
Billionaire’s Guide to Buying Your Kids a Better Shot at Elite Colleges - gopi
https://www.propublica.org/article/hedge-fund-billionaires-donations-college-admissions-elite-universities
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seltzered_
Previous discussion 1 day ago of the same article, co-published nymag version:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21103345](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21103345)

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dang
Right you are. We missed that one. Thanks!

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zaroth
Here’s a family that donated $37 million to a half dozen schools over several
years, ostensibly to increase the odds of his [well qualified] children to be
accepted into one or more of those schools.

Personally, I think if someone wants to pay the way of, let’s say, 300
students to get full scholarships, so that their child can attend, this seems
like a very sustainable model which benefits everyone involved.

$37 million buys a lot of resources so arguably this isn’t taking a spot away
from anyone, if anything it is enabling these universities to provide more
spots to students who deserve them, potentially at zero cost.

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harryh
I generally agree with your comment, but it's worth nothing that despite the
US population increasing and the number of kids attenting college increasing
even more the top schools have generally not increased enrollment sizes much
at all.

It's interesting to think about why this might be so.

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pmiller2
If you're sitting on a minimum of $3.5B in endowment (Brown), up to $34.5B
(Harvard), why would you need to expand? Besides, being "elite" is part of the
brand. Start letting everyone in, and the Ivy League becomes just another
football conference.

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dcolkitt
> being "elite" is part of the brand.

Exactly. And what public policy needs to do is revoke the non-profit status of
schools that fail to make any effort to expand despite having an abundance of
resources and qualified candidates.

Harvard could easily accommodate 20,000 undergrads given the size and quality
of its applicant pool. That fact that it doesn't spend a penny of its $30
billion endowment doing so reveals that its mission is brand management, not
education. And that's perfectly fine. But it shouldn't enjoy a tax-advantaged
status predicated on the make-believe that its a philanthropic organization.

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sokoloff
Where do you expect Harvard could _house_ the additional 13K undergrads near
campus? I live walking distance to Harvard campus and I can tell you that I
can't imagine a good answer.

(Unstated above is that I believe that undergrad is fundamentally an in-person
experience.)

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dillonmckay
Satellite campus?

Buy up existing hotels?

The George Washington University has purchased many hotels and condos and
converted them to student housing, and that is downtown DC real estate.

Works well when you pay no property taxes.

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joefourier
I'm not familiar first-hand with the concept of "elite" colleges in America,
but why is it so important for a billionaire's kid to attend them? Does it
really give them opportunities that are not already available to them from
their parents' wealth and connections?

I don't understand how sending your child to those institutions is worth $37
million. Wouldn't it make more sense to give it to them directly, or as
funding for one of their ventures?

From other articles, their daughter became a comedy writer for Jimmy Fallon -
that seems like the last profession to require a diploma from an elite
university, or even a college diploma at all.

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gbronner
From what I've heard and seen of this man: He hires people who are
fantastically smart -- literally best I've ever met in many cases. He pays
them astronomically -- not just in finance, but also in his medical research
thing, and he is committed to giving them the resources necessary to succeed.
He thinks somewhat unconventionally -- that academia and business are too
slow, and that a small number of super-talented people can be very very
successful.

He's not known for blowing money ostentatiously -- never heard of his
yacht/plane/private island/museum wing. Presumably he wants his kids to get
the best education possible and to meet the most interesting people that they
can, but I'm sure that he has absolutely no desire to give them enough money
so that they can turn into the kind of billionaire brats that he detests.

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zarro
Brilliant reply, in this case if his kid isn't able to get in on merit alone,
paying a premium for the "privilege" to be surrounded by a mix of wealthy
and/or incredibly intelligent people is entirely reasonable.

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gbronner
Total donations were something like $36 million, and by all accounts, kids
were extremely smart and motivated. Honestly seems like a CYA move on behalf
of his staff, and not any rational approach to bring his kids' way into a top
school.

~~~
pmiller2
$36M doesn't even come close to what this guy is netting on his investments,
I'm sure. Honestly, if I had kids going to college and spending $36M was
something I could do without thinking about, I'd probably do it too, just in
case.

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14
I have to admit as an average intelligence middle class health care worker I
actually assumed the ultra rich 100% did pay for their way into university.
WhenI saw the admission scandal break I was actually surprised that these rich
people had to go out of their way to craft reasons for their kids to attend
like fake sports scholarships and such. It was only after I was made to
realize how their actions were illegal.

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linksnapzz
The people caught up in the Varsity Blues prosecution weren't rich-rich, like
D.E. Shaw. They were merely Hollywood-rich, such that they could afford to pay
a bribe equal to the price of a luxury car to bypass admissions.

Which is what the whole fuss is about-colleges would prefer to be bribed
multiple millions by people like David Shaw for his kids, rather than a paltry
few tens of thousands, like what the CT lawyer or Mrs. Half-the-voices-on-the-
simpsons paid in bribes, the filthy plebes. The only people who should be able
to corrupt the admissions process are the colleges themselves, and then only
for amounts in excess of $1,000,000 paid by the gentry.

That the act of bribing one's way into a particular school is now a federal
crime (the so-called "honest services fraud") is risible and out of the scope
of what criminal law should concern itself with.

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javagram
Bribing employees of a company to perform corrupt actions should obviously be
criminal. It’s ridiculous to say that it shouldn’t.

Paying high prices above board and openly for services is not fraud or
corruption, bribing an employee to break clear standards and policies at their
work place absolutely is.

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linksnapzz
Clearly, the proper enforcement of your execution of your employer's code of
conduct && your boss's instructions needs to be handled by police and
prosecutors, paid out of tax dollars. I'm glad _you_ live in a place so flush
with cash, and so tranquil such that this looks like a good use of the time
and money of the state.

OTOH, we _could_ accept that no ratable harm has been done to the public at
large, and that this comes down to a private dispute between the university,
the bribee, and the briber, where the latter two could be sued by the former
for negligence in performance and tortious interference respectively. Civil
law provides remedies for this, what is possibly achieved by making it
criminal?

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javagram
Corrupt societies hurt everything they touch. Decriminalizing bribery, as you
suggest, would help turn the USA into a stereotype of a third world country -
where government officials and private businesses alike demand graft and
bribes at every step of a business transaction.

Moving money like that is also, inter alia, going to corrupt the income tax
system - if employees are receiving a significant percentage of their income
through cash bribes from customers, it’s unlikely they’d report it properly on
their income tax.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_bribery](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_bribery)

These laws seem quite reasonable to me. Do you also believe an employee
stealing or embezzling funds from their employer should be a civil, not
criminal matter?

Edit: to add, some of the colleges in the admissions scandal were public, not
private colleges - USC and UCLA. So bribery of the officials in that case was
bribery of an employee of the state, not just a private business. It should be
obvious that legalizing bribery of state employees is a very dangerous path to
go down.

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linksnapzz
_Corrupt societies hurt everything they touch. Decriminalizing bribery, as you
suggest, would help turn the USA into a stereotype of a third world country -
where government officials and private businesses alike demand graft and
bribes at every step of a business transaction._

No low-trust society ever legislated its way into becoming a high-trust
society. I remember America before the "honest services mail fraud" statute
was in place, and contra your assertion, 1987 America didn't resemble a third
world corruptocracy anymore than it does today.

 _if employees are receiving a significant percentage of their income through
cash bribes from customers, it’s unlikely they’d report it properly on their
income tax._

s/bribes/payments/ ...this is a risk you run by allowing cash. Of course, the
risks of _not_ having cash as a method of payment are different, and in my
thinking more substantial.

 _Do you also believe an employee stealing or embezzling funds from their
employer should be a civil, not criminal matter?_

Of course! While we're at it, I also believe that tax fraud is a criminal
offense. Note that none of these need the contrivance of honest service fraud
to have been well prosecuted in the past, nor should they need the federal
prosecutor's favorite GOTOs of mail & wire fraud to secure a true bill from a
grand jury.

 _Edit: to add, some of the colleges in the admissions scandal were public,
not private colleges - USC and UCLA. So bribery of the officials in that case
was bribery of an employee of the state, not just a private business. It
should be obvious that legalizing bribery of state employees is a very
dangerous path to go down._

So...any state employee? I mean, bribing elected officials and officers of the
court is already illegal; I really don't lump college admissions officers (or
college garbagemen, lifeguards, sysadmins, psychiatrists) into the group of
people the corruption of whose duty is so serious as to merit prosecution in
federal courts, simply by dint of where they get their paycheck from.

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WalterBright
I can see a top school accepting billionaires' kids by default, simply because
of the prestige it confers on the school.

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zarro
If rich people want to buy their way into university, why not? I think the
argument is really:

1\. Arbitrarily small class sizes - the degree is not so much about the
education as it is about the prestige of being in small class size. But long
term, who cares? There are obviously candidates that have equal or higher
capability if the universities can limit the class size. Besides those that
don't go have cheaper market rates and are more attractive investments since
the universities strategy is pretty much increase the demand by lowering
supply arbitrarily.

2\. The idea that you buy merit that is undeserved. To be honest, I am not
sure why this is a big deal. Its not in the universities long term best
interest to give its clients undeserved merit, because the market decides
their merit, and if they pump out people that don't have skills over time
their "Prestige" doesn't amount to much, and their customers will go
elsewhere. To be honest, I think this is already starting to be the case.

Really I think this argument boils down to distasteful envy and jealousy of
the things rich people can "buy", which if you examine it carefully isn't the
case anyway.

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human20190310
> if they pump out people that don't have skills over time their "Prestige"
> doesn't amount to much

I think you're underestimating the degree to which corrupt, inept institutions
can maintain their influence over society.

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zarro
No doubt, but I think the point is to ask the right questions. Its not so much
about preventing the inept institutions from maintaining their influence so
much its about making sure that competing institutions don't have arbitrary
barriers to entry that prevent them from competing in the market, even if
initially, people are skeptical of them in comparison to "established"
players.

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rolltiide
I think people should understand how this contributes to the general apathy
regarding college tuition and other inequalities.

The people with the most influence have so many intertwined unspoken
relationships that there is no benefit to addressing whatever the underclass
is talking about.

Coupled with the idea that many of their own children aren't even aware of
what level of skill they demonstrated versus their family's money and clout.
Many of them are oblivious to what other people struggle with, even if they
are able to apply themselves in the same ways.

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kolbe
> Shaw has been said to purchase tickets for several different flights on the
> same day in case his plans change.

Hard to reconcile that with David not choosing to fly private. Maybe he has
environmental concerns, but I would guess he exclusively flies private,
especially since this article claims he's a little OCD about controlling every
part of every process.

With regards to "buying" his kids' way into college, it doesn't look like
there's any evidence that this was David's goal other than coincidental
timing. But beyond that, David doesn't need to buy his kids' way into these
colleges. Colleges love to accept the children of billionaires. Nothing is
better than linking up an intellectual class with the wealthy class, and
letting the melding of capital and innovation create powerful and successful
alumni.

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gbronner
I recall talking to the chair of special gifts at an elite institution, and
him lamenting that the school had rejected the children of multiple
billionaires, making his life much harder.

Brown traditionally let a few parents buy their kids a spot, but most other
Ivy League places can find enough highly qualified kids who happen to be
offspring of rich parents to not worry much.

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ameister14
Yale is pretty famous for pay to play - it also turns out to be where two of
Shaw's kids ended up going, and Harvard let in Kushner

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gbronner
Never heard of the p2p reputation at Yale. May be true, but have never seen
it. My understanding is that it would only help if the kids weren't going to
get in on their own merits, and by all accounts, this was not an issue. It is
a signalling mechanism that they are going to pay full price or more, but I
see no evidence that they bought their way in.

Kushner offered a lot more than a million a year, and had a politically
connected father and it was a generation ago.

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ameister14
Kushner graduated Harvard in 2003. That wasn't a generation ago.

