Outrage has erupted across the country after federal prosecutors announced 33 wealthy parents participated in an elaborate cheating scheme involving tens of thousands of dollars in bribes to gain their children entrance to elite colleges including Harvard, Yale and the University of Texas at Austin.
It’s no secret that wealth influences college admissions in covert ways, like parents donating large sums of money to colleges or having the means to support private tutors and extensive extracurricular activities for their high schoolers. It’s just particularly galling to see that these legal (though perhaps unethical) advantages still aren’t enough for some folks, who go to illegal extremes to ensure their average-or-below student wins a place at the best schools.
But that begs the question, are highly selective, expensive colleges really the “best”? What does that even mean — best education, best value, best satisfaction?
It’s also no secret that the University of Wyoming attracts students from 50 states and 90 countries because of its low tuition rates. With an admission rate of over 95 percent, few parents would have to bribe their children entry, either.
UW and its programs regularly top national “best value” lists since many students can receive accredited higher education and graduate with little or no debt. In our book, being debt-free is far better than getting a degree from a brand-name Ivy League school.
Research often fails to back up the benefits of that shiny brand name for most students. Plenty of billionaires and millionaires, particularly in the tech industry, have no formal higher education at all. Data from the Department of Education indicates median salary after graduation does not correlate with the cost of the school. And college selectivity does not correlate at all with life satisfaction later, per a 2014 Gallup survey.
Low-income students who manage to get past the wealth-rigged admissions process graduate at high rates and do nearly as well financially as their wealthy peers, according to a study from the Harvard-based Equality of Opportunity Project. So it’s not that elite colleges should be left to the economic elite. They just aren’t the best route to financial stability and satisfaction for the majority of people.
Elite colleges may not be the best route to short-term satisfaction either. Every college has its own culture, program options and regional climate. Students from the West might find themselves alone in a sea of khaki-wearing golfers and yacht-sailors, sweating from East Coast humidity, at a place like Harvard or Yale.
Bribing SAT proctors and coaches, falsifying exams and extracurriculars and Photoshopping your kid’s head onto the body of an athlete is definitely wrong. Further, we think giving preference to the children of donors and alumni and heavily weighting activities with access that depends on financial means is wrong.
The outrageous abuses of the former might finally bring attention to the more subtle latter means the rich and famous use to weight — or slam down — the scales of admissions officers. But on the off chance this long-standing and entrenched system of corrupt and rigged admissions doesn’t change in the near future, can we just say: Go Pokes.
