College Admissions Scandal

Wealthy moms and dads have been arrested, criminally arrested, on "conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud" for paying whomever needed to be paid to get their kids into elite colleges and universities. I fail to see the crime here. If a private institution, say University of Southern California, wants to charge $50,210 per year for tuition (And they do: That was USC's tuition for 2016/17.) there is no crime. If they say to wealthy...the wealthiest of parents, "Know what? For you, for your kid, $100,000.," where's the crime? Schools offer scholarships to kids of less well off families all the time. Is that a crime? True story: the Harvard football coach said to my father "Why didn't you tell me Ben was applying? I could have gotten him a football scholarship." I have never played a down of football in my fucking life. Was that a crime? When USC offers football scholarships to five star high school players are they bribing the less intellectually gifted? Cheating the more intellectually gifted? Of course not. Was it a crime for a law school to offer my daughter a $56,000 per year scholarship? Since colleges, law schools, med schools, etc. are allowed to offer scholarships why aren't they allowed to soak the rich? I fail to see the crime here.