The college admissions offices at several elite institutions were rocked, shocked, and supinely mocked this week as the FBI revealed a widespread conspiracy involving over 50 rich parents buying their children's way into college. To which I say: meh.
Obviously this is something that shouldn't happen. It's unfair to the kids that actually earned their way into Georgetown and USC, when the student sitting next to them had someone else take their SAT exam and the rowing coach was bought off to 'recruit' them (just kidding, these kids aren't actually going to class - they'll buy their grades just like they bought their acceptance letters). Then again, life isn't fair.
I'm not saying life shouldn't be fair, it's just that it's not. Donald Trump probably shouldn't have been able to attend an Ivy League university, but a massive donation from Fred Trump coincidentally preceded his son's transfer from Fordham to UPenn. Because that's how the ultra rich have always done it. You buy a building, and secure posterity's ability to also attend such schools.
The big problem is that these people didn't have Fred Trump money, so they couldn't engage in honest graft and had to resort to smaller, under the table bribes. These remain a no-no in today's society - institutions may be bought openly, but it's a scandal if it's done in private. Sorry if I don't see much more than semantics.
You know what's also unfair? That these kids had every opportunity to get into great private schools in the first place. They grew up in homes absent food insecurity, so there was no distraction caused by hunger in elementary school. Their classrooms were well-staffed with excellent teachers and full of students with similarly successful and likely educated parents. They had every opportunity to learn and had access to the resources that would boost their chances of college admittance. And, when they were accepted to college, they could go because their parents had the money to pay the tuition.
There may be a scandal in this story, but the anger is probably misplaced. Everyone hates these parents for doing what a bunch of other people would do if given the chance. They just don't have the chance.
(insert final rant about economic mobility or something because why not)
(follow rant with some weird defense of capitalism, because apparently we don't believe in capitalism in 2019?)
(poorly formed conclusion)
