The Count of San Quentin?
Well, it’s been proven again…
Having lotsa money doesn’t equal having lotsa smarts.
Oh where to begin on this one…so much, so wrong, all in one place.
I’m sure everybody’s heard about it, how a number of wealthy parents, apparently afraid their pampered offspring couldn’t make the cut on their own, used however much filthy lucre it took to lubricate the college admissions process to let their less than illustrious little darlings slip into slots better taken by students actually possessed of the wit, talent and ability to be here.
Then they got caught.
And a whole new chapter in the history of dumb opened up for all to see.
From the get-go the story turns the old taunt, “If you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich?” right on its head. If these folks were so rich, why aren’t they smart? Really, it doesn’t take a Warren Buffet to figure that a kid from a family that can afford drop half a million to bribe the kid’s way into a school they’ll be dropping better than $75,000 a year for her to attend doesn’t really need a high powered college degree to stay ahead in life. If a kid with a million dollar running start on the rest of the world can’t make it on his own, even a degree from the Wharton School won’t make him less of a knothead.
Of course, it takes more than one a scam to make. Somebody had to be on the receiving end of the parental payola. But really, not much surprising here … nobody taking a bribe, running a scam or otherwise shaving points and taking a dive goes into it thinking they’re going to get caught. It’s garden-variety, greed fueled stupid; first cousin to the common impulse that makes Las Vegas glitter. It’s the lure of the easy buck and easy enough to understand.
But the folks on the other side of the deal … what were they thinking? And why were they thinking it?
Yeah, I doubt if we’ll ever really know, and, as far as the individuals involved, it probably doesn’t matter a whole lot. But it does raise a couple of really basic questions: What is money for? What is education for? And how does the one relate to the other.
When talk turns to taxes, I routinely hear my conservative friends say how they know better how to spend their money than the government. In their case, that may be true, but it’s pretty clear that not all of the overpaid and undertaxed uphold that paradigm.
Job creators, you say? Well, I suppose – for investigators, prosecutors, bail bondsmen, probation agents and prison guards, for sure, and, in the interest of full disclosure, I suppose I’m getting my tiny sliver of the pie right here. But what if Unca Sam had distributed all the cash funneled into graft, bribes and payoffs Pell Grants?
And what about education? Is reading Plato at the University of Southern California worth $50,000 a year more than reading The Republic at Winona State or UWL? Have college degrees descended to the level of an academic USDA grading system – Prime, Choice, Commercial, Canner & Cutter? Are students enrolled seeking knowledge and wisdom or status and prestige? If it’s the latter, let’s revise the Constitution to allow the rich and superfluous to purchase patents of nobility – it would simplify things and make room in the classroom for folks who might actually have an interest in what is being taught – heck, we could even use the proceeds to help fund those Pell Grants.
Wouldn’t that be a noble idea?