181–190 of 321 posts
A friend of mine, from high school (~1994), had the experience of being in a family that won the state lottery. He skipped high school a lot after that, driving around in his new car. Later, I heard his parents bought him a degree from USC. USC has had a reputation in California of corruption for decades. This story should not be a surprise for many.
This might be more overt than the usual form, but how does this differ from donating a new building, department, or scholarship fund and subsequently getting your kid in? My mother did well in the Masters program at Stanford and I would have likely gotten in if she donated a couple million dollars but she didn’t and I didn’t (despite getting an invitation a year after accepting enrollment at another university). It’s…
Donating a building is a payment to the university . The university then gets to decide to admit your child in return. It may not be meritocratic, but it's not corrupt (except perhaps insofar as by pretending the exchange is a donation, the university and donor manage to cheat the taxman). The donor is simply paying the university to provide a service that they have every right to offer for money. It also benefits ot…
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Your first two statements I agree with but they don't really apply to this article which is about undergraduates. Undergrads are pretty much irrelevant to major research institutions (e.g. my undergraduate alma mater MIT spends only about 16% of its budget on undergrads who are actually subsidized -- tuition is about 14% of revenue). Grad students are what matter and apart from the B school they are mostly paid (bare…
Research students are paid to intend. professional students (business, law, government, medical, dental, etc) are not. And some scientific/art students are not research students (often these are students who enter as Masters candidates, not PhD candidates)
Research, including scientific research, does happen at institutions that aren't "research universities."
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Anecdata: In my extended family, we have some members with a fair bit of 'bread'. These family members met at a somewhat known (yet small-ish) college and really loved the place and all the memories they had there. They donated a lot of money over the years and, yes, had a building named after them. When it came time for their daughter to apply to college, the choice was obvious. However, the daughter was rejected ou…
I never quite understood why people donate to colleges in such a way that it is the legal entity of the university that benefits. They provide a service, and they charge money for it. The university operates as a business. I don't donate to Wal-Mart, so why would I donate to University X? Why wouldn't you instead endow a scholarship for students of your favorite college? Instead of giving cash to Wal-Mart, buy prepai…
Now, you can argue that incentives sometimes get messed up, but that is the case for ALL charities/non-profits.
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Just because it’s legal doesn’t mean it’s not corrupt.
I wonder if you can help me understand this better. Why does a specific private university need let in the smartest or most capable students? What does that have to be their goal or they are unjust? Why can't they have different reasons and goals when building their student body? I understand things like racism and other forms of bigotry. But what's wrong with adding some students that will bring in the perspective o…
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Anecdata: In my extended family, we have some members with a fair bit of 'bread'. These family members met at a somewhat known (yet small-ish) college and really loved the place and all the memories they had there. They donated a lot of money over the years and, yes, had a building named after them. When it came time for their daughter to apply to college, the choice was obvious. However, the daughter was rejected ou…
When I hear stuff like this I wonder what in the hell could have been so great about their experience that they'd want to do something like that. It makes me wonder what I missed out on in college that I don't feel the same way. Did I just by chance happen to not go to some meeting or join some club that would have changed everything?
Probably? Personally my first semester at uni was depressingly dull other than the novelty and the subjects (well, mostly dull there too but the future semesters looked interesting and I was programming for the first time). By chance I was walking through a club recruitment event when a single person stopped to talk to me and tried to convince me to join and come to a meeting that night. They got my email too. Well, I didn't go to the meeting but a few days later an email showed up saying the first practice will be tomorrow. I figured why not, I'm not doing anything, and showed up. I stuck with it for four years, taking on duties over time until I was president, it was most of my social life (e.g parties, hanging out) and I made most of my friends through it, shifted my lifestyle from videogames and procrastination to working out, having fun with sport and mastering it, having flow/mushin consistently, and getting work done ASAP, and other considerations.
I've never felt the desire to donate to my old college, but certainly I already have donated to my old club and have considered doing more for it. I assume folks with very good experiences were part of some sort of organization: my high school friends that stuck together in college without branching out had a good time but was overall meh.
Oh dear God. Reading into the indictments, it seems that a lot of the kids never had a clue that they were complicit in the schemes: >... and it was like, the kids though, and it was funny 'cause the kids will call me and say, "Maybe I should do that again. I did pretty well and if I took it again, I'll do better even" Right? And they just have no idea that they didn't even get the score that they thought they got. C…
Lori Laughlin's daughter was probably a pretty poor student. Apparently she paid upwards of $500k to get in via the student athlete route, even though she's not an athlete. She's apparently a fairly well known Youtube/Instagram blogger who has made posts about not even wanting to be in college.
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>> It may not be meritocratic, but it's not corrupt Maybe not in the 1800s, but doing that today violates any number of published school policies. It likely also violates several laws, especially if the school receives state/federal funding (they all do). Violating published policies, circumventing established admission systems, and denying a spot for a qualified candidate in order to accommodate a wealthy donor, tha…
Not all of them do! A few, most famously Hillsdale, refuse government money in order to protect their civil liberties (including as race-agnostic admission procedures, for better or for worse). https://deanclancy.com/a-list-of-colleges-that-dont-take-fed...
A friend of mine, from high school (~1994), had the experience of being in a family that won the state lottery. He skipped high school a lot after that, driving around in his new car. Later, I heard his parents bought him a degree from USC. USC has had a reputation in California of corruption for decades. This story should not be a surprise for many.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Anecdata: In my extended family, we have some members with a fair bit of 'bread'. These family members met at a somewhat known (yet small-ish) college and really loved the place and all the memories they had there. They donated a lot of money over the years and, yes, had a building named after them. When it came time for their daughter to apply to college, the choice was obvious. However, the daughter was rejected ou…
I never quite understood why people donate to colleges in such a way that it is the legal entity of the university that benefits. They provide a service, and they charge money for it. The university operates as a business. I don't donate to Wal-Mart, so why would I donate to University X? Why wouldn't you instead endow a scholarship for students of your favorite college? Instead of giving cash to Wal-Mart, buy prepai…
Because endowing a scholarship is setting up a charity and donating to a University (the kind anyone donates to, at any rate—no one is endowing chairs at the University of Phoenix) is giving to an existing charity; the two probably have similar tax, feeling of giving back, and status/ego benefits, but the former is more work.