Third Way: The National Admissions Scandal and the Oligarchical Corruption of Meritocracy

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Attending a university and obtaining a college degree has long been recognized as being key to social advancement. Indeed, studies have shown that successfully completing a university education quadruples the chances of achieving upward social mobility, especially among the poorest graduates. Furthermore, since at least the Eighteenth Century fiscal accommodations have been made for poor or middle-class students who performed remarkably well in university entrance examinations, a practice which has progressively evolved into the meritocratic system that ostensibly reigns today, where high test scores and academic achievement translate to near-guaranteed admission and even subsidized education. So central is the promise of social advancement through college that completing a degree has been infused with the American Dream and is now seen as a prerequisite to success in later life. Inculcated as it is into American culture, tertiary education now represents a right of passage for many students and has fueled increased competition to not only attend college in general but to obtain one of the increasingly dwindling admissions slots at the most prestigious universities as a means to distinguish oneself among the elite, even if one’s social origins would generally preclude the use of the label. 

With the increased demand and accessibility to higher education has also come to a dramatic rise in the costs to attend. Since the 1980s college tuition rates have risen faster than both inflation and wages, making the average cost of $104,480 to attend college today four times higher than the average of $26,902 in 1989 (or more than twice the cost when adjusted for inflation). As a result, many have grown to see tertiary education, especially that offered by the most prestigious colleges, as restricted to the rich and barely accessible to those of lesser fiscal stature who are subsequently hamstrung by student loan debt which at $1.5 trillion now represents the largest share of non-household debt in the United States. These realities have prompted calls for higher education reform through government policies aimed at democratizing, equalizing or socializing the costs of higher education, most notably through “free college for all” schemes. Indeed, since first injected into the mainstream during the 2016 Presidential Election, free tuition is understood as essential to curtailing the privileges of the rich and has since become a virtual litmus test for Democratic candidates attempting to win political office.

With free tuition and other college reform programs once again taking center stage as progressive Democrats flock to compete for the Presidency in 2020, a new scandal has taken hold of the American conscience which further highlights the inequitable university admissions process in respect to its treatment of rich and poor. The now infamous National Admissions Scandal which broke news last Tuesday is a conspiracy involving a slew of socio-economic elites who allegedly sought to guarantee the admission of their children to elite universities by paying astronomical sums of money to serve as bribes for influential characters in the typical college admissions process. As of this writing, fifty individuals from the elite strata of society, such as celebrity actresses, CEOs, a fashion designer and the co-chairman of a global law firm, have been charged with various counts of fraud. This group, described by the DOJ as a “catalogue of wealth and privilege,” allegedly engaged a middle-man to bribe and induce SAT and ACT proctors to falsify exam scores, college athletics coaches to shortlist students for athletic recruitment and other members of university admissions committees in order to guarantee admission to elite universities for their children.

While fraud and privilege by the rich in academic admissions may be scandalous indeed, in a sense the gravity of the scandal goes beyond university admissions and touches at the core of society. It is now common knowledge that the children of the rich possess unique advantages when applying to colleges. Benefitting from their parents’ social capital, these children make stronger legitimate applicants due to their expanded access to internship opportunities, private tutoring for their high school curriculum in general and for standardized tests in particular and profit from the importance of their parents either as public figures (e.g., celebrities) or as distinguished professionals whose likely prior attendance at these elite universities give the children a so-called “legacy” advantage when applying. Rather, the incident is important and unsettling due to the fact that this scheme was so abruptly an exercise of privilege and undermines the meritocratic ideal on which American values rest.

In a free and fair democratic society, an advantage is theoretically open to all who possess the merit to obtain it. With merit being a function of ability and effort, a socio-political regime such as the constitutional United States should not enable its members to rig a system in order to advance above the truly meritorious. Since the channeling of ability and effort to success forms the bedrock of the American Dream and, by extension, of the nation’s culture, incidents such as the National Admissions Scandal that bring to light the unjust exertion of privilege injure not only those unlucky enough to have been directly cheated out of an accomplishment (e.g., attending a premier university), but also the entire body politic which has come to expect that such blatant incidents of fraud would not occur among decent peoples such as themselves. As such, this university scandal is merely a small example of the wanton assumption of superiority that many of the wealthy class seem to feel entitled to, and that many of the bottom ninety percent are increasingly despondent about.

Specifically, the National Admissions Scandal as it stands and as it is likely to grow carries two important implications for American politics. First, with the privileges of the rich becoming more apparent and seemingly bolder, more Americans may become increasingly hostile to what they are coming to understand as the unrestrained advantages that the wealthy have over the rest of society. Already, sixty percent of Americans are bothered that the rich don’t pay a fair share of their taxes, with over three-quarters of Democrats expressing the same. However, while disagreements over the equitable distribution of the fiscal burden of taxation may only provoke disagreement, the abuses of wealthy elites in processes traditionally understood to be largely meritocratic and equally advantageous to all (e.g., education) may prove a tipping point for those Americans who as of yet have refused to condone Marxist-style arguments of inherent class conflict. Indeed, actions such as this most recent scandal may elicit substantial political change should they persist, and may enable Democrats to win over all organs of government as more and more Americans begin to sympathize with radical anti-rich policies such as the recently proposed 70 percent income tax.

Second, the National Admissions Scandal points to glaring deficiencies in the ostensibly fair and standardized admissions process and suggests that making higher education more equitable may require more than offering free tuition. The modern and convoluted American education system has long been the target of blame for what many see as a decrease in the quality of education in the U.S. Indeed, the standardized test, the hallmark of American education rarely used outside of the Union, is seen as a poor indicator of success in many scenarios. Additionally, while enrollment in private schools may be decreasing, the higher level of educational achievement within them due to their advanced resources which enable them to maintain smaller class sizes, a key to success in secondary school, contribute to inequity between the educations of the rich and poor. Furthermore, as the scandal itself demonstrates, tuition rates and the growing costs of university education are by no means the only disadvantage faced by less financially secure applicants. As such, while guaranteeing free tuition to public universities is a laudable and essential policy to ensure the proper educational advancement of the next American generation, policymakers must also tackle other discrepancies in the system for higher education to be truly made equitable and meritocratic. Finally, implementing a tuition for all program limited to public schools (which is the likely reality should such a policy ever be implemented) must also plan for the increase rates of attendance so that high-tuition charging private schools who maintain their reduced student-faculty ratios are not further enhanced and chosen by the rich to advance their posterity over those of the average American.