along with some back taxes and penalties for all those involved in these schemes.

Unpaid taxes and a very serious, heavy fine. America loves to forgive. However not on something as agregious as this. I don’t look to see these two, let’s call them what they are, GRIFTERS in anything on tv/movies anytime soon. If ever! 😡

For this type of white collar crime, as we have seen, probably very light punishments.
$25000 fines. Some will lose their big shot positions because of bad
publicity. Their kids will suffer - they'll get booted.

For the small-fry bribe takers - probably some hard time coming. Unless there are
senior officials involved, then see above.

What's $25,000 when you paid yourself literally hundreds of thousands via this scheme?

This is exactly what the Trump Foundation provides for Trump. An ability to pay pennies for the dollar. And the only reason beside having his name on it that he has a foundation

in a cell, to think long & hard on their cheating, grifting ways. Oh yeah, and after release community service. Hours and hours of community service. Like helping the kinds of children their grifting helped screw them out of their going to college. 👍🏻

Production on Lori Laughlin's show Garage Sale Mysteries was shut down yesterday and all the workers laid off. Payment to them for lost wages should also be on the table.

as well as paying for lost health coverage, if they had it. 🤔

I am thinking that her brand may be damaged and her time with hallmark short.

this country has to offer. They could afford private schools, tutors, private coaches and give large donations to the schools they were interested in. All of that would increase and ensure their kids admittance into the schools.

Instead they cheated there way in. They took a spot from another kid.

Dean Norris

Link to tweet

Which gives us an answer to the eternal question about trickle down economics and self-funding tax cuts. When will the rich and the really rich ever have enough of our national wealth? Never.

So we might as well work toward a society where those who have much do not have too much and those who have little do not have too little. And we can safely ignore the pained squawks of the well off, who will never ever have enough.

In the college entrance case the prosecuting attorney stated,

"this does not compare to giving money for a new building or something and getting preference treatment for student entrance. "

They were the victims of fraud.

It costs a lot more than these people paid, though. It takes a charitable donation of at least tens of millions to buy a family member admission at an elite school.

These people took a cheap, illegal route.

...ugly thing about this is that the kids who got in by their own hard sweat and tears are now in places where the reputation is tarnished. And where they themselves will be looked at with suspicion, unless they go around with signs that say "I'm a student in debt" or "I'm a scholarship student".

Speaking of which---I think the endowment of these places will also be hurt--which hurts the scholarship kids! THose scholarhsip kids go through hell to be accepted and to stay in such institutions. They go--but can barely afford housing, food, books.

Meantime, most of Europe educates its motivated kids, tuition free.

Have been looking everywhere for how and why this scandal was uncovered. Why did this suddenly come to light out of nowhere after going on for years?

...that middle class parents like myself could never afford, weree it not for the generous financial aid package.

He has gratefully signed nonbinding statements that he will remember why he was able to get this spectacular education should he succeed in life.

One of his fellow high school students, also admitted, was a legacy kid. She was uncertain enough of her admission to apply early decision.

She was elated to get in after her brother had been rejected. She works very hard, struggles a bit, but holds her own. I don't resent that she didn't need quite the academic standing my son did for admission. Her parents are among those who made my son's attendance possible. I expect my son to show gratitude if he does well.

There is a difference between gratitude and corruption.

Because it's one of the few southern California schools that pledges to meet 100% of financial need. It's a school of a lot of rich kids whose tuition is supporting a lot of poor students, which I always remembered when I was there. I'd be in line for my financial aid behind a parent who might be writing a check for two kids' tuition.

When I was there, staff members got tuition breaks of, I think, 50% for their kids. I have friends whose parents worked in the cafeteria or in maintenance. They were also grateful to be there.

I applied from out of state to SC and to UCLA, and SC gave me a huge scholarship so that it was cheaper to go there. That's as it should have been; I didn't realize back then that of course UCLA would save its scholarship money mostly for in-state students.

I feel my degree getting devalued every day.

People recognize that this fraud was perpetrated by individuals, not the schools.

Pretty much I'm defined by what I know, not where I went to school. I supervise people who went to more prestigious schools than I did, and I have people from top schools come to me to ask if I can get them jobs.

All this made some small difference early in my career with respect to getting doors opened, but once the door opened, I was never kicked back out of it.

If I meet someone who went to Princeton or MIT, I can tell pretty quickly about how they got there and more importantly how they did there, and what they've been since they left there.

You got a good education, and your work will show it.

My son is attending a "hidden Ivy" and he can tell the difference among his peers, and could by his Freshman year. There is a big difference in the circles in which he, a merit student, and they, in their by virtue of money and connections, commiserate.

In general, they, the money people, party, mostly because they are crippled for life by not knowing the value of things.

There have always been cheaters. I'm sure for example, that Donald Trump never took an honest exam in his life. Perhaps they take a different form in these times, but they are not qualitatively different from Trump types 50 years ago. These people have nothing to do with you; nothing really to do with USC, except for the fact that the USC search committees may have hired people with extremely poor ethics in their athletic departments. I'm sure you didn't major in attending football games.

You cannot let yourself be devalued without your consent, to paraphrase Eleanor Roosevelt. If there is someone who automatically associates you and these people, you probably don't want to be too involved with that person anyway.

You know what you did to get your degree.

Let it shine.

In fact, I believe that the wealthy donors will respond by thinking that these are criminal, low-class posers. The donors' reaction will be to circle their own wagons of wealth and privilege. They're probably sneering at the people who've been charged.

Many of these entitled rich white kids who cheated their way through every challenge will soon be running the country. Always have. Maybe that’s why we get airplanes that fall out of the sky, crumbling bridges, meds that kill, and the constant assault on public education.

This crap makes me furious. I know that generalizations are flawed, but ... Fuck the upper crust!

The privileged’s spawn look down their noses at the rest of us.

How many big contributions to schools are reported as charitable deductions. How many are quid pro quo for getting Junior into the respective college? Any documented evidence that quid pro quo existed is tax fraud. If you have to remove the value of the steak dinner for a dinner charity ticket claimed on taxes, you should also have an imputed value for that admission. I would claim this prosecution shows that value is quite high.

Something like this could break the entire system open if someone was willing to push.

Then throw these thugs in JAIL............

Since the bribes were tax deductible, taxpayers were deprived of money that was owed to them, meaning that the government received less revenue than it should have, but "to pay" means to give someone money, and no government (taxpayer) money was given to the schools. To have one's income reduced is not the same as giving payment.

You can engage in some sort of sophistry to the effect that the bribers would not have been able to afford the bribes had they not been tax deductible, but that is nonsense. The money they paid in bribes was on the scale of petty cash to those people.

The taxpayer was certainly cheated, deprived of revenue that was due to it, but it did not "pay" or "foot the bill" for bribery.

And yes deductions mean a portion of taxes that would have been due would have been reduced. Therefore the rest of us bear the burden of those who cheat.

Everyday the rich with the help of bought politicians are screwing us to death.
How much will it take to put a stop it?

Change is going to come and don’t Be surprised if it comes with a vengeance.