Let me start off by saying: I'm sick of hearing about all the scandals coming from USC.
It's shameful. The administration should be ashamed. Professors should be ashamed. Speaking as a student (who probably has the same thoughts as many of the other students)-- I'm ashamed. I'm ashamed that one of the biggest things that my school is known for is for its scandals.
Unless you've been living under a rock, you would have heard about the recent college scandal involving multiple elite schools, USC is one of them. This involves over 50 people who are involved in somehow falsifying admission records through bribes-- such as falsifying ACT/SAT scores and having coaches list students as a recruit (when the said student had no previous athletic experience).
This is in light of recent scandals-- defamed deans of the Keck School of Medicine (one for illegal drug use and another for sexual harassment allegations), the sexual abuse scandal involving George Tyndall and the most recent scandal involving the humiliation of queer individuals in the Engemann Health Center. This ultimately led (besides the most recent scandal that came to light in 2019) to C. L. Max Nikias resignation as president after eight years serving as such.
Who is the victim in this situation? Definitely not USC who we all know get thousands of dollars and "donations" to their school-- an amount that should be enough to have more than 63% of students on financial aid, to build better study spaces for students, to create a sustainable college campus that is supposedly promised to undergraduates living in a certain apartment area a compositing disposable when it was taken away in the first few weeks OR even by having no recycle bins readily available to students living in apartments.
USC can do better. As a school that charges $75,000 tuition-- where is all that money going?
So who is the victim if not USC? The students here are, especially those who were unfairly rejected just because USC could not detect a student with false grades and extracurriculars.
Do I feel sorry for Olivia Jade, daughter to Lori Loughlin? No, I do not. Yes, she may not have had any significant involvement in this scandal, but she in no way was motivated to actually excel at USC-- a notion that is laughably common at USC. Every student at USC, specifically those first-generation or minority students who feel like some sort of imposter by attending USC, have encountered privileged students who are only attending for the tailgates and frat parties. But what's even more shameful is that the administration keeps turning a blind eye to "rich-kid" privilege and continue to step over the needs of their minority students.
I will admit though that Interim President Wanda M Austin and other administrative leaders are making an effort, to at least make this situation a bit better for the students-- an example would be the decision to bar any current applicants involved in this scandal as well as money donations to target underprivileged students.
Although I disagree with Austin's sentiment that USC is the victim in this, I think, especially with this national exposure, that it is prime time that the administration steps in to prevent these issues and to rethink their admission process. In order for USC to continue climbing in prestige, they have to make a choice as to whether they will continue to be involved in heavy money "donations" or whether their focus will be to provide the best education for the bright students who apply to the school, especially the underprivileged.
