In 2006, reporter Daniel Golden wrote a book called “The Price of Admission” about how uber-rich families buy places for their children at elite colleges.
In this article published in ProPublica, Goldren says that the Kushner story was included in his book. He never dreamed that the Jared Kushner story would one day be a big deal.
He writes:
“My book exposed a grubby secret of American higher education: that the rich buy their under-achieving children’s way into elite universities with massive, tax-deductible donations. It reported that New Jersey real estate developer Charles Kushner had pledged $2.5 million to Harvard University in 1998, not long before his son Jared was admitted to the prestigious Ivy League school. At the time, Harvard accepted about one of every nine applicants. (Nowadays, it only takes one out of twenty.)
“I also quoted administrators at Jared’s high school, who described him as a less than stellar student and expressed dismay at Harvard’s decision.
“There was no way anybody in the administrative office of the school thought he would on the merits get into Harvard,” a former official at The Frisch School in Paramus, New Jersey, told me. “His GPA did not warrant it, his SAT scores did not warrant it. We thought for sure, there was no way this was going to happen. Then, lo and behold, Jared was accepted. It was a little bit disappointing because there were at the time other kids we thought should really get in on the merits, and they did not.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
My husband has an MBA from Wharton. He receives two publications from the U of P that I sometimes read. Last issue of “The Pennsylvanian” contained an ad that I found shocking. It invited “legacy parents” to meet with admission counselors. I can understand parents meeting with financial aid, but not admissions. I do not know how long the wealthy have been buying spots in the ivy league, but perhaps it explains Trump and G W Bush.
It looks like the Trumps may have a history of buying bachelor’s degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, as the Donald, Ivanka, and Junior all went to Wharton. Tiffany graduated from the University of Pennsylvania as well, though she didn’t major in business. I think Eric, who went to Georgetown U, is the only exception. None earned master’s degrees. (No surprise there.)
When George W was POTUS, there were many discussions about his level of intelligence and the likelihood of his legacy admission to Yale, where his father is an alum. I don’t know how, with a C average at Yale, https://web.archive.org/web/20140414133157/http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/08/politics/08kerry.html?_r=4&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin Bush was able to get into Harvard Business School or how he earned an MBA there, but we learned from the Walmart heiress that the rich sometimes pay people to complete their coursework in college: http://articles.latimes.com/2005/oct/20/local/me-heiress20
Joe Biden’s grandson or daughter, I forget, were in the same class as Tiffany.
Yes and yes! $$$$$$ talks and bs walks.
Jared’s dad is skeevy in other ways.
What follows is like something out of a night-time soap opera like DALLAS or DYNASTY.
http://nypost.com/2004/07/15/sex-gal-now-helping-feds-hooker-turns-on-kushner/
When he was being prosecuted for financial crimes and illegal political donations, Charles Kushner, Jared’s dad, attempted to silence trial witnesses through a bizarre and sordid blackmail scheme.
Charles would hire prostitutes to pose as chance acquaintances to the witnesses. The hookers would then make romantic overtures to the witnesses, then lead them to a certain motel room for the encounter. Jared’s dad would then be in the next room and videotape the tryst through a one-way mirror. (I’m not making this up, folks. It’s all in the link above.)
Jared’s dad would then send a copy of the video to the witness. At this point, he would demand that the witness change his testimony. If the witness refused, Jared’s dad would would then threaten to send the tape to the witness”s wife.
One of those witnesses was the husband of Charles’ own sister Esther (i.e. Jared’s aunt).
WTF???!!!
They must not be a very close family … just a guess.
And the prosecutor in the case was none other than Chris Christie.
One of the hookers, threatened with prosecution, turned on Jared’s dad and testified against him. This just added more charges — witness tampering, prostitution across state lines, etc.
Nothing new here, this country has been like this just about from the start.
Since when has this been a “grubby secret?”
It is common knowledge.
I thought so
This country has been doing this just about from the start, nothing new here. Look at the people in politics, wealthy elite entitled AH’s and it’s getting worse. They buy their way in, take No responsibility for their actions, do nothing, rip the public off and get their banks accounts filled with under the table money to get the corporate agenda through. Daddy bought them everything thing. You actually think the bushes and #45 had the brains to get into any school without a bribe?
My opinion of the elite schools, especially Harvard has been dropping for some years now. Their grads made up a sizeable slice of those elite “masters of the universe” who destroyed the global economy back in 2008. Many people of lower pedigree knew that the miserable economic policies pushed by this crew would likely lead to disaster. I suspect the elites knew it, too, they just did not care because they were too busy cashing in. I have lost respect for that clan.
Me too! Agree.
After hearing John Oliver report this story on “Last Week Tonight,” I bought Daniel Golden’s book and read it one compulsive gulp. It’s a sordid story, and, yes, Jared Kushner’s father bought him a spot. Al Gore bought his ne’er do well son a spot as well. The admissions process for the wealthy in the Ivies and other elite schools is basically corrupt.
Another reason I take pride in my degree from Hampshire College.
Yeah…..
The fact is that this issue isn’t a Kushner thing or a right-wing thing. This is an across-the-board thing that is pervasive in our society.
By definition the United States has, as part of its nearly genetic makeup, NO titles and recognized nobility. At the beginning this was not unanimously agreed to. Many founders supported a much more conservative interpretation of the revolution and indeed had a fondness for a sanctioned aristocracy. They lost that debate but the problems with the pesky animal of democracy have remained a part of or political discussion to today. As a mark of their impact on or political and social construction, our society has a de facto aristocracy. It doesn’t require 3D glasses to see. Part of that is the Ivy League thing and their long tradition of “legacy” admissions. Like any aristocracy, a few aspirant middlers are allowed to “buy in.”
For much too long we have allowed the idea of “merit” and “meritocracy” to become a sneaky way of paying homage to an aristocratic construct. ALOT of lefties partake in the “merit” game. If you want to see real merit go look at some of the students in good state colleges breaking their ass for A’s so that they can start at the bottom somewhere and make the middle before they croak.
As a graduate of a Jesuit university, I am more than willing to spout off about the problems with the Ivy League, and the education that one can get there all day……but for now, lets just say that this Kushner thing is not new and not shocking.
The media hear about and write about the situation more quickly when it occurs at a public university. Sen. Manchin’s daughter, CEO of the Epipen-producing company, knows something about that. A sense of entitlement that provokes an undeserved and unwarranted hand-out, at the expense of others, only begets more greed in the recipient.
Harvard has become a cesspool of entitlement.
Do Ivy League colleges believe that this sort of thing is good for their reputations?
I would think “not”- doesn’t it go against the whole idea of a meritocracy?
This is mean but I can’t help but notice the entire Trump crew attended America’s Greatest Schools. These people (supposedly) got the best education money can buy yet they’re entirely lacking in ethics. Does anyone want to think about how that happened?
Doesn’t Donald Trump have some sort of fancy business degree? Are they teaching people to lie and cheat in there, or what?
He’s an undergrad from Penn, the Wharton business school. However, when people are constantly needing to tell everyone how smart they are, these people often have “little hands” and little brains!
Kind of like “bad ass” teachers??
I understand that he didn’t complete a degree at Wharton. He either flunked out or dropped out, but no degree. Is this true?
Part of the problem is that we all somehow think that these super high-end, Ivy schools are such because of rigor. They are not. Especially when we talk about legacy students.
Ivy League schools, like elite prep schools, offer nothing different curriculum-wise or rigor-wise than any public school or state college. What they do offer is the pronounced ability to connect and network with future powerful people and their “protective networks” that extend deep into elite society.
The “rigor” Ivy League schools do have an abundance of is in their admission for no-name kids
trying to get in on good grades. Then it’s rigor out the arse! This of course contributes to our middle-class perception that these schools are rigor-factories. They aren’t. Getting a C at Harvard is like getting a C anywhere else.
Don’t even get started on the intellectual fraud that is “elite business schools!” These were degree factories long before there were degree factories!
Lets start getting hip to all of this.
It’s harder to flunk out of an Ivy than to flunk out of a state school. Other than cheating, a student has many chances if he screws up at elite private colleges. There is alot of grade inflation as well.
Your comment: “Are they teaching people to lie and cheat in there, or what?” Answer: YES!
So lets see he was a mediocre student not to bright . Now I understand the back channel request.
So lets get to the real news
Mueller will be fired after Trump pardons all of his co-conspirators, .for all crimes past present and future ,
Idiot
If there was not credible evidence of collusion to be found . He never would have fired Comey.
Idiot…YES!
All completely legal and likely.
Trump said judges sign off on laws. Does Jared have the same knowledge deficit? Media reported that Ivanka said Judaism is in the top three religions, based on the number of people who are in the faith. A normal person wouldn’t announce something as fact, that is so obviously wrong and so easily disproved. Trump’s crowd make up what they want to be true and never expect to be told that they are idiots.
I know you are not the least surprised.
It would seem that Ivanka could be the subject of scientific debate . Is it nature or nurture ? Her assertion that Judaism is in the top 3 religions is very revealing .
She is either as ignorant as her father or narcissism run in the family.
If I am now a Jew ,it must be the best !!!!!!. Is it genetic or learned behavior.
It is altogether possible that she meant to say that Judaism is one of the most significant religions in that it Christianity and Islam evolved from it. In which case her education did not serve her well . Yesterday she cried about how vicious it is in Washington . Brought to us from the the daughter of the Royal Inquisitor of Birth Certificates.
Joel,
Many years ago, I went to India as a tourist. On a visit to ancient monuments, we discussed Buddhism, Jainism, Hinduism, and other religions. The local tour guide asked me and my companion about our religions. She said she is Roman Catholic and a believer in Jesus Christ. The guide nodded and said, “I have heard of that.” I said I am Jewish, and the guide said, “Sorry, I never heard of that one.”
dianeravitch
Although the statement is revealing . It really is a weak point.
I am sure if you went through our ignorant country a surprising percentage of Americans would not have a clue about Hinduism or Buddhism. Probably a surprising majority.
In fact the Orange haired monster’s daughter would probably be one of them or she would not have made the statement. The three monotheistic fairy tales the only ones reaching her consciousness;
I believe my main point was that this is an example of ethnocentrism in the extreme boarding on the narcissistic personality disorder inherited from her father . (sarcasm noted)
Or a failure of her education to be able to express herself in a manner that does not make her a fool . Another trait of her fathers .
So Diane as a social scientist , Is this Nurture or Nature . I am beginning to lean with genetics. The entire family is deficient and they were not raised by the adulterer father.
Too many Americans lack the knowledge that public universities were created at the sacrifice of the taxpayers so that middle class and poor students could have a quality education. Without the public’s sacrifice, those students would have been denied educational opportunity because legacy admission schools discriminate based on the concept of the divine right of kings.
No legacy admission college should receive any government funding. Federal and state grants to those schools, mock American democracy.
Bill Gates wants to commercialize the non-legacy admission colleges so that profits can be taken from students of the middle class and poor. His Frontier Set is designed to do just that.
The people furthering the Gates’ plot against higher education, are the same low life scum that Gates is. They got theirs and work to close the door on the American opportunity that existed before the U.S. became an oligarchy.
Gates didn’t develop anything. He purchased his first operating system then made the sales people sign a contract to promote and sell only his purchased from another (with brains) operating system. Gates is another rich boy with a lawyer father. Says it all to me.
Mostly true . I am sure he fiddled a little with the Dirty Operating System before he handed it to the IBM engineers to clean up. They gave it the nick name. But you touched on another important part of the story . His father was not an ambulance chaser,not a criminal defense lawyer, not a tort lawyer . But a lawyer serving the Tech industry in Seattle . Structuring these start ups in contract law and Patent law . I am certain young Bill never consulted with dad on the contract he made, when he delivered that DIRTY OPERATING SYSTEM. Which brings us to the second part of the story patents on everything from software to life saving drugs . Patents that make these college drop outs wealthy beyond belief. While there is good evidence that research could be conducted in other ways. Ways that increase tech advances and at tremendous savings to the WORLD
I’ll go out on a limb to say he was very lucky in court.
Regarding patents on drugs, we have a system that is absolutely rigged towards Big Pharma, because those corporations have gotten tons of government research grants to develop new medications, but then the companies claim the patents and the government gets no return on their investment. It’s not just nuts, it’s how our free market system is set up to benefit the wealthy over the interests of the masses. That’s because Big Pharma can then jack up the prices and politicians who are in their back pockets prevent us from getting better deals, such as by not allowing us to purchase meds from Canada, etc.
That includes Cory Booker, whose career was funded by the right wing Bradley foundation in order to promote charters and vouchers to black America and to infiltrate the Democratic party, since most blacks are Democrats. Hence Booker’s recent vote against permitting people to buy cheaper drugs from Canada. No doubt, Booker did not oppose the DeVos confirmation only because he would have stood out as the ONLY Democrat who supported her, which was an unnecessary risk to blowing Booker’s cover since two GOP senators were voting against her, so his vote would have been the deciding vote (instead of the Pence tie breaker).
There is no way this is going to be turned around as long as the GOP is in charge and their right wing foundations fund the careers of fake liberals like Booker, which Glen Ford from the Black Agenda Report noted in his Corporate Assault on Public Education speech located here:
https://www.blackagendareport.com/node/4666
homelesseducator
Roughly 50% of Phama research comes from NIH grants. Or Government owned labs. How much more from institutions of higher ed or teaching and research hospitals that would hardly be of today’s scale with out Government funding . The bulk of this research and testing is not conducted in the basement of Squib.
Exactly, Joel.
And Big Pharma spends more money “on advertising and marketing than on research, more on research on lifestyle drugs than on life saving drugs, and almost nothing on diseases that affect developing countries only.”
Nobel laureate in economics Joseph Stiglitz has discussed this matter extensively. He pointed out that because our current system grants intellectual property rights (IPRs) to pharmaceutical researchers (often for the results of government funded R&D at universities and research centers like NIH), it is effectively awarding people with monopolies. That stifles innovation and it also prevents many people across the globe from being able to buy less expensive generic drugs. He suggested setting up a medical prize fund and giving monetary awards instead of monopolies:
http://www.bmj.com/content/333/7582/1279.full
The Black Agenda Report is a true friend to people of color, unlike Clarence Thomas.
Harvard’s oxymoron- the purchase of college entry and merit, in the same sentence.
Good one, Linda.