.
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