The College Admission Scandal from a Public School Educator’s Perspective

A particular news that otherwise would be of interest only to a small percent of Americans, carried too much drama for the media not to cover it widely— the largest college admission cheating scandal in history! Chiefly, the interest was triggered by the famous, wealthy, and well connected characters in this show. According to ABC Nightline, the operation “Varsity Blues” exposed a massive admission cheating scheme that included well known TV stars, Silicone Valley tycoons, a hedge fund CEO Manager, and a head of a prestigious law firm among others. All of them wealthy enough to pay generously a consultant company that guaranteed them to get their children into elite colleges. 

If learning about the existence of private consultant companies dedicated to help candidates to enter elite universities was not interesting enough, the fact that this particular company showed no scruples whatsoever to achieve its client’s wishes definitely provided intriguing angles. For one, it is alarming to realize the wealthy clients’ disposition to pay up to hundreds of thousands of dollars on what it was clearly an illegal scheme. In addition, it amazes the extent of this company’s corruptive activities to guarantee success -- falsifying documents, altering SAT scores, doctoring photographs, bribing SAT proctors, coaches, and athletic directors, and even fabricating sports qualifications. 

However, what tops it all is the win-win profitable financial scam for the clients. Cleverly, the head of that company, Rick Singer, created one fake college counseling non-profit to allow his deep pocketed customers to mask the potentially embarrassing nature of the payment, while allowing them to report the expense as a write off from their taxes. That information alone would be enough to hook, entertain, and inform the general audience. After all, as taxpayers we partially ended up footing the bill in this scheme. However, as an educator the scandal exposes the much larger issue of meritocracy and how it affects public education and millions of college students as well. 

Although this illegal episode involves only wealthy and privileged characters in elite institutions, it has significant implications for students in public education. Mainly, it forces to reconsider the American notion of a meritocratic system so regularly invoked by politicians . So how important is it for some to enter an elite university? Evidently, it matters a lot. Consider that a successful Ivy League application is not the result of a little effort at application time. It is the culmination of years of hard work. So, after these cheating revelations, the alleged meritocratic system has been exposed as an empty catchphrase, meaningless for those wealthy and entitled who can get away defrauding the system. 

Evidently, these underachieving wealthy students received the best opportunities in private schools and available additional support, while the remarkable students in public schools simply did not. If those extreme differences do not disqualify this meritocratic system, the learning about the effects of inequalities on students will. What about living and studying in poor or violent environments? Some studies have shown that underprivileged students are instinctively aware of these differences and are affected by an unfair and arguably discriminatory system. So, what are the fair parameters for this meritocracy? And ultimately, what are the rewards from complying with the rules? 

Regardless of the relative small scope of the scandalous event, the meritocratic system showed intolerable discriminatory flaws that deserve a serious debate. Indeed, judging by the growing inequalities in the past decades, one can conclude that public education in America has not become the great equalizer it was supposed to be. A revision of this biased practice is long overdue --If a flawed meritocracy is detrimental to achieve societal goals; a corrupt meritocratic system would be devastating. 

The consequences of a corrupted meritocratic system affect not only those who are accepted or rejected unfairly. For instance, witnessing the unfairness has the potential to demoralize and even depress those who had faith in the system. Also, unconscionably, a rigged meritocratic system could become a tool to deceive and control the population. Indeed, it is disturbing to infer that wealthy and unscrupulous cheaters with an inflated sense of entitlement enjoy an undeserved reputation and harvest the privileges and advantages it offers. 

By the same token, it is frightening to realize that these despicable behaviors and unethical lessons learned by these young people had been taught in words and deeds by their own parents. For these teenagers, these appalling life lessons are clear and certain; they are rules to live by. What makes it even more troubling is realizing that from this tainted group that has got away cheating the system may emerge business and political leaders. For that reason alone, educators should consider starting debates about the nature and effects of the alleged meritocratic system. Evidently, this event is much more than a trivial scandal. 

As an educator is hard to reconcile that in America some parents paid astronomical figures to dishonestly get their children into an elite college, while millions of college students had to borrow money to pay for their education. An odd and eye-opening finding by the Operation Varsity Blues was that some of these parents spent the same or more money on bribes to get their children in college than on the whole four-year tuition. In America some privileged ones have spent obscene amounts of money to illegally gain access to universities of their choice, while millions of unprivileged honest students have graduated with debt. 

Some years ago the collective college student debt in the US surpassed one trillion dollars. The news raise some eyebrows, but nothing serious has been done about it. In the class of 2018 , 69% of college students graduated owning $29,800 on average, while the parents of 14% took out loans averaging $35,600. Incredibly, 45 million borrowers owe a staggering $1.56 trillion dollars in student loans. Why is this not a scandal?

How can we talk about a meritocracy when public education is not properly funded? Since NCLB was imposed back in 2002, the perception of public education has slowly changed from being a public good to becoming a commodity. In an unprecedented move, federal public funds were taken from public schools and given to individuals or corporations to manage charter schools. Arbitrarily, corporate reformers imported free-market policies and started privatizing schemes to allegedly improve public schools. Districts were told to allocate money to hire consultants to provide professional development in order to improve their scores. At this time, the federal administration has already proposed significant cuts in education and other social programs. 

This neoliberal experiment included unyielding demand for compliance in a competitive system with unwarranted high stakes testing, and arbitrary high standards. In this area, testing and publishing companies started to profit handsomely offering materials, consultants, and training. To complement the reforms, corporate reformers instituted punitive mechanisms that included publishing the yearly scores of students, teachers, and schools. Ultimately, many public schools were unfairly closed and later reopened as charter schools. As feared, rather than tools for improving public education, the neoliberal policies became means of privatization. Unsurprisingly, the new meritocracy in the neoliberal reforms showed a stressful side. 

What is more important? At the moment two law suits have been filed by parents and students. Andrew Lelling, U.S. attorney explains that “This case is about the widening corruption of elite college admissions to the steady application of wealth combined with fraud.” I agree with Mr. Lelling. Good luck to them!

However, it seems to me that despite Jonathan Kozol’s Savage Inequalities book describing how disparities in funding schools have affected minority students for decades; or Noam Chomsky denouncing the attacks on public education and teachers; or Diane Ravitch’s efforts to expose the manipulations of the reforms among many others, public school educators have been deceived by the corporate reformers so effectively that we have not been able to question the neoliberal mantra of an arguably false meritocracy. 

In closing:
I feel sad for those honest and deserving students who despite doing everything right saw their place taken in a rigged game, and for those taken their places. Everybody lost!

I feel appalled seeing the disparities between the privileged few who were given every advantage in life, and dishonestly snatched an unearned place in college; and for the millions of college graduates who played by the rules and even incur in debt to pursue higher education. 

I fear for a society whose elite universities enable the privileged and corrupt to snatch some of the few places that may have been awarded to more qualified and worthy candidates.

And I hope that public school educators and stakeholders take this opportunity to question a system that promotes corruption and abuse from the powerful few at the expense of the rest. 

Who wins, who loses, who cares?

In solidarity,
Sergio Flores, BAT Board of Directors