College admission scandal
The college admission scandal has a lot of us angry, and for good reason. Most students at Monmouth College pride themselves on their dedication and perseverance to academics, but stories like these remind us that not everyone has the same circumstances. And for students who are privileged in wealth or class, college can be more of a bartering situation than one of commitment. Recently, a student applying to the University of Southern California was involved in a massive scheme to get her into the college without doing the proper work involved. Multiple students are now being prevented from registering for classes until the college determines who was involved in the scheme. For students like us, this news may be aggravating – it seems like the family involved can simply pay their way out of the responsibility of their actions. The indictment says that Lori Loughlin forged documents, pretended her children were athletes and had other people write essays and bulk up exam scores. To most people, this seems absolutely ridiculous. Who has the money to pay their way into college? I, for one, am just trying to pay for potato chips and tuition. I can’t imagine wasting that much money to attend a college that I am not qualified to attend. The parents of Olivia Jade paid a half million dollars to get their daughter into the school she dreams of – and likely, this student will not try to thrive academically or participate in student activities. Above all, it is unfair for a student to succeed only because of money or status. This puts marginalized students in a place of disadvantage because they’re already fighting against a system that favors other groups over theirs even without a scheme. This is a story that many people will either resonate with or despise because most people, at one point or another, wish that life would be that easy – that someone could just pay for you to live the good life. But that’s not the reality. Many of us aren’t being supported by our parents during college, and have had to work really hard to earn scholarships to get by. Either way, what Olivia Jade did was wrong, and real college students know that college takes a whole lot more than money. What do you think? Reach out to our Twitter!
Carrie King
Contributing Writer