Bribery, greed: All for a little bit of Ivy League

Probably, but ... in life its better to have graduated at the 25th percentile from Harvard than the 80th percentile from most other non Ivy League or equivilant Universities.
It doesn’t guarantee outcomes but it does open more doors. Assuming grades are adequate, Harvard undergrads get into grad schools that equivinat grades at the better State schools wouldn’t. It’s an advantage.

But you are generally right, as a matter of moral correctness, the kids that get in this way will act for the rest of their lives as if this is the way the world works. And they’d be right. 2nd and 3rd generation money have better material lives but aren’t as productive, for the most part, as their parents. For every Stella McCartney there’s an Eric Trump

 

Aunt Becky paid all that money so her daughter can go to college and major in ... Instagram influencer!?!

https://news.avclub.com/lori-loughlins-college-scam-achieved-every-parents-drea-1833234787

 

Moral relativism.

 

The soccer ID Camp is its own scam for most of these schools. A lot of college coaches say “we need to look at you a minimum of two times. Come to our camps!”

You go for $200 a day (or $550 for three) to a D1 school. Usually a little less for D2. They look at you and still wind up bringing in some goalkeeper from Spain or Belgium to fill a roster spot. Those guys don’t pay their own Euro to go to some ID camp in the middle of nowhere. Different rules.

 

I feel bad for these kids.

This is the kind of humiliation only a parent can pull down on a child.

 

I feel bad for some of these kids. Not Lori Loughlin's though. They were obviously party to it and on the fast track to being worthless adults.

 

I feel bad for all the kids and, to some degree, some of the parents.

Higher ed is as corrupt as any political institution. These schools sit on mountains of money, overpay nearly everyone in their institutions, and prioritize the production - sometimes to the point of sheer invention - of more data over actually educating their students are what's generally held and known. More than a few American problems are bound in how we do college.

 

They're free to not participate in the rat race. Or, if they do, to not put so much value on it that they have to revert to cheating. The world needs ditch-diggers, too.

 

Even her.

It takes a lot of actively terrible parenting to produce such an obnoxious teenager.

 

Well let her life be an example to others. See that, kid? That their is an asshole raised by asshole parents. Don't be like that.

 

Teenagers are always a struggle for parents. And parents are always a struggle for teenagers. I try to cut both groups some slack.

That said, I'd love for all these rich, neurotic parents to pour this kind of obsessive effort and cash into the public schools.