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Comment by Al-Khwarizmi | Hacker News Reader

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?

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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.

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