As a student of the University of Southern California, the recent notorious "Operations Varsity Blues" scandal felt extremely close to home. Especially as an international student, which is known to have lower acceptance rates into American universities compared to American citizens, the act of paying for children to get into colleges has always been the unspoken truth.

Many people find this scandal not surprising at all, because we hear stories of parents making donations to colleges all the time. However, what made the entire scandal outraging to most of us is the legal line that it crossed. People have been condemning this behavior, but they can finally condemn this type of behavior with every right due to the illegality.

Rather than commenting on how awful the situation is, it is also important to understand why the elites did what they did.

As for the wealthy parents, it is very clear that they wanted their children to receive top-notch educations from notable universities, in order to ensure that they remain in the elite circle. However, what crossed the line is that the method of paying to receive a full score on standardized tests or bribing college athletic coaches would guarantee them a spot at the college, rather than just a heightened chance. This sparks the question of to what extent does a boost in acceptance rate lead to, and how does that correlate with how ethical or legal it is. In addition, many parents probably did not see their actions as a direct harm to anyone. Even though many argue that one competent student got rejected when a mediocre student got accepted due to their parent's wealth, it is almost impossible to pinpoint who actually got rejected. It is also possible that the parents were not aware of the backlash their actions would cause, making them think that this will go without publicity.

On the other hand, many may wonder why the college coaches decided to partake in this scandal. Many may say that the coaches are just in for the money, but in reality, a large sum of the money that they received was used to further develop their sports program. This could imply how coaches were able to justify their actions. They may have thought that falsifying one student would lead to making a better sports program for the entire team. This trade-off may have seemed fair.

After all, there is no excuse for this scandal, and punishments are indeed valid. However, it is also important to know that the majority of people do certain things not for the purpose of harm or wrongdoing. Rather, it is more likely that people were simply able to justify their actions to make their wrongdoings seem okay to do.