Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

L.A.’s Elite on Edge as Prosecutors Pursue More Parents in Admissions Scandal

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 294 posts

Re: L.A.’s Elite on Edge as Prosecutors Pursue More Parents in Admissions Scandal

#81

Post by verylongname »

cletus wrote: post #56

Honestly, I really don't understand the motivations for some of these parents. Take Lori Loughlin. $500,000? For USC? For two daughters, one of whom clearly isn't that interested, isn't particularly academic and isn't particularly athletic? Like... why? I can understand if someone bribes their kid into, say, Harvard or Yale Law School. There's a career where going to a good school matters. But this? It just makes no…

I think it is about status signalling for the parents and the social status prospects for the children more than its about career prospects for the children.

What college your children attend seems to have a big affect on your social status in the US, and the children's social status is definitely hugely affected by what college they attend. Apparently it is much cooler to say you went to USC then the University of Arizona.

Maybe it shouldn't be this way, but I think the parents aren't stupid to be worried about their children's social status in this way.

Re: L.A.’s Elite on Edge as Prosecutors Pursue More Parents in Admissions Scandal

#82

Post by munk-a »

lrc wrote: post #50
munk-a wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I absolutely agree and personally feel that incarceration as vengeance is immoral and incarceration only becomes a moral action when it is a deterrent to future actions. If you were omnipresent and knew that a murderer would never murder again - and that the jailing of that murderer would not prevent any future murders - then I'd consider it to be immoral to jail them. Unfortunately a lot of America is on the vengean…

So you get one free murder? No, the deterrent had to be there beforehand, so that our hypothetical killer who is certain she only wants to kill one person will be exposed to that deterrence. Even if she is not thereby deterred, the fact that the punishment is applied to her will have a deterrent effect on others contemplating a similar crime. Therefore the punishment has value even if there is no need to prevent the…

I included omniscience specifically for that reason, I agree that murders must be punished because otherwise people will see fewer downsides to committing murders themselves.

Can I push this to the concept of Botany Bay the far away prison colony - if murder results in the murderer being shipped off and everyone in society understands how terrible it is there... do you actually need to send people there? Wouldn't the effect on society be the same if you just shipped them somewhere nice and (again lots of omnipotence and omnipresence here) could ensure no one ever learned of your deception?

I'm mostly pushing this out in an effort to clarify what we as a society get out of punishment (in my opinion) we are seeking to reduce these sorts of actions we consider to be bad for society, any punishment that exists solely to inflict pain on someone (even if they're really bad) without any associated benefits to deterrence or a decrease in recidivism ... it's pointless and cruel (again, in my eyes).

And yes, I like philosophy, so this scenario is super removed from the real world.

Re: L.A.’s Elite on Edge as Prosecutors Pursue More Parents in Admissions Scandal

#83

Post by defen »

azeotropic wrote: post #37
beenBoutIT wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US the public universities are the only schools that can't be bought into at any cost.

Huh? UCLA is a public university. Or am I missing the joke?

It’s USC, not UCLA, unless I missed something.

Re: L.A.’s Elite on Edge as Prosecutors Pursue More Parents in Admissions Scandal

#84

Post by Blackthorn »

baggy_trough wrote: post #8

2 years in jail for this is absurd. A week would be more than enough.

It is absurd. There is a black woman who was sentenced to 5 years in jail for falsifying her location so her children could go to a better school district. Yet this outright fraud only sees a 2 year sentence by comparison.

Re: L.A.’s Elite on Edge as Prosecutors Pursue More Parents in Admissions Scandal

#85

Post by shams93 »

dvt wrote: post #68
cletus wrote: post #56

Honestly, I really don't understand the motivations for some of these parents. Take Lori Loughlin. $500,000? For USC? For two daughters, one of whom clearly isn't that interested, isn't particularly academic and isn't particularly athletic? Like... why? I can understand if someone bribes their kid into, say, Harvard or Yale Law School. There's a career where going to a good school matters. But this? It just makes no…

USC is definitely a status symbol on the West Coast ( especially in Southern California). It's obviously not on the same academic level as UCLA/Berkeley/Stanford/Caltech, but it's still very much an exclusive brand. You don't get it because you don't live here and aren't surrounded by wealthy 16-year olds that yearn to go to USC (often times over UCLA/Berkeley/Stanford). (Disclaimer: I'm a UCLA alum.)

On average us students make far higher incomes than the average call tech grad.

Re: L.A.’s Elite on Edge as Prosecutors Pursue More Parents in Admissions Scandal

#86

Post by mochomocha »

darawk wrote: post #57

The actual problem here is not the bribery. The problem is that those bribes are being captured by random 3rd parties, rather than by the school itself. The correct way to implement college admissions is this: Charge a sliding scale fee based on application quality, and then use the excess revenue generated to subsidize poor kids tuition. Your kid has a 2.5 GPA and wants to go to Harvard? Great, that'll be a million…

No. No amount of money should get you a way to get into an "elite" school if you don't deserve it. Unless we're ready to admit that these schools aren't really elite if any billionaire's dumb dumb kid can get in with enough money thrown at the institution. The issue with trying to solve every single problem with money is that capitalism isn't designed to solve problems where a moral compass is needed.

Re: L.A.’s Elite on Edge as Prosecutors Pursue More Parents in Admissions Scandal

#87

Post by firethief »

slg wrote: post #66
olliej wrote: post #29

I feel like the solution here is to not bribe your children's way into school. If your children aren't academically talented and you don't have the money to publicly buy a building for the school you should accept that and just let them live off your money and power as is traditional.

>I feel like the solution here is to not bribe your children's way into school. Or maybe the solution should be to stop accepting bribes. I really am surprised that almost all of the public outrage is being directed at the parents and more of it isn't being directed at the people who actually received the cash. I think lots of parents are willing to stretch their morals in order to give their kid every possible advan…

That's the reason the public outage is directed at the parents, though; the choice they made is a conversation topic. Accepting the bribes is just run of the mill corruption--much less interesting.

Re: L.A.’s Elite on Edge as Prosecutors Pursue More Parents in Admissions Scandal

#88

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

vkou wrote: post #53
protomyth wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no hook or wrong doing in giving a building. It benefits a lot of people. These folks actually did something illegal. Grouping people who actually gave to the university with people who paid a scam artist is wrong.

> There is no hook or wrong doing in giving a building. It's not giving if you're expecting a quid-pro-quo. The word you're looking for is 'bribe'.

Hrm, I don't think that's illegal in and of itself. I engage in quid pro quo transactions all the time. For example, when I go to the grocery store, I give them money and I get bananas. This for that. Quid pro quo is only illegal when the money is in exchange for otherwise illegal behavior, such as bribing a government official to assign a contract to your company.

Of course, it's not illegal to admit someone to a university for a price. The donor couldn't deduct the donation from your taxes, or at least the portion of it which was required to secure enrollment for a given student. But other than that, I'm not aware of any law which would put someone "on the hook" for this.

Re: L.A.’s Elite on Edge as Prosecutors Pursue More Parents in Admissions Scandal

#89

Post by munk-a »

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #67
munk-a wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I reject this - if we want admission in the US to be entirely wealth based and Oligarchic we should just buy that concept whole-hog. Many of us (I hope?) believe that scholarships that allow smart people coming from bad backgrounds to succeed are worth their cost[1] so clearly the ability to make use of your education is part of our general societal motivation to give someone one. [1] There are lots of scholarships,…

There's a massive amount of daylight between wanting admissions to be completely oligarchic and recognizing that at some point a seat should have a price. For example, suppose it was worth it to Bezos to fund the entire Harvard class of '23, and the price is that his child ought to be a member of that class. It would be absurd for Harvard to turn this down. There is no victim of this trade, except perhaps Bezos' heir…

Why should Bezos, poor billionaire that he is, need to pay such a ridiculous price for his child's education. Wouldn't it make more sense to just publicly fund the creation of these seats and have people pay their fair share? I think the scenario you set up for Bezos is actually unjust against him - maybe people should pay admission costs to support the education of society's children in a manner that fairly spreads that cost across those who benefit from that education.

Re: L.A.’s Elite on Edge as Prosecutors Pursue More Parents in Admissions Scandal

#90

Post by skookumchuck »

mochomocha wrote: post #86
darawk wrote: post #57

The actual problem here is not the bribery. The problem is that those bribes are being captured by random 3rd parties, rather than by the school itself. The correct way to implement college admissions is this: Charge a sliding scale fee based on application quality, and then use the excess revenue generated to subsidize poor kids tuition. Your kid has a 2.5 GPA and wants to go to Harvard? Great, that'll be a million…

No. No amount of money should get you a way to get into an "elite" school if you don't deserve it. Unless we're ready to admit that these schools aren't really elite if any billionaire's dumb dumb kid can get in with enough money thrown at the institution. The issue with trying to solve every single problem with money is that capitalism isn't designed to solve problems where a moral compass is needed.

Theocracies justify their existence by enforcing a moral code.

They haven't worked out very well.

Post reply on HN