A new admission scandal is brewing and this one may prove to be a doozy. ProPublica is reporting that well-to-do parents of students at the University of Illinois have been advised to relinquish custody of their children to relatives in order to have their children considered emancipated (i.e orphans) thereby qualifying them for full financial aid. Like Varsity Blues, it’s looking like an independent college “advisor” is involved. And it’s looking like the practice could be widespread.
I’m waiting for the defense: “Well, it’s not right but colleges have become so expensive it’s pushing people to desperation”. Yes, colleges have become expensive, but the perps identified so far have been lawyers, doctors and even an assistant school superintendent. I can see a truck driver making $85,000 feeling desperate to find a way to get her really smart daughter to the state’s flagship university. But a doctor?
I am reminded of my father, a cardboard box salesman who lost his job when I was between my sophomore and junior year at a small private college. He was near retirement and was not in a good position to quickly find another job. The college’s financial aid director urged him to fill out the financial aid paperwork so that they might help, but my father waved him away. My mother told me it was about honor and honesty. They had saved, I was the last child to go to college, they could do it. My father didn’t want to take money from a family more deserving. I think that’s how most of my friends’ parents would have approached it. Honesty and thrift was just fundamental to how you lived your life after the Depression and WWII.
The vast majority of people today are much the same, from my experience. Most would return a found wallet as they would not lie on a FAFSA. They forgo new cars and put money into 529 college saving plans. Some are more diligent than others about preparing for college, but prepare they do. And some–even those who benefited from small liberal arts colleges themselves–come to the conclusion that $70,000 per year at a private college is not worth the cost and they focus on state universities, which more than ever are providing outstanding undergraduate experiences. They are living their lives ethically and responsibly and not making a big deal out if it. Even if they could afford a scam artist consultant, they wouldn’t do it.
I had initially imagined Varsity Blues–as awful as it is–to be unrepresentative of the broad landscape of college admissions. It was a handful of shallow, narcissist parents operating without a shred of decency or ethics, flying under the radar of innocent, though naive college administrators. But Act II makes me reconsider that. Is fraud rampant in college admission? Among the nation’s wealthy, is there a network of unscrupulous consultants and their customers finding illegal backdoors into our best colleges and universities? How many coaches and–I flinch to even write this–admissions officers are in on it?
We may now see a change in how colleges vet the accuracy of their applications and their financial aid evaluations, and there may be real scrutiny in the monitoring of college sports or the behavior of admission officers. There is now an assumption that a student’s signature on the application, affirming the accuracy of all the information provided, is a kind of compact. You sign it, we trust you. But there’s no similar contract with parents. Will there be one soon? It appears that many of the students involved in Varsity Blues signed their fraudulent applications in good faith. Their parents had been scheming behind their backs. Not much honor there.
And what do colleges do with students who have been the lucky beneficiaries of application fraud? This has been the basis for some lively discussion among my community of independent advisors. Some believe the students were often unwilling participants and should not be penalized for the crimes of their parents. Others feel that short of expulsion or rescinding of diplomas, the fraud will have been successful: rich parents pay a fine or do a few months in jail in return for an otherwise unqualified kid getting a diploma from USC. For most cases, I’d be squarely in the latter camp. Without consequences, there will be little change in behavior.
Predictably, Varsity Blues caused California to briefly consider the creation of a ponderous regulatory architecture to manage people like me, independent college admission advisors. I can understand the temptation, though the idea was total overkill and would have pushed many of the best, most experienced people out of the profession for good. But what’s the solution? Currently the best way to drum consultant scam artists out of business is not to hire them. If a college advisor is not a member of a professional organization (NACAC, IECA, HECA) that’s a big red flag. Professional organizations have strict codes of ethics and only include people with appropriate training and professional experience. But is that enough?
And while all this is occurring, the trucker making $85k is taking out a second mortgage and still coming up short because the son of an orthodontist in Chicago is stealing a Pell Grant. To all of you out there who save, sacrifice, and follow the rules, who check your privilege and don’t ask for a different set of rules, your kids will be better for it. We all will.
Now let’s fix this mess. Permanently.