College admissions scam reveals the one percent's anxiety about the 0.1 percent
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Having rich parents has always helped unlock the door to the best of what America has to offer — from the most desirable neighborhoods and schools to swank country clubs and professional positions. So what’s different now? Why are we seeing affluent people go to such extremes simply to get Junior into a good college ?
What’s happening is that the price of admission for everything coveted has gone up. And even some of the wealthy are having trouble keeping up.
It all comes down to the destructive effects of a runaway train called economic inequality. Several decades of policies that concentrate wealth at the top have produced a large gap between the rich and everybody else. But there’s also a growing chasm between the top one percent and the gold-plated group that has pulled away from them — the .01 percent.
In the last four decades, members of the .01 club have gotten richer far faster than their fellow one percenters. By 2012, the wealthiest group’s slice of America’s wealth pie was four times bigger than it was in the 1970s, according to economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman of the University of California at Berkeley.
In 2014, the top .01 percent, about 16,000 families, boasted annual incomes beginning at $7 million , according to Eric Zwick of the University of Chicago. In contrast, the one-percent category, which comprises about 1.6 million households, started with an annual income of just $386,000 , excluding any capital gains.
The merely affluent can’t compete with the superwealthy: Recent research by sociologists Roy Kwon and Brianna Salcido shows that global economic policies that curb government regulations and favor private businesses have mostly benefitted the .01 percent, but do not appear to have significantly impacted the incomes of the top 1.0 percent and top 10 percent. Perhaps that’s why the merely wealthy cohort is resorting to outright bribes and fraud to maintain a sense of privilege
Paying for fancy prep schools, hiring high-priced tutors and writing checks for tens of thousands — even hundreds of thousands — of dollars to an elite institution no longer scores big enough to beat the admissions game. Unless you’ve got the kind of cash to finance a new wing of the library, the old donation routine now is no guarantee. Jared Kushner’s family of real estate billionaires could buy their low-performing child entry into Harvard at a price tag of $2.5 million in 1998 . But today, even being a rich actor like Felicity Huffman won’t necessarily give you enough economic muscle to, say, underwrite a new science center at your kid’s school of choice.
All of which is mighty frustrating to the lesser lights in the one percent. As a top lawyer or a successful doctor or media figure, you may feel that you’ve put in hard work to get where you’ve gotten. You’re used to exotic vacations and magazine-worthy homes. Perhaps you own several fabulous pads. Naturally, you’ve been looking forward to providing your children with an elite college experience. But now you find yourself waiting in line behind Wall Street financiers, Silicon Valley tycoons and the silver-spoon heirs that increasingly make up the Forbes 400 .
The superrich own jets and mega-yachts . The rich fly first class and buy sailboats. The superrich send their kids to Harvard and Yale. The rich scramble for a spot at USC.
The income of the .01 percent comes largely from capital gains, which are taxed at a far lower rate than income earned from working. As their stock portfolios grow bigger, these folks are able to get wealthier and wealthier by doing absolutely nothing. They exist in a rarefied universe of palatial homes distributed around the word in places like New York, London, Dubai and the Cayman Islands, following the tax codes as the wealthy of yesteryear followed the seasons. Think of them as the giant hothouse plants of the world’s increasingly unhealthy economy — sucking up resources, blocking out sunlight and stunting everything else that tries to grow.
The unfairness of class privilege in America is not new. But what is new, or at least what has not been seen since the Gilded Age, is the splitting of the country into what economist Peter Temin sees as a “ dual economy .” In these kinds of economies, traditionally seen in the third world, upward mobility is a rare phenomenon.
In the United States, where a good college education has been a key ticket for economic and social advancement, places are getting fewer and more expensive . The bulk of citizens no longer have a chance for a stellar college experience, and the merely affluent are feeling the squeeze as the superwealthy block their way, too. Instead of looking forward to movin’ on up, more people are terrified of sliding down the mobility ladder.
Things will probably not get better until the affluent can appreciate their common ground with the rest of us and see that the superwealthy for what they are: the killer of dreams for us all.
Lynn Stuart Parramore
Lynn Stuart Parramore is a cultural historian who studies the intersection between culture, psychology and economics. Her work has appeared at Reuters, Lapham’s Quarterly, Salon, Quartz, VICE, Huffington Post and others. She is the author of “Reading the Sphinx: Ancient Egypt in 19th Century Literary Culture.”
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My kids went to a school where I saw some really bad snowplow parenting and I often thought that they were not doing their kids a favor. That they would not be able to deal with life without mommy and daddy's help. Now I look back and realize that this is as much about the parents themselves and not so much about their kids and I think, how pathetic.
no, enabling children, adolescents,and young adults, will only create an environment where as no favor is, was, or will be, the better method to teach some extremely valuable life lessons to these children, enabled.
We are preparing another generation of lazy, where ass they seem pretty damn sure, the world owes them something , for all the Nothing, they've achieved.
We are most definitely seeing the effects of that today and its not good.
Not good at all.
I see it every day in the workforce i'm trying to hire. A latent "entitled" mentality that generally did not exist in previous generations.
I have notice that many of my younger co-workers lack social skills in the workplace. They don't seem to know how to navigate interpersonal skills or just choose to be rude. Sure it comes from the same place of feeling "entitled".
GM X,
Exactly, a simple Good Morning seems to be difficult for them. When I say it, I get a grumbled "Good Morning" in return.
I've coached youth sports for many years now. There are kids that are eager to put in the hard work still. However, each passing year, its been my observation that the number of kids that simply expect to show up and have something handed to them increases. Being coached is offensive. That's the way things are progressing. Forget working a job. Putting effort into something that is fun is a chore. "Coach, really, I'm fine with hitting everything on the hands, and not being able to catch up to the high/inside pitch...sheesh."
I have seen both. I have seen good kids that come from nothing.
One boy I know was trying to join the Navy. Poor kid was real skinny and had a hard time making the weight requirement. He finally did.
I have seen a lot of them working and going to school.
I do know two kids that have never done anything for themselves. Neither of them will work and expect mommy/daddy to give them a credit card. The one girl refuses to work, failed and out college and was pissed that her BMW SUV was older than she wanted.
It is the way they were raised. There are a lot of good kids out there though.
Have many have you seen that came from nothing and joined the .01 percent or the 1 percent?
Who ever has and how did they do it?
I totally agree. I know quite a few actually.
A very concise word that I've come to use is narcissistic....
It gets you 90% of the way there, but there is still something missing....
Regards
I and my siblings had help from our millionaire parents. It's all about the best education you can buy.
Oprah.
Have many have you seen that came from nothing and joined the .01 percent or the 1 percent?
Who ever has and how did they do it?
In the business world, not so many
But what about professional athletes who rake in YUGE sums of money?
Athletes...as well as some popular musicians.
Have many have you seen that came from nothing and joined the .01 percent or the 1 percent?
Who ever has and how did they do it?
In the business world, not so many
But what about professional athletes who rake in YUGE sums of money?
Athletes...as well as some popular musicians.
Actually some folks from poor families did make it in other fields as well:
21 billionaires who grew up poor
Here are a few from that article:
(Note: None of these folks are millionaires-- rather they are billionaires! )
Isn't being selected to play pro sports or achieving huge wealth in the entertainment industry pretty much the same as winning the lottery?
How many pros have short lived careers and/or wind up broke within a few years of becoming unemployed?
I didn't see a lot of snowplow parenting or helicoptering when I went to college in the early 80's but my first college roommate couldn't do her own laundry. She went home every other weekend just so Mommy could do her wash.
My mother would have cuffed me alongside my head if I dragged my dirty clothes home
I think she would have been better off if her mother had taught her to wash her clothes before she went off to college, but that's just me. I had to do chores when I was growing up.
Called TOD (time of death) on both mom and dad. As the medical guy in the family it was up to me.
According to Chase Manhattan Bank I am a member of the top 1% of Americans financially. Just Barely! I must be the poorest member of the 1% because my lifetime savings only affords me a barely comfortable middle-class retirement in NY and my net worth is not even close to 1% of the wealth of the truly wealthy at the very very top. The 1% threshold, again according to Chase Manhattan Bank, is about the very lowest of possible seven figures which I am sure you can attest would not even put one into the upper middle class in Manhattan. What this means is that out in the real world 99% of all American families do not have a total net worth of just one million Yankee dollars including their homes, other assets and their total life savings. In fact, the average, or median, American family does not even have an appreciable net worth at all. About half of all American families today are, in reality, "Technical Bankrupts". Most all totaled actually really owe more than the the market value of all they own. So, no wonder there is mounting frustration among the masses regarding the concentration of nearly all of our cumulative wealth into the hands of mere dozens of families. Each of Sam Walton's six surviving primary heirs are now estimated to be 50-100 times richer than The Frigging Queen of Frigging England...
I knew Sam Walton. Sam was a customer of mine back in the late 1970's. Sam had big ambitions but I do not think he could have ever imagined or envisioned that we would over time adopt tax laws so regressive and top end preferential that our current unfair and inequitable distribution of wealth would evolve thanks to Reagan's and the damn gop's misbegotten supply side trickle down voodoo economic tax policies over these last 40 years.
With our current disparity between everyone else and the truly truly wealthy, multi-multi millionaires and billionaires, it is not surprising that those at the very top have become adept at leveraging their advantages for themselves and their children. In other new, shares in Guillotines Inc hit new highs yesterday...
If the redistribution of wealth is such a bad bad thing, according to the gop, then why in Hell did we employ the gop's unenlightened misbegotten ill advised bassackwards unfair and inequitable dumbass trickle down voodoo economic supply side tax policies to systematically transfer more and more and more of all our cumulative national wealth to the already unconscionably wealthy over the last generation?
I coached for 26 years. I finally got to the point where I would ask the mommies.... "When we go to the weight room, do you intend to lift the weights for him, too?"
They're all going to be screaming "You're a socialist, Perrie!"
LOL.. I just got around to reading the commentary here, Trout.
Really, this is not so much about money as it is about the attitude that kids are brought up with. While I did send my kids to a school, filled of entitled kids, we didn't raise ours that way. We told them that they would go to the college they earned ( or none at all, if that was the case). We gave them chores around the house and if they were not done, no allowance. They later worked as babysitters and tutored other kids. I am not bragging when I tell people that they went to Johns Hopkins on a full ride, since it really had nothing to do with us, other than teaching them the value of hard work.
There were a few other kids like them, and they are doing well, but so many are still depending on their parents to live.
The seeded article isnt really about "snowplow" parenting or kids who feel entitled. It is about economic inequality.
That's because the usual suspects only want to discuss "the Dreaded Millenial"
I'm beginning to think that none of them have kids of their own
Oh, I know. I remember my parent's generation looking at my generation with scorn and fear (dear god, what have we wrought)
Me too! I didn't walk miles in the snow to go to school.
Exactly.
And unsurprisingly, a tangent against the working class kids for not having a proper minion attitude to the uber wealthy ensued.
Where is the outrage about the .01 percent raking in their wealth by exploiting the labor of the 99.99 percent?
Unions were very bad for the .01 percent. Hence, they have been almost eliminated in the US.
A good example of work force exploitation is how this country treats it public school teachers and the move to privatize education in this country. Research charter schools. Our children's education should not be a source of profit for Wall Street or in the hands of the .01 percent.
That's BS. I've been in and working around Unions for over 40 years and they have largely done it to themselves. It had little to nothing to do with the .01%
Same story. Many public schools are failing in their mission. One of the reasons is unreasonable Teacher Union rules and practices. Competition is good. Make the playing field even and may the system that teaches our kids the best win. If that is Public schools? More power to em!
But no more free lunch for Public School systems? That's a good thing.
If the playing field was even, then all schools would have to operate to the same standard, This is not, and never has been, the case with charter schools.
I have researched this subject for years because of the move to move public education (taxpayer money) to Wall Street profiteers and their ilk. IOW, people who do not have a social conscience of any kind when it comes to their own income.
What is an unrealistic raise?
How does that compare to a man raking in $10,000,000 on capital gains by exploiting workers' wages?
When does that become unrealistic?
How so?
The profits for the .01 percent has been on a steady incline while the wages of everyone else have been falling. Seems like there might be a correlation.
Or option 3, join with the other wage slaves and demand better treatment.
The first unions were created by women who were exploited by their employer.
Hopefully, the US will never experience another day when the employer can hire guns to kill exploited workers or send in the state militia to defend mistreatment of workers....
Are you claiming that Bill Gates and Elon Musk actually work 24 hours a day to build and transport products and put them on the shelves?
Where are the profits for the people who are actually doing the work to implement the ideas of engineers?
I would prefer that no one wastes their life being miserable and/or living in squalor.
How about you?
Not sure how any of that equates to an unlevel playing field. A lot of it simply makes sense. Like teacher age. Most public schools have been around for many decades so average teacher age would be higher. Most Charter school have been around for only a couple of decades or less so teacher age would tend to be lower. Not sure how that equates to a lower standard though.
more on what Bill Gates actually does. It appears that he profits from the skills of his workers who design write code and develop new products.
We really really need to teach people who innovate to patent their own work and quit signing agreements with companies to own their workers' intellectual properties.
If you really care and want to know then research it. If not, then don't. It is pointless for me to discuss a subject with someone who does not care enough to do their own research on at least a basic level.
There was a movie made about Bill Gates and how he managed to become the "entrepreneur" he is today.
First he went to IBM selling them an operating system that he didn't really have. He sold them on the idea. Then he found a man who designed an operating system, bought it from him for $50,000 then went back to IBM and showed them his "product".
He never designed MS-DOS....somebody else did
Everything Microsoft has been attributed to Bill Gates as if he is the computer god.
Interesting to know the facts that he is just another scavenger (born with a silver spoon) with an ability to recognize other people's talent and exploit it for self gain. Thank you.
Common liberal talking point and not true. Since 1960 US wages have grown over 6% a year on average. Sure their have been downswings but it has always recovered. One can extrapolate from the data that the "increase percentage per year" is on a downward trend. But to say that wages have been falling is disingenuous. Generally speaking they have not on average.
Even your own link doesn't say 6% average, it says it has been 4.2% growth on average including all the top 1% earners salaries and isn't adjusted for inflation.
"The latest hypothetical real (inflation-adjusted) annual earnings are at $38,942, down 11.6% from 45-plus years ago."
"today’s real average wage (that is, the wage after accounting for inflation) has about the same purchasing power it did 40 years ago. And what wage gains there have been have mostly flowed to the highest-paid tier of workers."
People have always been free to do just that or to not sign agreements they are uncomfortable with. No one is forcing them to And If they didn't need a companies resources to create and patent their own work why would they do it? Are they all stupid or something?
It's how they system works. People profit by getting paid to do their assigned work. Thats their portion of the company profits that comes from their labors. Doesn't really matter what the job is. Picking up trash or building rockets. Everyone get gets paid for their efforts. If one isn't happy with ones pay, they are free to seek other, potentially more profitable work.
I've never really fully understood some folks dislike towards successful businesses that create jobs for everyone. Why shouldn't they profit from their endeavors just like anyone else who makes a wage?
Sure it does. Read it again.
So a millionaire/billionaire who makes money by exploiting the labor of others are just getting paid for their labor?
LOL ..... nice cop out.
Have nice day!
So i guess by your definition, everyone who has employees ..... is "exploiting" them. Right?
Just be thankful there are people willing to go through all the BS required to start and run businesses. There is no guarantee of success when they do. No guaranteed paycheck like an employee gets and there is also a reason most of them fail within the first few years.
Both good public schools and kids who don't have empty tummies because they are poor is important. It is not an either or and it doesn't have to be.
Charter schools have been around for about 30 years, so that is not why they get younger teachers. I am not sure why they do, but I will tell you that experience in the class makes for a more efficient and effective teacher. In fact, studies have shown that classroom management is just as important as being able to convey information to the students.
When we used to have "Teach for America" kids come in and try to teach our students, they would last a few weeks and quit. They didn't have either of those traits that I made bold.
Wrong.
However, the majority of the people who rake in over $10 million a year do not work.
At the cost of 100s of millions of dollar to taxpayers when the the charters go bankrupt because they don't want to invest the money required to buy and/or build building to operate their business? Not only did these children not get an education, the public school district was deprived of the taxpayer money that was funneled to the business owners.
Our children's education and our country's future should not be in hands of people operating schools for their own profit.
Public education should not be a for profit enterprise. If there is room for profit, then there is room to use that same money to directly benefit the teachers and students via public school.
Below is just one example of the fraud that has been ongoing since the legalization of charter schools that was signed in to law by Clinton back in the 1990s.
Taxpayers have lost roughly $1 BILLION to fraud and waste in the charter school sector.
Is that the kind of "level playing field" that you support?
Charter schools in Philadelphia are bringing back segregation and cherry picking their students.
Is that example of making the playing field even? Should charter schools be allowed to discriminate when they are supposed operating as a public school on taxpayer money?
Not quite, while the first “Charter school” in the US did start around 1992 most of them are much newer than that. Regardless, the machine that is the “Public School” systems has been around for much longer. Hundreds of years in many urban areas. That lends itself to an older work force as people have had longer to work towards retirement.
That said, my main point here is it’s good for the Public school system to have the competition. Many public schools are clearly failing our kids so the charter school option is good so folks have a choice.
Its competition, the American way, let the chips fall where they may.
I see, so who decides who is exploiting their employees? You?
At what point is it exploitation? 10 million? So I guess the guy making 9.99 million is okay eh? No? Then how much is “okay?”
Nah, your comments hold no water They’re just rationalizations against the man. That’s all.
How about the billions, maybe trillions, taxpayers have lost on failing public school systems? We spend significantly more per student than most other countries but don’t get a significantly better result. In fact our results are substandard in many cases in spite of spending so much more.
Thats the main reason Charter schools started in the first place. Public schools are failing our kids.
If that weren’t true I doubt Charter schools would be much of a force today.
This is pretty simple.
I’m for school choice. You are not.
You want everyone to be hamstrung to, in many cases, failing public school systems. I don’t.
Noted .....
Some are, most are not. Same is true for Public schools so whats you point?
Funds are getting "embezzled" by public teacher unions every day ....
Good job Betsy. Working to offer Americans a choice.
Freedom of choice. The stuff America was built on.
Lol .... the only nonsense here is your post. Why do you even bother responding with drivel like that?
And a nanny nanny boo boo to you too
One persons nonsense is many, many, many, many peoples common sense .... over in the many camp we all have hope that someday the one's might learn that.
No, i'm all for Public schools but they can't have a blank check to keep failing. Many have proven time and time again they are failng our kids. Charter schools would have never even started had Public schools not failed to adequately educate. Throwing more money at it doesn't usually work as proven by many big city public schools. Most are paying significantly more per student and not getting a significantly better result.
Something had to be done. The option of another school, other than a failing public school, is a good option by any reasonable definition. Yeah, teacher unions don't like it much. Understandable. It threatens their decades old monopoly.
There is an element of our society that is working to do just that. If they get their way, we will all have to pay a toll to drive on a road or a bridge just to get to work every day.
True. Not anymore. Not since Charter Schools became an option.
Nope, wrong again. Unlike Public schools if they fail, they go out of business. Done, finito, gone. No muss, no fuss, no astronomical unfunded liabilities for tax payers to be burdened with at a later date.
And there is the debate and i disagree with your stance.
The Charter schools i speak of are not private schools of choice by say religion. Thats the distinction. Thats why its different.
They are a private school, offering the same secular education as public schools. The people sending them there are paying taxes just like everyone else.
So why should their tax dollars go to public schools?
Same thing that happens when a public school fails and closes.
You do know Public schools fail and close each year right.
Or perhaps you don't ......
Here you go sister:
Enjoy!
I agree, they should be open to the same scrutiny. A equal and fair scrutiny, same as any Public school.
In Michigan the same laws apply to Charters school and Public schools. As it should be.
Again, Charter schools are required to follow all the same laws and rules as public schools. That means no discrimination. They must accept all that apply if they have room for them.
There is a lot of misinformation being spread out there by politicians and union adherents. Some folks are more interested in bagging on Betsy Devos than dealing with facts.
Yes they are tuition free. Yes, there is usually a waiting list due the popularity of them. If that happens the students get entered into a lottery so that is one drawback. The reason is they don't have the luxury of tax funded facilities like Public school so they do have some limitations.
Interestingly last i checked, in Michigan they get about 20 to 30% less per student than public schools get.
Thanks to you as well. It's nice to have a reasonable conversation here. It happens so little these days. Lots of trolls guarding their bridges i guess.
I love this time of year. Nothing better than March madness. I have three brackets with State winning two of them. Both will be chicken dinner if i do. The other one ... not so much. I had Gonzaga in that one but North Carolina and Duke losses crushed many, many more brackets.
I'm really looking forward to some great basketball Saturday and Monday. Not much getting down at my casa on those days. Much to the chagrin of some of my casa's other occupants.
GO GREEN!
Public schools have more scrutiny and higher government accountability than charter schools. Public schools MUST accept all of the students in their district. Charter schools can choose who to accept. The charter schools do not have to accept the immigrant children who do not understand English and hire bilingual teachers in the same ways that the public schools do.
Regardless of a person's stance on illegal / legal immigration, the cost of public schools for educating children that do not speak and/or understand English is a major burden on US school systems that did not exist until recent years.
Many of the charter schools in states with a large immigrant population were started to educate the children who do not speak English.
As taxpayers, we should know how our money is being spent and what the results are in order to gauge how effective our education system really is.
In no way, should public education be a for profit business because after our education is thoroughly privatized the business owners will be raising their rates (our taxes) so their business turns a better profit.
We bailed out the banksters & Wall Street in 2008. There is no way that these folks can be trusted to be in charge in any way about our children's education.
Due to NCLB legislation (signed by GW Bush) that took funds from public schools that needed help and funneled that money to privatized schools.
Not in Michigan. Charter school are held to the exact same standards as Public schools.
Please stop pushing this disinformation.
Wrong again for Michigan. Charter school must accept all students who apply. Again, they have to follow the same rules regulations and laws as Public schools. The only limiting factor for most Charter schools is classroom space as they don't have a mandate like Public schools have for taxpayer funded facilities. For the most part they fund their own facilities and therefore are a bargain for taxpayers
So due to the popularity of Charter schools many have more students applying than they can accommodate. In which case, as noted above, they get put into a lottery to get in. There is absolutely no discrimination other than the lottery which isn't really discrimination at all.
Please stop pushing this disinformation.
More disinformation in Michigan
Please provide your links that prove otherwise for all of your assertions.
Otherwise, please stop trying to spread disinformation.
Lol and i bet you said that with a straight face right?
You're really digging deep now. You quote one young Politico reporters opinion. Not very compelling.
That said, taxpayer dollars can not be "legally" spent on Private/Religious schools except in generally extreme circumstance. Students with disabilities, low income families, etc. Each state is different and not all states have "voucher" programs so not all state even make exceptions to allow for taxpayer funded school vouchers. See link below:
Hope that helps get you on the right track on this topic!
Cheers!
How do these for-profit companies make money on a charter school?
Good question. I believe the majority of us understand that businesses expect to make a profit regardess of the quality of the product they are selling.
According to a Forbes article there are several ways to make profits even from a non-profit charter.
Some numbers to explain why the millionaires/billionaires are pushing for the privatization of public education.
It is all about the profits.
Do we really want Wal-Mart, politicians and hedge fund managers in charge of our children's education?
that's a lot of informatin. Thanks.
I thought that charter schools were publicly funded but I see that a lot of corporations are funding them, too
Sounds almost like the privatization of prisons. Making money off of a revolving door.
Yeppers.
Just about everything that can be outsourced has been.
Now the race is on to privatize everything that cannot be outsourced.
This has been happening over several decades. Recently, the privatization of military housing back in the 1990s has been in the news because of the deplorable conditions of on base housing after being privatized.
Our money is being squandered and there has been a push to pour Social Security into Wall Street coffers since the 1990s.
Please read the following article about the political drive to give tax payer money to Wall Street and private business.
What did i lie about?
I'll answer that for you. Nothing.
Nothing in that link directly refutes anything i've said or linked on the topic. Nothing. Yeah, some of it is weak-assed rationalizations/spin that can be disingenuously applied to the topic at hand but that's about it.
Like usual, you know jack-shit about what you're talking about.
Good to know. What regulations?
Relative to other states? Again good to know but so what? Problem is it doesn't refute anything i've said here about Michigan Charter schools. Keep digging though. Perhaps the NEA sources you are likely using can help you out with some more propaganda.
Recently the DOD did a survey of all their privatized housing. Mr Giggles was involved because of where he works. He was the head of a team that consisted of Civil Engineering, hospital, and other staff to evaluate the living conditions of base housing. It was all driven by housing resident complaints DOD wide. Don't know what they found, but after they privatized the housing at LRAFB, they built new houses and renovated some, but also tore down a lot of housing.
I don't know if it's any better under a contractor or not. We moved out before it went privatized
John,
That is part of it, but come on, a lot of this has to do with bad parenting. The fact that the semi rich Jones want to keep up with the really rich Jones is just the icing on the cake. It brings it to the light, since it makes it interesting to the public.
People who have the money can bribe their kids way into colleges that they want.
People without the money don't have that "bad parenting" option. That is why it is about income inequality.
Things will probably not get better until the affluent can appreciate their common ground with the rest of us and see that the superwealthy for what they are: the killer of dreams for us all.
That's quite an over-generalization!
Sure, its true of many (perhaps even most?) of them.
But not all-- many have contributed much more to society than many of us have:
The Giving Pledge:
The Giving Pledge is an effort to help address society’s most pressing problems by inviting the world’s wealthiest individuals and families to commit more than half of their wealth to philanthropy or charitable causes either during their lifetime or in their will.
In August 2010, 40 of America’s wealthiest individuals and couples joined together in a commitment to give more than half of their wealth away. Created by Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett, the Giving Pledge came to life following a series of conversations with philanthropists around the world about how they could collectively set a new standard of generosity among the ultra-wealthy. (cont'd)
Uh, some of this "giving" is a tax dodge and buying "goodwill". If the tax code is changed to eliminate the estate tax, the "giving" might be less or non existent.
Also, who is actually benefiting from this "giving"? Where is the oversight so we know that the charities are not funneling money to heirs as overseers of the charities?
Aww. The poor 1% is feeling a little of keeping up with the Jones'.
Somehow I don't feel bad for people with 300 mil in the bank just because they have people with 300 bil over them.
They are not hurting as this article suggests.
I do feel bad for them. It sounds like such a shallow existence.
We should be looking at why the cost of college tuition has increased at a ridiculous rate...not at who can out bribe a university.
Not too many folks fight the fight against the "COST OF LIVING".
They're GREAT at fighting the fight to …… GET MORE...... to keep up !
Many of the costs for college have been rising as the states are reducing the levels of funding they provide to those colleges.
Everything today is a race to the bottom line to the benefit of shareholders. States cut taxes for businesses in a hope they will stay in their states. (see how that has worked out for Kansas). The resulting reduced tax revenue mandates cutting state spending on infrastructure, health care, and education.
This is just math people. If we want and need things like roads and good schools, we have to pay for them. Toss in the simple economic fact that money has to change hands for our economy to work. If it pools in bank accounts, it doesn't circulate, and the system grinds to a halt, and that's what we're seeing today. Furthermore, that money has to circulate in OUR economy. Investments overseas don't do a damn bit of good for the USA.
The economic world has changed. Corporations no longer have loyalty to their employees, nor feel any community, or national responsibility. Corporations only loyalty are to their shareholders.
This is an interesting opinion...
BOULDER, Colo. — ONCE upon a time in America, baby boomers paid for college with the money they made from their summer jobs. Then, over the course of the next few decades, public funding for higher education was slashed. These radical cuts forced universities to raise tuition year after year, which in turn forced the millennial generation to take on crushing educational debt loads, and everyone lived unhappily ever after.
This is the story college administrators like to tell when they’re asked to explain why, over the past 35 years, college tuition at public universities has nearly quadrupled, to $9,139 in 2014 dollars. It is a fairy tale in the worst sense, in that it is not merely false, but rather almost the inverse of the truth.
The conventional wisdom was reflected in a recent National Public Radio series on the cost of college. “So it’s not that colleges are spending more money to educate students,” Sandy Baum of the Urban Institute told NPR. “It’s that they have to get that money from someplace to replace their lost state funding — and that’s from tuition and fees from students and families.”
In fact, public investment in higher education in America is vastly larger today, in inflation-adjusted dollars, than it was during the supposed golden age of public funding in the 1960s. Such spending has increased at a much faster rate than government spending in general. For example, the military’s budget is about 1.8 times higher today than it was in 1960, while legislative appropriations to higher education are more than 10 times higher.
Interestingly, increased spending has not been going into the pockets of the typical professor. Salaries of full-time faculty members are, on average, barely higher than they were in 1970. Moreover, while 45 years ago 78 percent of college and university professors were full time, today half of postsecondary faculty members are lower-paid part-time employees, meaning that the average salaries of the people who do the teaching in American higher education are actually quite a bit lower than they were in 1970.
By contrast, a major factor driving increasing costs is the constant expansion of university administration. According to the Department of Education data, administrative positions at colleges and universities grew by 60 percent between 1993 and 2009, which Bloomberg reported was 10 times the rate of growth of tenured faculty positions.