This really upsets me. I have always said that there is a lot of cheating going on in the academic world and I bet this indictment only caught a portion of those cheating. I scanned through the complaint and there was everything from proctors actually changing answers on exams to fake athletic resumes including photoshopped images of the fake athletes. I saw mentions of tennis, soccer and water polo teams at elite schools being involved.
I guess this makes me so mad because I have two daughters who did it the right way. They did not cheat and had to work very hard to get into college and accomplish hard degrees. It feels like everyone who does it honestly is a victim of these crimes.
The business of being "recruited athletes" only affects the starting roster, not the final roster, and especially not the ability of true student athletes to get scholarships. Prestigious schools that normally have high admissions standards for grades and test scores, but which also have major athletic programs, VERY often have a much lower grade/test score admission requirement if the student is an athlete who is expected to play. The catch is that almost all of these schools will not force a student out of the school for failure to play well enough to start, so this is a way to admit otherwise unqualified students who will then get "cut" from their sport a couple of weeks into their first semester. (I'm not defending this practice, and it is definitely against NCAA rules, but if universities are going to deliberately lower academic admission standards for athletes, this WILL happen. It's a weak spot in the system that they cannot make much of a fuss about, given that they are allowing real athletes to bypass academic standards that regular students have to meet.)
I think these days it's more like 100 million or more to get a building named after you.
Depends on the school. At USC (a well-endowed private school) that is probably true, but not everywhere. Most state schools will give you a building name for around $7-10 million.
Private schools will always fudge the undergrad admission standards if enough money hits the table, and the only way that they differ in that is by how much money is enough. (Nowadays, however, one thing that will still keep you out even if you have stacks of greenbacks is connection with certain crimes. Things like credible rape accusations, or having family involved in financial fraud schemes are the kiss of death.)
The Chronicle of Higher Education has a series of articles that explain exactly how the scheme worked,
https://www.chronicle.com/specialreport/Admission-Through-the-Side/240. The actual affidavit is available from the Justice Dept. as well.
https://www.justice.gov/file/1142876/download
The schools named in the affidavit (whether being targeted by the scheme or participating in it) are: Georgetown, Stanford, UCLA, USD, USC, U-Texas, Wake Forest and Yale.
A little off topic, but I hope the extent of the corruption within the student loan industry is also exposed; this is another ugly can of worms.
I grew up watching her play Aunt Becky on Full House. Now my mom watches her movies on Hallmark Channel.
