@DeepBlue86 “Whether or not some of his high school classmates had better stats is beside the point; Harvard likely thought he would go far in life (which would increase the reach and influence of Harvard while giving them another famous alumnus) and that he and his family would be highly supportive financially…”
Well that’s not exactly the most inspiring mission statement for a top-tier university, is it? We’re drifting rather far from “veritas.”
If anything, Harvard has been drifting closer to “veritas”. It’s history of only accepting from certain families reaches back pretty far. I think they’ve been moving in the right direction.
So all kids of billionaires should be admitted because they will be wealthy?
I hear you, @LadyMeowMeow, but Harvard is in the business of producing leaders across society, not just force-ranking applicants by stats. I don’t compare him to Jared, but I can think of another rich kid who despite an undistinguished academic record was voted most likely to succeed by his classmates and admitted to Harvard - that was JFK.
This is confirmed by one Ivy Prof who already had 2+ decades in by the time I had him/her* for a summer class in the late '90s.
S/he said something about how I’d be amazed at the amount of academic mediocrities admitted by his/her Ivy because they were athletes or legacy/developmental admits and how when s/he was inclined to give them mediocre or even failing grades due to the abysmal quality of work on projects/quizzes/exams, s/he would receive strong insistent pressure from the coach and higher admins at his/her institution to raise those grades to “acceptable levels” even though their academic performance didn’t merit such grade increases.
Really. We know zip about Jared’s worthiness when admitted. Oh, just what one journalist wrote. Is that enough? Really?
I’m no fan but some really get worked up with little info.
Don’t you wish they only admit Kushners and JFKs. They also admit nobodies with money who will stay nobody we don’t ever hear about. I am sure this is more widespread than we are made aware of. My beef is we are paying almost half of the money exchanged in this transaction through tax exemption.
And we can’t go on your 20+ year old anecdote either, cobrat. What motivated a scholar to say such a thing to a summer school student?
So many years ago when this book was written, the writer randomly picked Kushner because he knew years later he would be the son in law of a president elect?
Seems to me he clearly researched Kushner. Whose dad made the donation prior to going to prison.
It came up during a discussion about how undergrad admissions worked in his/her home country vs here in the US.
S/he felt the idea of holding certain applicants to lower academic standards on the basis of their athletic prowess or on the basis of family wealth and/or multiple generations attending the same college is to him/her absurd and calls into serious question whether it’s any different from past history in his/her country when university places/high status positions were awarded solely nepotistically on basis of one’s aristocratic birth and/or connections to the aristocratic class.
S/he found it a bit ironic considering the US was founded in part as a society which loudly proclaimed its rejection of the idea of aristocratic/higher SES privilege or social connections associated with it.
And btw, your math is off. The summer class/conversation took place in the late '90s, less than 2 decades ago…not 25+ years ago.
I think deepblue86 has it summed it up quite well.
Was Fantasy Island on 25+ years ago @lookingforward ? Maybe it was a little longer ago than that.
This is an interesting point, but it’s not just the US elite who get an advantage. The top US universities will admit the relatives, of members of the CCP PBSC, or Middle Eastern royalty. While development might be a factor, it’s also a way to expand their reach into the next generation of world leaders.
@Iglooo, what do you think these universities do with the donations that they get from people like the Kushners and Kennedys? For one thing, the average student at HYP pays something like half the tuition, room and board sticker price (this is all publicly disclosed in the universities’ financial statements, since they are nonprofits). Where do you think the money to cover this discount comes from? These days, a very substantial chunk of leading universities’ operating budgets, which include financial aid, academic program expenses, facilities costs, etc., are covered by spending from their endowments, because revenue from tuition and other sources is insufficient. The endowments are funded by donations from alumni and others. So, in effect, full tuition payers and donors are subsidizing the education of everyone else. I think this is entirely right and proper, but it also means that decisions on whom to admit are far more complex than they appear.
Let’s say you’re on the admissions committee and you have to decide between accepting a very promising first-gen minority student or a kid who seems perfectly capable, likely to succeed in life and be a credit to Harvard, whose family will also make a donation that will cover four years of full tuition, room and board for about 10 students, or permanently endow a professorship in a discipline that’s a priority for the university. Funnily enough, that’s what $2.5m (the reported Kushner pledge) would buy. What do you do?
The answer for most of us, I believe, is that you agonize over what would be best for everyone, knowing that there’s a finite number of spots, and you realize that there’s no right answer, just an incredibly complex balancing act as you build a class.
Harvard’s endowment is more than 36 billion. It could go tuition free, or forego these development admits and still be just fine. They wouldn’t even have to dip into their endowment to do it either. They don’t have to make the difficult calculations and trades that less wealthy schools do. They just want more.
DeepBlue, who do you think need the public help more, Harvard or State U? Couldn’t that $1.6M the public is paying for Kushner to attend Harvard through tax deduction be used to lower the tuition at a State U? To every dollar Kushner is paying to Harvard the publuc is matching 67 cents.
Well, if it was given by some non-tax paying rich dude, it wouldn’t cost the public anything because he wasn’t paying taxes anyway. As we have witnessed, not all wealthy people need more tax write-offs. Kushner’s father was in the same profession as the President-Elect, so…
It is not ethical for Harvard to accept that. Strictly speaking, it’s a tax fraud. They are accepting money as tax deductible donation when in fact it’s a sale of admission, exchange of goods, if anything there should be sales tax not tax deduction. They are defrauding non-profit status.
The family has donated $100M over the years to various causes. That makes it hard to just point to one specific donation and call it a quid pro quo.
@greenwitch, this is a common misconception. These universities are nonprofits, and therefore don’t run significant surpluses. Whatever revenues they earn, from tuition, grants, endowment income, etc., they spend, on financial aid, academic programming, facilities, etc. Sure, Harvard could decide to make tuition free for everyone - they’d just have to make enormous cuts to departments, staff, facilities, etc., to do it, and would fall behind other comparable institutions in these areas.
Unless other comparable universities made tuition free, and accepted that they would have smaller faculties, reduced missions and worse facilities because of it, why would Harvard be the first, when many more brilliant kids than they can admit are lining up to pay full freight and attend a university that they expect to offer the greatest possible number of opportunities to them? If Harvard makes tuition free for everyone, it means they can’t, for example, afford to build that cutting-edge science lab, or hire those great faculty. If your family makes under about $100k, you’ll pay very little to go to Harvard - it’s cheaper to you than many state schools because of the aid it offers - and you’ll attend a university almost without peer in terms of the academic and other opportunities it offers its undergraduates. This is the balance Harvard has chosen to strike with the resources available to it.
When the financial crisis hit, Harvard’s endowment fell substantially in value, meaning that the income available from it to support the operating budget was significantly reduced, and major budget cuts had to be made across the board, affecting everything from faculty appointments to hot breakfasts. The academic complex the university had planned to build across the river in Allston had to be left as a parking lot and only recently has the situation stabilized sufficiently (in part because of large gifts received) for them to restart it. The Faculty of Arts and Sciences (which includes Harvard College) still runs at a deficit, subsidized by other parts of the university. Nothing is free.
@Iglooo - by your argument, the richest universities (which happen to be the best-regarded while being among the cheapest to attend for their poorest students, as noted above), should be taxed on the gifts they receive and consequently prevented from offering the best education they can…because you say so. I would like Harvard to continue to be the best university it can be, so I disagree.