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The College Admissions Scam


WheelsRCool
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So I am curious on people's thoughts about the college admissions scam where wealthy people paid to have their non-deserving kids placed into elite schools. Most infamously caught up in this are actresses Lori Loughlin (Aunt Becky from "Full House") and Felicity Huffman (actress from "Desperate Housewives"). My question is, should these people go to prison or not? I see two opinions on it from browsing the Internet:

1) Yes, because otherwise it tells rich people they can still do it, get caught, and get away with a slap on the wrist at most, while taking spots away from truly deserving kids

2) No, the prisons are full enough as it is, we don't need to be adding more people for what is a much more lenient crime in comparison to things like rape/murder/theft. 

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Well considering this has been going on for ages, I speculate it’ll keep happening. There is always ways around it. They may try and make an example of some, but in 6 months it’ll start all over again. 

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Nothing will change, prep school/top schools are for the connections. Case in point - I am reading https://www.amazon.com/Billion-Dollar-Whale-Fooled-Hollywood/dp/031643650X  and it was talking about the importance of getting your Asian kids into the right british prep schools. Where before it was Rotshchilds later it was royalty from middle east that sent kids there. Fascinating book in all that dude really did a number on everyone.

 

 

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Your question has multiple layers, legally and ethically.  My biggest issue is how they went about it, cheating (having someone else take the SAT/GMAT, which is super difficult to pull off i might add), falsifying records, etc.  That part they should be punished for, it's fraud.

The secondary layer is the more traditional sense of prestigious alumni getting their kids an easy entrance.  Or writing a huge donation to the school and your kid sliding in.  Im fine with all of this at private institutions, their school/reputation, they can call the shots.  If some kids dad want to donate 8 figures, his kids should get it.  That provides a ton of resources to the bottom line.  

The flip side, has anyone looked at the endowment funds at top ivy schools lately?  $24-38B each.  It will take a huge wallet to move the needle with these guys.  

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https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackfriedman/2019/02/25/student-loan-debt-statistics-2019/#32d6d697133f

 

 

As of 2017, here is the breakdown of student loan borrowers by age.

< 30-years-old: 16.8 million

30-39: 12.3 million

40-49: 7.3 million

50-59: 5.2 million

60+: 3.2 million

 

 

but wait theres more:

 

As of 4Q 2018, this is the breakdown of the Direct Loan Portfolio by loan status. Almost $140 billion of student loans are in-school, while more than $620 billion currently are in repayment. More than $100 billion of Direct Loans are considered cumulative in default across 5 million borrowers.

In-School: $137.7 billion (7.4 million borrowers)

Grace Period: $43.9 billion (1.7 million borrowers)

Repayment: $623.7 billion (17.8 million borrowers)

Deferment: $124.3 billion (3.7 million borrowers)

Forbearance: $111.1 billion (2.6 million borrowers)

Cumulative in Default: $101.4 billion (5.1 million borrowers)

 

 

 

So 18mil are paying back. but 12mil (last 3) are not quite.  What they should have been teaching us in public school is that you gotta get the girl with the rich parents pregnant asap.

 


 

 

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The biggest problem I have is if a kid who has legitimately worked their ass off to get accepted and they get booted and the other kid is put in their place. If their family is making 7 or 8 figure donations, open another spot for them. The bigger issue in the country is what Rawr brought up, student loans.

Student loans are wild and need some kind of overhaul. I just do not know what other than lowering the interest rate which I think will only make a small impact or emphasize paying the principle while still in school. I was fortunate enough to be able to pay mine off quickly but I'm sure I am in the minority. Some of the payment plans people are on do not make sense, as in they will never pay them off. I've seen people with $100k in loans paying $200mo, it just doesn't make sense. Most people are on 10 year repayment plans though, if they make their payments. The biggest problem is people don't give a shit about paying them until it prevents them from buying a house, car, etc.

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^  I can fix the student loan problem immediately.  Get the gov't out of it and immediately some underwriting standards will be in place that lend based on a calculated ability to repay.  Studying anything STEM related, biz/econ/finance, accounting, and you'll pretty much be good to go.  You want to major in latino history, good for you, but you're doing it on your own dime, nobody will fund 6 figures for that shit.

Yes, less people will ultimately go to college.  This will 1, keep people that really don't want to, or won't benefit from it, from digging themselves into a massive decades long debt struggle.  2, colleges will reduce tuition now that there are vastly less kids who don't have blank checks to fund it all.  3. Colleges will divert resources to areas that can get funding, so you will see more available space in majors that actually benefit the market/country/economy.  This can also apply to expanding the medical side, nursing / PA schools, etc.  Lots of shitty 'trade schools' all over that charge obscene money for various levels of nursing degrees, and get it, because the affordable (state school) programs have 4 year wait lists.

The student loan issue is mostly a median/lower level school problem.  Many top tier schools alter tuition based on the students family resources, so the parents that pull in $62k/yr and could never afford to send their kid to Harvard, don't have to sweat it.  Caveat being your kid needs to work their ass off and get admitted.  

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1 hour ago, emanon said:

^  I can fix the student loan problem immediately.  Get the gov't out of it and immediately some underwriting standards will be in place that lend based on a calculated ability to repay.  Studying anything STEM related, biz/econ/finance, accounting, and you'll pretty much be good to go.  You want to major in latino history, good for you, but you're doing it on your own dime, nobody will fund 6 figures for that shit.

Yes, less people will ultimately go to college.  This will 1, keep people that really don't want to, or won't benefit from it, from digging themselves into a massive decades long debt struggle.  2, colleges will reduce tuition now that there are vastly less kids who don't have blank checks to fund it all.  3. Colleges will divert resources to areas that can get funding, so you will see more available space in majors that actually benefit the market/country/economy.  This can also apply to expanding the medical side, nursing / PA schools, etc.  Lots of shitty 'trade schools' all over that charge obscene money for various levels of nursing degrees, and get it, because the affordable (state school) programs have 4 year wait lists.

The student loan issue is mostly a median/lower level school problem.  Many top tier schools alter tuition based on the students family resources, so the parents that pull in $62k/yr and could never afford to send their kid to Harvard, don't have to sweat it.  Caveat being your kid needs to work their ass off and get admitted.  

:eusa_clap:

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2 hours ago, emanon said:

^  I can fix the student loan problem immediately.  Get the gov't out of it and immediately some underwriting standards will be in place that lend based on a calculated ability to repay.  Studying anything STEM related, biz/econ/finance, accounting, and you'll pretty much be good to go.  You want to major in latino history, good for you, but you're doing it on your own dime, nobody will fund 6 figures for that shit.

Yes, less people will ultimately go to college.  This will 1, keep people that really don't want to, or won't benefit from it, from digging themselves into a massive decades long debt struggle.  2, colleges will reduce tuition now that there are vastly less kids who don't have blank checks to fund it all.  3. Colleges will divert resources to areas that can get funding, so you will see more available space in majors that actually benefit the market/country/economy.  This can also apply to expanding the medical side, nursing / PA schools, etc.  Lots of shitty 'trade schools' all over that charge obscene money for various levels of nursing degrees, and get it, because the affordable (state school) programs have 4 year wait lists.

The student loan issue is mostly a median/lower level school problem.  Many top tier schools alter tuition based on the students family resources, so the parents that pull in $62k/yr and could never afford to send their kid to Harvard, don't have to sweat it.  Caveat being your kid needs to work their ass off and get admitted.  

I like this. Very much. 

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5 hours ago, emanon said:

^  I can fix the student loan problem immediately.  Get the gov't out of it and immediately some underwriting standards will be in place that lend based on a calculated ability to repay.  Studying anything STEM related, biz/econ/finance, accounting, and you'll pretty much be good to go.  You want to major in latino history, good for you, but you're doing it on your own dime, nobody will fund 6 figures for that shit.

Yes, less people will ultimately go to college.  This will 1, keep people that really don't want to, or won't benefit from it, from digging themselves into a massive decades long debt struggle.  2, colleges will reduce tuition now that there are vastly less kids who don't have blank checks to fund it all.  3. Colleges will divert resources to areas that can get funding, so you will see more available space in majors that actually benefit the market/country/economy.  This can also apply to expanding the medical side, nursing / PA schools, etc.  Lots of shitty 'trade schools' all over that charge obscene money for various levels of nursing degrees, and get it, because the affordable (state school) programs have 4 year wait lists.

The student loan issue is mostly a median/lower level school problem.  Many top tier schools alter tuition based on the students family resources, so the parents that pull in $62k/yr and could never afford to send their kid to Harvard, don't have to sweat it.  Caveat being your kid needs to work their ass off and get admitted.  

It makes more sense if finance major was 100k a year but history major was 7k a year. That would allow the diversity in new graduates, instead of forcing the market into stem population. The other wrinkle is AI acceptance down the line, which will toss in a wrinkle for jobs.    The other thing missing in your theory is that college student services will feed the students the "don't worry about switching your major, most students change 2-3 times" and the fact that the kid has no idea what he wants to do at 18, generally, and even post college the correlation between your major and your career is, I'm not sure what statistically, but less than 40% is my guess.

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19 minutes ago, Rawr said:

It makes more sense if finance major was 100k a year but history major was 7k a year. That would allow the diversity in new graduates, instead of forcing the market into stem population. The other wrinkle is AI acceptance down the line, which will toss in a wrinkle for jobs.    The other thing missing in your theory is that college student services will feed the students the "don't worry about switching your major, most students change 2-3 times" and the fact that the kid has no idea what he wants to do at 18, generally, and even post college the correlation between your major and your career is, I'm not sure what statistically, but less than 40% is my guess.

You don't realize it, but you just solidified a prime component of my plan.  If you have no damn idea what you're doing, then take some time to figure it out.  And the vast majority of people in the group you described are those pursuing degrees that are liberal arts in nature and don't have direct job paths outside of the order counter at Panera.  This in itself will solve a massive point that is rarely discussed, WHAT IS THE EARNING POTENTIAL OF THIS DEGREE?  By and large this is not discussed nearly enough (virtually not at all) but it should be a prime component when you're borrowing a shit pile of money.  There is this assumption that ANY degree is going to put you on the trajectory to pull down a huge salary and that just isn't the case.  Sorry, but I don't see a lot of companies requesting gender studies degrees on job postings.

It's been my experience that people going into certain fields (STEM, etc as I mentioned previously) generally stick with them, or something tangentially related.  By and large they aren't going from something science based to liberal arts, people that are drawn to either one don't typically cross over.  Lots of engineers change major by their 2nd year mainly because the workload is brutal, but they end up in something reasonably close.  So I don't think the tie-in you're making is really relevant.  Where the degree takes you definitely varies, but I'll add, anything STEM based pretty much stamps you as a reasonably competent and dedicated person to the workforce so getting hired and changing fields isn't typically challenging. (personality traits aside, which can be a nuisance in this group).  An unemployed engineer is more than likely impossible to work with, not skills based.  Engineers routinely go work in finance, technical sales, and a host of other fields that have nothing to do with design work.  Same with business/econ/finance, it opens a vast array of doors and directions you can go at any point in life.

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This scam was ABSOLUTELY NOT the same as we've seen before. Let me explain. 

1. The typical way to get into a premier university is what we will call the FRONT DOOR. You write the SAT, get a great score, take the interview, ace that, pay full tuition, and you walk in. Alternatively you could be a great athlete and get partially or fully comped your tuition. Also you go in the front door. 

2. The BACK DOOR has been around forever . Someone of considerable financial influence, a rich benefactor, makes a sizeable donation to the school in question years in advance. Say I donate 25 million today towards a new library at Harvard. My son is only a kid right now, but years later, he will apply to Harvard and not mysteriously he will be accepted in. That is the BACK DOOR and has been around for years.

What these fuckers figured out was a couple SIDE DOORS.

3. SIDE DOOR #1 was to get a doctor (on the scammer's payroll) to identify the applicant as special needs. The applicant then takes the SAT and the test goes to a proctor. The proctor is also on the payroll. The proctor grades the paper and gives the kid a flying score. The kid then goes to the interview, the interviewers, some of them are on the payroll too. Boom, kid is into school of choice.

4. SIDE DOOR #2 was to take the head of the applicant and photoshop it onto the body of an athlete, then submit that. For example, Olivia Jade used both SIDE DOOR #1 AND #2 to get in. They photoshopped her head onto a rower's body. There was another example of a girl who was 5'1" who was photoshopped onto a basketball players body. In both cases, the applicants were accepted into the school on an athletic scholarship. They were also told that just prior to for example rowing season, she would mysteriously get a broken arm and be unable to row. That way she wouldn't have to go to practice or competitions, and the rowing coach (also on the payroll) could just fake the papers.

Who was on the payroll? Dozens of people. Volleyball coaches, rowing coaches, proctors, admissions people, list goes on. The list had 50 people on it to begin with.

The scam was even more clever because the money was LAUNDERED. Money from Aunt Becky never went directly to the dirty proctors or rowing coaches. Instead it went to a CHARITY which was a front for all this, and one guy took the money, kept some for himself, and used the rest to grease the correct people. He even issued charitable donation tax receipts. It was brilliant. 

The problem was there was too many moving parts, and somebody fucked up.

 

So no this scam had NOT been going on for years. This one was a doozy. And it's totally unfair that these fucking bored rich kids got into prestigious schools while some kid in the ghetto who worked her ass off got denied. 

 

 

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9 hours ago, kinnsella said:

Stop paying coaches millions a year. University shouldn't be a minor league. Saban is making $8m a year. It's fcuking wrong.

What does that have to do with rich people cheating admissions to get their kids in? 

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16 hours ago, emanon said:

You don't realize it, but you just solidified a prime component of my plan.  If you have no damn idea what you're doing, then take some time to figure it out.  And the vast majority of people in the group you described are those pursuing degrees that are liberal arts in nature and don't have direct job paths outside of the order counter at Panera.  This in itself will solve a massive point that is rarely discussed, WHAT IS THE EARNING POTENTIAL OF THIS DEGREE?  By and large this is not discussed nearly enough (virtually not at all) but it should be a prime component when you're borrowing a shit pile of money.  There is this assumption that ANY degree is going to put you on the trajectory to pull down a huge salary and that just isn't the case.  Sorry, but I don't see a lot of companies requesting gender studies degrees on job postings.

It's been my experience that people going into certain fields (STEM, etc as I mentioned previously) generally stick with them, or something tangentially related.  By and large they aren't going from something science based to liberal arts, people that are drawn to either one don't typically cross over.  Lots of engineers change major by their 2nd year mainly because the workload is brutal, but they end up in something reasonably close.  So I don't think the tie-in you're making is really relevant.  Where the degree takes you definitely varies, but I'll add, anything STEM based pretty much stamps you as a reasonably competent and dedicated person to the workforce so getting hired and changing fields isn't typically challenging. (personality traits aside, which can be a nuisance in this group).  An unemployed engineer is more than likely impossible to work with, not skills based.  Engineers routinely go work in finance, technical sales, and a host of other fields that have nothing to do with design work.  Same with business/econ/finance, it opens a vast array of doors and directions you can go at any point in life.

I would like to add that the teaching field is also important. Every single person I know who has gone to school for some sort of teaching degree has actually followed through with it. Problem is the cost of the degree usually doesn't match the pay just like you said about the earning potential of the degree until you are YEARS in or run up to an administrative position, which still takes many years to achieve, most of the time.

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39 minutes ago, Tara said:

I would like to add that the teaching field is also important. Every single person I know who has gone to school for some sort of teaching degree has actually followed through with it. Problem is the cost of the degree usually doesn't match the pay just like you said about the earning potential of the degree until you are YEARS in or run up to an administrative position, which still takes many years to achieve, most of the time.

Aren't there programs in place where the debt is essentially forgiven after 10-ish years of teaching?  I know my friends wife is on track for that with her (obscene) debt from dental school.  Knowing how markets work, it wouldn't be surprising at all to see tuition change based on major and the earning potential, so teaching ultimately could be a far less expensive degree if things play out right. 

 

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1 minute ago, emanon said:

Aren't there programs in place where the debt is essentially forgiven after 10-ish years of teaching?  I know my friends wife is on track for that with her (obscene) debt from dental school.  Knowing how markets work, it wouldn't be surprising at all to see tuition change based on major and the earning potential, so teaching ultimately could be a far less expensive degree if things play out right. 

 

I think only if certain criteria is met. The same thing applies to law students if they take a job in the local government.

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And let's not forget the actual cost of the education is far more than what the students pay. The student loans are a pittance compared to the real cost which is highly subsidized by the government, under the premise that the degree will actually be helpful for the greater community when the graduating student is released back into the populus.

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13 hours ago, porter said:

The problem was there was too many moving parts, and somebody fucked up.

 

This is why I generally dont believe any conspiracy theories. The amount of people in on a so called cover up and no one talks. Highly doubtful. But I guess the Government does keep new military tech quite for a lot of years. So I guess maybe possible. 

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23 minutes ago, BLK85 said:

This is why I generally dont believe any conspiracy theories. The amount of people in on a so called cover up and no one talks. Highly doubtful. But I guess the Government does keep new military tech quite for a lot of years. So I guess maybe possible. 

In regards to the military analogy, there are so many layers and procedures in place it's absolutely ridiculous.  Until it's fully developed and operational only a select few people on the development and testing side really know whats going on, and no way no how are those dudes talking.  For everyone else down the line, their scope is kept so limited they could never piece together what the sum of the parts amounts to.  I've done work on components for various DOD projects over the years, the level of scrutiny, who has access to drawings/files, and required security protocol for seemingly insignificant parts is insane.  And they keep VERY detailed records of who gets what, when, and many times files are individually serial numbered so if anything were to get out, they can trace it back to ground zero. 

I'll agree when it comes to politicians and the likes, hell two people couldn't keep a BJ in the oval office a secret.  But the people that wind up in positions of trust working on high level MIL stuff aren't that type, they will absolutely take it to the grave. 

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Loughlin, her husband, and supposedly 14 others just got money laundering and fruad charges via grand jury indictment. 

https://www.dailywire.com/news/45765/lori-loughlin-mossimo-giannulli-indicted-fraud-paul-bois

 

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3 hours ago, emanon said:

For everyone else down the line, their scope is kept so limited they could never piece together what the sum of the parts amounts to.

This. I knew someone who was an electrical engineer for Harris. I asked him once what he was working on and he said "I have no idea it's a government contract" and he honestly meant it.

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So if this scam involved so many people, I wonder what made the head of it think it could be maintained without eventually someone slipping? 

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4 hours ago, WheelsRCool said:

So if this scam involved so many people, I wonder what made the head of it think it could be maintained without eventually someone slipping? 

Greed.

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On 4/11/2019 at 6:36 AM, porter said:

Greed.

:iamwithstupid: and probably a healthy dose of thinking you are smarter than everyone else so no way you will get caught.

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