At least 38 individuals are in custody following the FBI's "Operation Varsity Blues." Among those 38 are actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin.
In this scandal, employees of top-tier schools were taking bribes from parents to admit students, sometimes into their athletic programs with a scholarship and fake athletic profiles, without actually being athletes. Some SAT scores were being switched out, having smarter kids take the SAT tests for these students, some parents were buying test answers for the SAT so their kids could cheat, etc.
As a first generation student with student loans, who have had to work hard for what I have, I'm pissed.
Don't get me wrong, I am not complaining about my circumstance, I'm fine where I'm at, but that doesn't change the injustice that this scandal just brought out. Many of us have been aware of elitist privilege for quite a while, especially when it comes to taxes, treatment, etc. For some, this hits a little closer to home, especially with the Ivy Leagues. The Ivy League schools are already near impossible to get into, only about a 6% admission rate when I applied in 2017, and about 30% of those admissions are legacies, and now we're finding out that more of that small 6% very possibly bought their way in.
Lori Loughlin paid both of her daughters' way into USC through the Crew athletic program. Her bribe amounted to an estimated $500,000. One of her daughters, Olivia Jade, made a YouTube video on her page talking about how she doesn't think she'll be able to make time for school and won't be attending often since she'll be traveling for work and she really "doesn't care about school." She highlights the experiences she wants to have, which are partying and football games. She has also used this college experience to make money, one example being Amazon Prime who outfitted her dorm.
Yes, she is influential, but I think other people could've really used those sponsorships when it came to their dorm rooms.
I worked so hard to get into what I felt was a good school, and this is a reminder in how the upper class and the elite continue to have the upper hand over those trying to improve their circumstances. Due to some of the reports, this has been going on for quite some time, and although we shouldn't be shocked, it doesn't lessen the blow of the reminder of our inability to move up in our social/class systems.
Lately, people have been debating whether or not Kylie Jenner is self-made.
Now it's time to question some of these other celebrities and even politicians who we thought received higher education. If they were accepted into a higher institution solely based on their family and their connections, are they really fit for some of their positions? Did they actually receive the education they needed to be successful, or did they, like Olivia Jade, only attend for the college experience? These are questions that need to be asked.
