US College admissions cheating

BritDownUnder · Post by **BritDownUnder** » 14 Mar 2019, 01:51

Anyone thinking about this?

Just one of the news reports can be found here. I suspect that this will become bigger than the Beatles and could even get President Trump off the hook as a surprising number of lefties are probably up to it as well - getting their kids into a university who they were too thick to really get into.

From a very distant memory I think and in a very roundabout way even Mr Corbin's son attended a school away from his Harringay? local area although I understand that this was his wife's decision and even led to their divorce as Jezza was adament that he went to the local 'comp'.
I will take it as a given that most of the Tories, or Republicans on the other side of the pond, get their children in 'good' schools and universities.

Perhaps schools/universities should just auction off quite openly and transparently, say, 10% of their places to the highest bidders and use the cash to subsidise less well off students rather than have it happening behind the scenes and enriching the few. That way some Russian arms dealer will have to pay 10 million pounds to get little Sergei into Oxford and some clever kid from the 'inner city' can also get in at someone else's expense.

vtsnowedin · Post by **vtsnowedin** » 14 Mar 2019, 07:17

Oh I'm having fun with it. Always nice to see the rich and famous knocked down a peg or two. The one girl with a video saying she wasn't much into school beyond the parties cost her Mom a half million. Could have set her up a trust fund and kept her in party togs and limos forever for less money and not be facing jail now.
I can't complain too awfully much. Between my three grown children they have gained two PHDs. and a BS with teaching license and one of the PHDs. came from Dartmouth all without any cheating. Both graduate schools were on full scholarships that paid them a stipend above the tuition.

vtsnowedin · Post by **vtsnowedin** » 14 Mar 2019, 07:19

When the story broke my first thought was "How much did Hillary pay to get Chelsea in?"

PS_RalphW · Post by **PS_RalphW** » 14 Mar 2019, 11:48

When most of the royal family gets an automatic pass to Cambridge or other elite institution, it is hard for us to be too critical about people buying their way in.

However, when I was at Imperial in London, an Indonesian student turned up without any knowledge at all of his chosen subject. He was kicked out within 24 hours.

He should have been white and royal.

vtsnowedin · Post by **vtsnowedin** » 14 Mar 2019, 13:33

There is a story today that the USA now has more millionaires then there are people in Sweden. They can't all build a library to get junior in so they had to invent a quicker way.
https://www.bloombergquint.com/markets/ ... has-people

emordnilap · Post by **emordnilap** » 14 Mar 2019, 14:09

whatâ€™s â€œnett worthâ€�?

vtsnowedin · Post by **vtsnowedin** » 14 Mar 2019, 15:38

emordnilap wrote:whatâ€™s â€œnett worthâ€�?

Add up everything you own and the money you have in the bank or retirement accounts then subtract all you owe. The result is your net worth, It can be negative if you have loans and credit card debt and own no house, car or other hard asset.
In the story above they excluded the value of the primary residence, I don't know why as it is usually included and the major asset of most middle class people.

Lord Beria3 · Post by **Lord Beria3** » 14 Mar 2019, 17:46

Why is anybody shocked? This has been going on for decades!

vtsnowedin · Post by **vtsnowedin** » 14 Mar 2019, 22:03

Lord Beria3 wrote:Why is anybody shocked? This has been going on for decades!

I think this is a new level not seen before. Not that the old status quo was anything to brag about.

emordnilap · Post by **emordnilap** » 14 Mar 2019, 23:14

Iâ€™m sure nobodyâ€™s shocked any more by inequality of any sort.

Iâ€™d question the calculations and I suspect this is some species of clickbait.

vtsnowedin · Post by **vtsnowedin** » 17 Mar 2019, 10:54

My idea for a just punishment I posted over on peakoil.

Seeing how rich and able to afford high priced lawyers most of the people caught up in this are I don't expect any of them to actually spend any time in jail as much as that would satisfy my desire to see justice served.
I do think that each should have to match or even double any amount paid or received into a fund that was then paid out to actual academically qualified students in the form of full scholarships. The one woman that paid a half million so her drone daughter could party till she dropped might then send ten real students to a real college degree worth something.
If you can blow a half million on what certainly will be a total loss spending a million on some real potential seems only fair.

BritDownUnder · Post by **BritDownUnder** » 17 Mar 2019, 19:12

vtsnowedin wrote:My idea for a just punishment I posted over on peakoil.

According to some news website which I can't remember I saw that one of the ladies involved in all this took delivery of 6 LCD panels a few days ago. I presume you can show works of art on them on your walls or something.

As for your link to the wealth of the US it looks good at first sight but people in Europe (or even down under) forget how large a country the US is in area and people. What that site is saying is that 44 million people have over $100,000 in savings not including the values (and presumably debt) of their homes. In my book $100k would last you about 4 years if you lost your job. Let's be optimistic and say that those 44 million people are the bread winners to 44 million families so about 170 million people. That means in the US the other half have a lot less than that. That's not all that good for the other half of US families who really don't have any meaningful savings.

vtsnowedin · Post by **vtsnowedin** » 17 Mar 2019, 22:55

BritDownUnder wrote:
vtsnowedin wrote:My idea for a just punishment I posted over on peakoil.
According to some news website which I can't remember I saw that one of the ladies involved in all this took delivery of 6 LCD panels a few days ago. I presume you can show works of art on them on your walls or something.

As for your link to the wealth of the US it looks good at first sight but people in Europe (or even down under) forget how large a country the US is in area and people. What that site is saying is that 44 million people have over $100,000 in savings not including the values (and presumably debt) of their homes. In my book $100k would last you about 4 years if you lost your job. Let's be optimistic and say that those 44 million people are the bread winners to 44 million families so about 170 million people. That means in the US the other half have a lot less than that. That's not all that good for the other half of US families who really don't have any meaningful savings.

The graph shows people between 100K and a full million. The mean of that group would be somewhere around $550,000. Then you take 44 million households with more then $100k times 2.6 people per average US house hold-and you get 114 million people that are well off. It does not show current earnings. You could be making $365k a year and blowing it all and have zero net worth or you could be a frugal person that never earned more then $40k a year but have a million in the bank.

PS_RalphW · Post by **PS_RalphW** » 18 Mar 2019, 12:27

I have cash in the bank more than 20 times my pre-tax take home pay, and property valued at more than double that. Mostly inherited. On income alone I am on the poverty line, whereas I am very comfortably off with low living expenses , few worries about future income and few expensive hobbies. However, I am working part time in a charity at less than half the market rate for my skills.

Income in itself is not a good measure of wealth.

vtsnowedin · Post by **vtsnowedin** » 18 Mar 2019, 13:33

PS_RalphW wrote:I have cash in the bank more than 20 times my pre-tax take home pay, and property valued at more than double that. Mostly inherited. On income alone I am on the poverty line, whereas I am very comfortably off with low living expenses , few worries about future income and few expensive hobbies. However, I am working part time in a charity at less than half the market rate for my skills.

Income in itself is not a good measure of wealth.

No not by itself but income not wasted is one of the top sources of accumulated wealth with inheritance being the other.
One thing they don't count in net worth is the value of entitlements and pensions you are receiving. I have both a better then median social security check and a state retirement with healthcare premiums covered coming in every month. To have that much to draw monthly from a private investment portfolio would require a balance of close to a million dollars. The difference is I can't pass those funds onto my children or past my wife.
But in the meantime I can use that income to build savings or investments that I can pass on as well as keep house and land paid off and in good repair.
So it is an advantage that doesn't show on the books but can be quite real.