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The Daily Signal
FBI
Exposes Wealthy Parents Rigging College for Kids. But It Was Always
Rigged.
Mary Clare Amselem
March 12, 2019
The FBI dropped a new bombshell on Tuesday, and this time the scandal
is Russian-free.
Dozens of wealthy parents, including notable celebrities, were charged
in a college admissions scandal and accused of paying a total of $25
million in payments to cheat their children into school.
According to Politico, “parents paid a college counseling test prep
business in Newport Beach, Calif., called ‘The Key’, which bribed
college coaches and administrator and organized a scheme to help
students cheat on college entrance exams, including the ACT and SAT.”
It is disappointing that these parents would resort to such measures to
ensure that their children get into elite colleges. But Americans
should not be surprised that the system is broken. It always has been,
and working-class Americans are paying for it.
The liberal Left continue to push their radical agenda against American
values. The good news is there is a solution. Find out more >>
Take, for example, our student loan system.
For the most part, students who earn bachelor’s degrees have higher
lifetime earnings than students with only a high school degree. So why
have lawmakers promulgated policies like loan forgiveness, the
in-school interest subsidy, and even “free” college, to remove
financial responsibility from the elite one-third of Americans who
obtain the highly sought-after bachelor’s degree?
The hardworking two-thirds of Americans who have bypassed this system
altogether should not have to absorb the cost for students who are far
more likely to achieve high career earnings.
Additionally, left-wing politicians have recently pushed for “free
college” options that would entirely remove all financial
responsibility from students and transfer those costs to taxpayers.
California, for example, is considering legislation that would grant
all citizens access to free college, including the children of
Hollywood elite.
These policies fuel the troublesome trend of degree inflation. It is
true that higher levels of education indicate higher levels of
earnings, and some may argue that this is because a college degree
equips students with the skills necessary to succeed in the workplace.
But it appears increasingly apparent that the simple attainment of a
degree carries far more weight than the actual attainment of knowledge
or marketable skills.
The signaling that occurs when a student obtains a degree tells
employers that they have followed through on their education, but says
little about their human capital development.
While most would not put it in so many words, this is a phenomenon that
most Americans, including the wealthy parents wrapped up in this
scandal, are well aware of.
As George Mason University’s Bryan Caplan has noted, if average
students were presented with this scenario: You can either receive a
bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University without going to a single
class, or you can take classes at Georgetown but you walk away without
the degree, most Americans would pick the former option, rather than
the latter.
This is because most Americans with a small amount of motivation and an
internet connection can seek out alternative means for obtaining career
knowledge outside of the classroom. However, getting your foot in the
door without a college degree is another story.
This admissions scandal should cause all Americans to rethink the
system they are paying into. Celebrities such as Felicity Huffman and
Lori Loughlin were able to cheat the system because of their elite
celebrity status and high financial capital.
This is not the system President Lyndon Johnson sought in his vision
for a “Great Society.” His hope was to grant all Americans, regardless
of socio-economic status, a pathway to the American dream.
Instead, higher education in America today embodies a system that
shackles American students and taxpayers alike with high student loan
debt, and fails to create a proper education-to-workforce pipeline that
enables graduates to pay down their loans.
American taxpayers should not have to spend roughly $75 billion per
year on a broken system. Furthermore, students and taxpayers should not
suffer under $1.5 trillion in student loan debt for degrees of
questionable value.
In order to reinstate academic integrity in the higher education
system, lawmakers should eliminate policies that favor the elite at the
expense of working-class Americans. Loan forgiveness and “free college”
only serve to pour money into a broken system that perpetuates elitism
at the expense of working Americans and other viable pathways to upward
mobility.
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