College bribery scandal: students sue elite schools in class action | Hacker News Reader

College bribery scandal: students sue elite schools in class action

theguardian.com

39 pointsvixen9962 comments

I honestly don’t understand why this is a bigger deal than what happened at UNC. There was a 30 year scandal of fake classes at the university and somehow degrees are intact, accreditation remains unchallenged.

But a few rich kids getting into schools where they don’t deserve to be is a national scandal?

I think the only reason the government is treating it so seriously is, this time, the university is the victim.

Yeah Matt Levine made that point this week -- the damaged party in this case is the university, who had admission slots basically resold in a different market

The UNC scandal’s beneficiaries were athletes from predominately lower-to-middle class backgrounds. They weren’t competing for the same post-grad jobs and internships as the general applicant pool. They were on an athletic track whose post-grad opportunities were essentially totally different from most of the campus body.

This is annoying if you think universities shouldn’t have high-budget, self-standing athletic programs coupled to their putatively academic mission, or that even if they do, they should play by the rules. But this doesn’t raise the same ire as the observation that wealthy people can simply buy their way into the academic track. At least the athletes had to have athletic merit.

Oh no, the way they avoided NCAA sanctions was specifically because the fake classes were available to the general student body and NOT taken predominantly by athletes.

If there is wide field of political candidates and one of them is a former reality TV star, who is going to get the most national media attention? Americans are more interested in celebrity drama than anything else. Quality education is a rock bottom priority.

Good luck with that: https://abovethelaw.com/2019/03/current-stanford-students-fi...

> You can’t really argue that your degree is not worth what you “thought” it would be, because the “worth” of a degree isn’t of an objective value anyway.

I certainly think that since they let unqualified kids in, somehow the curriculum had to adjust to, or already be of a lesser standard. To push it even further, why would I want to go to and pay for education in X when in fact now we know that quality of education, or passing criteria at least isn’t maybe much different from your average community college.

Or maybe the entry criteria never was about being able to find and accept the smartest and the brightest of each generation...

That's not what they are suing for, in any case.

Also, while subjective value is... subjective...market worth is not and is a thing that, outside of college, misrepresentations relevant to are frequent subject of successful suits.

Dude that article is funny as hell. "John is a native of St. Louis. He attended St. Louis Priory High School. For college, he attended Brown University, an Ivy League School and one of the top colleges in the country. He then attended Washington University Law School, where he graduated in the top of his class." - "Buddy, anybody you have to tell that Brown is an IVY LEAGUE school and one of the “top colleges in the country” … is a person that does not care."

This is a bit different as these folks are suing for being excluded as opposed to a devaluation. People do often sue for exclusion to things.

> “worth” of a degree isn’t of an objective value anyway.

Isn't it >= to the bribe amount?

Sorry if this sound naive, but I'm not American and I don't get why this is a scandal at all.

Isn't it common knowledge that elite universities in the US admit the children whose parents make a strong donation to the university?

At least that's what most people think in my country. Perhaps it's a myth though, given that this has made the news?

People donate money to universities all the time in exchange for admission. But in this case, the bribes went to university employees -- who could be bought much cheaper than the university itself. The university was the victim of a fraud by its own employees.

Classic example. The bribe didn't go to the right people. Of course some people must be held accountable!

In this case, the bribes went to individuals at the universities, and not the universities themselves.

So effectively somebody tried to cut out the middle man and the universities worried about their income stream (ie getting their cut)?

That income stream is what lets prestigious universities like the Ivies give great financial aid. Many people graduate from them with paying zero tuition.

I can certainly complain about the efficiency with which this income is used and there are minor changes I would like to see to make this more transparent and clearly ethical, but it would be disingenuous to pretend they do not offer some of the best financial aid in the US.

What a joke, the Ivy leagues are mostly hedgefunds and REITs with some education signaling attached.

Losing out on a few extra rich people 'grants' are a rounding error.

As an Ivy grad, I think that that is an excessively cynical and inaccurate view. The educational value is real, regardless of how the universities handle their financials.

What the universities do (taking students in exchange for a donation of a new building or whatever) is not meritocratic, but it isn’t illegal. They are private institutions empowered to make shady deals.

Individual employees taking bribes to put students in by pretending they are athletes is clear fraud.

So I am a supermarket employee, I'll just cut out the middle man and pocket the money. What a stupid fucking argument justifying this fraud.

These students (or their parents) still paid the regular fees for the degree, didn't they?

You don't buy a degree. You earn it by consuming resources provided by the University and putting in effort to learn. If the University is going to take on flunky frank for a million extra dollars due to the extra resources they will ultimately provide for his dumbass then that is up to them to make that calculation. Now if jimmy the soccer coach wants to make a little side dollerz by committing fraud to include dumby diane on his roster and falsifying her info then that denies the University to make a decision on how many additional resources diane will consume in passing her classes. Because fraud, fraud fraud fraud fraud. You know fraud. You like fraud? Fraud is ok? Someone else once did a fraud therefore everybody should fraud? Fraud is now ok because one time it happened. Fraud is ok because I dont like unrelated thing that someone else does.

I wonder what they’ll do with the students that have graduated. Do they revoke their degrees?

Also it would be interesting to see how well they performed overall, if they actually performed better than legitimately accepted students what does that say about the acceptance process?

No empathy. Kick those still in out, and revoke the degrees for those already graduated. In fact if these falsely admitted kids had any sense of decency, they would be now lining up to turn in their ‘credentials’ and degrees.

Yes, some may have not known about it. And that’s an interesting conversation they will have with their parents about royally screwing them over. But you don’t get a pass for breaking a law just because you were unaware of it either.

On a more serious note, we are severely punishing people of color for trying to advance their kids educational opportunities[0]. If we don’t offer same courtesy to these perpetrators, what kind of country are we living in and what kind of message will that send out?

[0] https://educationpost.org/while-rich-people-bribe-their-kids...

Agreed. Allowing these kids to retain admission or a degree, if graduated, would severely undermine the credibility of the admission systems at those universities for legitimately-admitted students.

If anything, after the current uproar dies down, it would encourage more of the same. It would send the message that even after this problem becomes national and international news with dozens of criminal charges to the perpetrators, those schools will still do nothing if you get caught.

I think it should be more metered. Those currently enrolled lose their enrollment status and must reapply. Those who have graduated should be subject to further investigation, and if they did the work and passed their classes, they should keep their degree. It was enrollment fraud, not academic fraud.

Maybe put a prominent mark on the transcript that the enrollment was fraudulent? Similar to how withdrawn sports and music industry records are noted on the books. And there would need to be a public list that employers could check to verify whether or not a degree from one of these schools was fraudulently obtained. These people should not get a free pass or be able to claim that their degrees were not tainted by fraud.

If they knew about it, I agree. Some obviously did, others perhaps not.

Those who graduated got in with false premise and took away opportunity from someone else. They got the education, that must be worth something. But the degree, it belongs to someone else, and it should go.

In no way has this been a victimless fraud.

What concerns me the most is that as the ruling classes change over time, you’ll end up with an overthrow of the system by people who are under educated, for whatever reason. So rather than building on existing knowledge or improving it, they’ll essentially revert back and repeat past mistakes or invent new ones that would have been avoided if they were better educated.

I have to say I see this all the time in tech with people having no clue why we do things the way we do, why a e2e test doesn’t replace a unit test for example is lost on many developers these days even.

The kids themselves were in most cases unaware of their parents’ deception.

We shouldn’t be lining up to punish 19 year olds for their parents’ crimes. Large fines and jail time for the parents is punishment enough here.

It's true that the kids who did not know about the wrong that granted them admission should not be viewed as morally culpable and should not be "punished". But to suggest that they should still be allowed to benefit from fraud isn't the right answer either. Ill-got admission or degrees should be revoked. Insofar as those rewards of fraud should be revoked, and the kids unaware, the students are themselves victims of their parents along with those others that were defrauded; that they would be harmed by the fraud of their parents shouldn't be surprising to them or anyone else. (They are, after all, adults).

Those still in school should be expelled on some sort of "no fault" basis. They could then be allowed to reapply and demonstrate that they really belong there on their own merits. For those already with degrees, it's less clear and I don't have a good answer; I don't see any way out that either prevents the fraud from succeeding in it's goal (untenable) or is overtly punitive towards the student (also untenable)... the only real answer there is revoke the degree and tell the student/victim to seek redress from the ones that committed fraud (their parents).

I wouldn't rule out that they were aware of what was happening. I'd believe a fraction didn't know but I at least knew how I faired after taking SAT/ACT placements and submitting applications.

If they did perform better, I'd have to suspect that it might be a result of even more cheating.

Apparently not all were aware of how they were accepted so they may not have cheated after that.

Also students who are legitimately smart cheat too, which I’ve seen first hand, mainly because they feel their time is better spent on other projects than grinding away at homework for example.

Let’s not forget a good proportion of high achievers at university are basically taking performance enhancing legal amphetamines in the form of ADHD medication.

I saw this too in high school, ridilin was trivial to come by. If you’re graded on a bell curve and you’re playing the game so to speak then playing by the “rules” doesn’t make sense since the rules are just a guise. That was the insight I saw from some higher achievers.

I doubt their parents care enough to pay for cheating at that point. The school name is what really matters.

(source: used to work in the seedy underbelly of Asian US college admissions consulting)

Some students pay to have papers written for them, and others have access to test banks. It's probably not parents paying off university staff at that point though.

Why would you chose this line of work (serious question, not a value judgment)? Did you know how amoral it was when you first applied? What caused you to leave?

How seedy is it, compared to what we know about Singer? I'm guessing no outright bribery, but what about essay "help"? Cheating on tests?

My guess is they won’t revoke degrees but folks currently in school are at risk. When you look at graduation percentages from the top schools, you realize not many fail out.

Those in school are absolutely at risk. I work in the industry. If we found out at any point that someone had lied or faked a credential, they would be out. And applications require a student signature or electronic affirmation to the accuracy of their submission. There's no reasonable expectation that a student didn't or couldn't have known there were errors or falsehoods. In the case of test scores, the student would have been aware that they did not have a legitimate IEP for test accommodations, so there's no deniability for them to say the parents arranged the fraud without their knowledge. I've seen the test agencies invalidate scores for much less. That too then negates the entire application decision. Absent direct hard evidence of student knowledge, some schools may choose to overlook some of the factors and be lenient. Those students should consider themselves very fortunate.

>applications require a student signature or electronic affirmation to the accuracy of their submission

Yes. I fail to understand all these people stating that it was not the fault of the students. They lied on their applications. It is akin to being asked at an airport if you packed your bags yourself.

These students signed a legally binding affirmation that the information they submitted was accurate (and sometimes a statement that they completed the application without assistance), and, thusly, they are as equally guilty of fraud as their parents.

But would they revoke the degree years later too?

I'm not sure we could. The case can be made that the student did the coursework to earn the degree, even if their initial admission was fraudulently obtained. I think we'd scrutinize that coursework for any other evidence of fraud/cheating though. Ultimately it would come down to the lawyers and courts to work out.

In Canada, I think degrees would be revoked if there was clear evidence that students actively participated in the fraud which obtained their admission. But in this case it seems that most students were unaware of what their parents were doing; we would probably revoke admission for any students who hadn't completed their degrees, but not take away anything they had achieved while at the university. (And they would be free to apply for re-admission -- and almost certainly get it, if they had good grades in the courses they had completed so far.)

Ultimately it would come down to the lawyers and courts to work out.

Would the courts get involved? In Canada, absent clear signs of a defective process, courts are extremely unlikely to overrule universities on academic issues.

I mean the courts would get involved if the schools rescinded the degree because students would file a lawsuit. You're right, they wouldn't do it of their own accord. And they might dismiss the case on its merits, hard to say.

Right, I'm saying that in Canada if a university decides to revoke a degree, I can't imagine a court hearing a lawsuit beyond checking that the university in question was procedurally fair.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19390757

While I don't believe much will come of this I fully support it. I think these schools need to have a sense of repercussions instilled in them. It's not enough to fire a coach, we need to hit them where it hurts.

The wealthy private universities are among the most powerful and least regulated institutions in the country and its high time we treated them as such.

For private universities, I think you are going to run up against first amendment problems.

As long as they take federal grants/loans the dept of education will have a sit down with them. The interesting point will be if the NCAA steps in or not as this was an abuse of the student athlete admission procedures. To me this screams a lack of institutional control; if coaches are being bribed and faking credentials and the school never picks up on it it looks bad. That could be a punishment of loss of scholarships or up to the famous death penalty. I’d imagine the ncaa will try to sidestep this issue as much as possible as USC and Texas are football schools and it would cripple the university. For those interested in learning more about college athletics, the ncaa clearing house and what not, I’d highly recommend the book: “Beer & Circus”. There’s a lot you don’t know about the ncaa and sports at large universities.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com