Pay for play college admissions
This is the story that can knock most other stories out of the way on cable news channels looking to fill hourly airtime for days. Unlike the President’s budget stories or bickering over the deficit, the Operation Varsity Blues story brought to us by the FBI includes wealthy elites and Hollywood actresses, too. Not to mention the fall-out the kids involved will have to live with the rest of their lives.
The L. A. Times published a piece on Felicity Huffman’s involvement and arrest. The author was absolutely beside herself. Not Felicity Huffman! Huffman’s is a finely crafted every-working mom kind of image for many female fans. Her monetary involvement in this corrupt pay-for-play college admissions con game seems small compared to say, fellow actress Lori Loughlin. Huffman allegedly shelled out $15,000 for someone to be a proctor either providing correct answers to admission tests or to take the test for her child. She was arrested at home at gunpoint and later released on $250,000 bond. Her husband, actor Willam H. Macy is not a part of this mess. Huffman turned over her passport.
The Edge College & Career Network went above and beyond the tutoring and multiple practice-test-taking typical of most private prep classes. According to federal prosecutors, owner William “Rick” Singer oversaw a full buffet of collegiate chicanery. In some cases, school officials were bribed to mark certain students as super-athletes, often in sports the student didn’t even play. In others, students’ SAT or ACT test results were rigged, with proctors who provided the correct answers or simply impostors who took the test in the student’s place.
On the other hand, television actress Lori Loughlin and her wealthy fashion designer husband, Mossimo Giannulli paid $500,000 for their two daughters to be admitted to college. I can only imagine that her husband’s customers at Target, where he has a reasonably priced fashion line for sale to the middle-class masses, had the same reaction I had to this story. It’s insane. Also, the only shocking part is that a couple of well-known actresses got caught up in the headlines. Loughlin’s husband was freed on a $1M bond as Lori Loughlin flew back to California from Canada where she was filming to turn herself in.
