If the Varsity Blues bribery and cheating scandal has done anything positive, it has been to shine some light on a basic reality: very little in higher education is truly nonprofit. It turns out some analysts—and residents—of the ivory tower have been making this point for years. But nothing elevates things in the public consciousness like rich people—especially celebrities—behaving badly.
The specifics of the scandal involve outright fraud by people outside of the ivory tower trying to get their kids into the penthouse—elite institutions including Yale and UCLA. There is no evidence of which I’m aware that the schools themselves encouraged such fraud, though some employees, seeking to enrich themselves, allegedly did. This was especially true of coaches, including a former Georgetown University tennis coach who reportedly took in $2.7 million to put kids on athletics admissions lists.
And even if the schools did not condone their behavior, these individuals nonetheless illustrate something crucial about the whole system: just because you work at a place with a nonprofit tax designation doesn’t mean you cease to be self-interested. Indeed, trying to maximize one’s happiness is a very human thing to do.