Felicity Huffman — most popular for her role on ABC’s Desperate Housewives — was confronted by law enforcement with guns drawn on the morning of Tuesday, March 12. Huffman, along with a long lineage of entitled parents, were caught spending over millions of dollars in bribes to guarantee their children’s admission into elite universities across America. According to court documents, Felicity Huffman specifically “paid a testing official to help her daughter on her SAT test or change her test answers.” Among the 50 people who may face jail time due to charges of fraud were CEOs, founders of fake tax-exempt organizations, and other C-list entertainment industry employees.
Lori Loughlin, known for her role on “Full House,” was arrested for bribing her daughter’s way into the University of Southern California. Loughlin was even called out for bragging about paying for her daughter’s education. This is said to display the entitlement most, if not all, of the people involved in this scandal possess. Loughlin spent over $500,000 in bribes to admit her unqualified daughter, Olivia Jade, into the California school.
Bill McGlashan — the founder of a private equity company, “TPG Capital” — was fired from his own company on Thursday for being charged in the college admission scandal as well. TPG Capital and McGlashan are now “in a battle” over whether “he quit” or “if he actually got fired” because being fired from his own company is obviously worse for his reputation than having a felony.
William “Rick” Singer, the CEO of Edge College and Career Network, was caught paying off college sports coaches along with standardized test administrators in order to execute his plan of admitting the children of well-off parents into these schools. He is basically the middle man of the entire “operation.” Singer knowingly paid for fake statistics in order to convince coaches of elite universities to let students onto their teams. According to CNN, Singer pleaded guilty to four charges and admitted all of the allegations were true. Singer was collectively paid $25 million by rich parents in order to execute the plan.
Joy Reid of “A.M. Joy” on MSNBC did a news segment titled “Two Americas” to discuss the divide between classes in a system created “for the super-rich by the super rich.” The story kicked off with a speech given by Sen. Elizabeth Warren during a rally in Lawrence, Massachusetts. Elizabeth Warren, along with other democrat nominees, are focusing on class inequality as an issue in the upcoming presidential election. Reid also spoke with writer Anand Giridharadas about these rich parents that pay to cheat their unqualified children into elite universities, to highlight the “two distinct realities” that Americans of separate classes live in today.
While this story may be hilarious to some, it is also not surprising to many. College tuition prices along with the feeling of a bachelor’s degree as a basic necessity for the standard of living here in America has risen. Some would even say that we are in the middle of a crisis. Middle and lower class Americans are in large amounts of debt due to the price of a 4-year college education. As of 2018, Americans are $1.5 Trillion in debt due to the student loan crisis. This includes some of the students who are going to school among the unqualified students who bribed their ways into universities. The higher education system has become an entity that separates Americans based on class, and this scandal is one of the many events that are a result of that phenomenon. Being admitted into college due to fake donations through your parent’s fake philanthropic organization takes up space from students who are actually qualified to attend these schools. I personally feel for the Americans who have to face the hard truth that they’re competing in a world that is unfair to them.
Photo credits: 1.