Originally published at: Malibu parent convicted in college admissions scandal committed suicide at his home | Boing Boing
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I would think millions of dollars could fix his daughter’s test scores by getting her really good tutors.
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Ain’t no one wanted to see this outcome.
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It took a $2-miilion donation to get the blank-eyed dullard Jared Kushner into Harvard through the back door. Adjusting for inflation and discounting for a non-Ivy school, it sounds like this guy could have afforded to have gotten little Veruca into a name-brand private college in a similar way. Instead he opted to risk Singer’s illegal side door and potential (but in the end very lenient) consequences that came with it.
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Or a life coach or psychologist or substance abuse councilor or similar professional to help her “turn her life around.”
Most colleges are pretty forgiving of past indiscretions (especially persons of a certain melanin concentration) if the applicant shows they’ve made a serious effort at reform. A GED, couple years doing well at a community college (which provide excellent education and are unfairly looked down upon), and she’d be able to transfer to a four year college, possibly even USF.
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Exactly; City College of San Francisco sends transfer students to USF all the time and the tuition there is free for anyone who lives in San Francisco and has been a California resident for at least a year, so he could have just sent her up to S.F. with a bus ticket and some rent money.
If you’ve got the means to cheat your way into a fancy college you almost certainly have the means to do it the honest way.
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On the scale of things, was it really worth that?
Life goes on. Even for criminals.
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It appears that “losing a sense of perspective when evaluating possibilities for the future” was a recurring theme in this man’s sad life.
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But why? I mean, sure, we know why, but why did he risk so much to force his daughter to spend 4 more years in an academic environment when that was clearly not right for her?
I have no idea if she was acting out because of family issues, or if there was some medical reason, or what, but she clearly was not finding refuge at school, so why keep punishing her by making her go there?
Not every single person has to go to college. Period. And for some, going later in life is the right option.
He couldn’t see the forest for the trees.
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hey carla, i believe “died by suicide” is the preferred term these days.
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Yup my wife followed this exact route (after not graduating high school because of dyslexia), graduated summa cum laude from SF State
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The guy went to jail (mind, for just a month), was drug through the process, fined a decent amount of money, and his daughter didn’t get the college education anyway. Nothing he did worked. I kind of don’t feel good celebrating this one’s death.
Edit: misread. 1 month, not one day in jail.
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As @zeiche noted above, the term “died by suicide” is a much more sensitive and empathetic way of saying it.
I don’t usually like to bother contributors, but I really think that this also needs a link to suicide prevention/help centers (as should any article about suicide).
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One of the saddest things about this whole ordeal is that now this poor young woman will probably spend the rest of her life wondering whether her father would still be alive if she’d pushed herself harder to improve her grades. That’s a helluva burden to put on your kid.
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… or accept that ultimately we can’t control people, or fix them, with money
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This route has a much higher chance of long-term success, too. It seems unlikely that someone who needs faked credentials to get in to college will actually be able to do the work. Having done admissions myself, I really tried to avoid admitting students who wouldn’t be able to pass. Failing is hard on students, as well as those who work with them. Buying a test score is a bad investment.
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My guess is that the suicide is not only because of the conviction, nor because he had a troubled daughter, nor because he fell for a film-flammer who said he could fix things…
…but those are good indicators that the guy was not in a good place altogether.
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Thank you @Jesse13927 and @zeiche for bringing this to my attention. I appreciate it and have changed the wording in the post. I will also add a link.
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Some people will always celebrate when they see family dysfunction and suicide in the lives of people they dislike.
Plenty of people find the whole thing sad though…
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if only there weren’t such pressure for college.
If college was free to all who wanted to go.
If people didn’t just go for the “Label” over substance.
Higher Ed is a mess.
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