THE SYSTEM IS BROKEN

It has been reported in the US that wealthy parents are taking extreme measures to get their children into their elite college or universities. There has been a scheme where parents worked together with a gentleman called William Singer who facilitated the scandal and breaking the law to make sure these children are accepted. These crimes included photoshopping their children's faces onto athletes bodies showing them doing water polo or pole vaulting, cheating on exam entrance and also bribery. Over 50 people have been charged including hollywood stars Felicity Hoffmann and Lori Loughlin. These stars have been named in the scandal for using their wealth to get their children accepted into their chosen college.

Now I’m not here to harp on who exactly these families were because frankly I don’t think they are the problem. Whether it’s some other high powered CEO or Aunt Becky from Full House - the higher education system is what's been broken for many many years and what we should be focusing on.

Paying bribes to schools and having opportunities stripped from kids, from people who have worked their whole lives to get into these schools has always been prevalent and IGNORED. These (many of the times) white elite families pay exorbitant amounts of money to schools endowments and in return their kids not so stellar marks are overlooked.

These are FACTS that have been ignored - FACTS like Harvard, Princeton, and Yales populations of students are majority made up of the 1% of the richest families. The New York Times and VOX studies show “there are more students from the top 1 percent of families by income than the bottom 60 percent (families making $65,000 or less per year)”.

Frankly, this fake outrage as if we haven’t known for YEARS that this was going on is ridiculous. Media outlets and reputable school administrators acting as if the Trumps and Kushners of the world haven’t been doing this exact thing.

What should be the focus is that the rich keep getting richer. That they are buying degrees and buying their ways into these Wall Street firms that pay their handsome 6 figure salaries, while kids with parents that make less that 65 thousand are scrambling trying to get into these schools and hoping their grants come in on time in order to pay the outrageous admissions fees. These are the kids - now adults, that will never be able to work themselves up the “socio economic ladder”, because it was cut before they even started climbing.

So enough of the talk about the people that wrongly took advantage of the system, but more about the system itself. Let’s hold these schools accountable, let’s not act like these schools didn't know what has been going on for generations. That their campuses that have been touted as these liberal places where freedom and expression is their main concern when in reality, it’s sadly just like the rest of the corporations - money and power.

Thoughts?