Wealthy parents are paying up to $1.5 million for consultants to help get their kids into college - and there are ways to do it that are completely legal

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Wealthy parents are paying up to $1.5 million for consultants to help get their kids into college - and there are ways to do it that are completely legal
Wealthy parents are paying up to $1.5 million for consultants to help get their kids into college - and there are ways to do it that are completely legal

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Lori Loughlin has been charged in the college admissions scandal.




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  • In an ongoing college admissions scandal, 33 parents have been accused of paying millions of dollars to fabricate their children's credentials during the college admissions process.
  • But there are other, legal ways the ultra-wealthy try to increase their children's chances of getting into an elite college.
  • This includes paying up to $1.5 million for college consultants or making donations of more than $10 million to the school their child is applying to, according to The New York Times.
On Tuesday, dozens of people were charged in a college admissions bribery scandal uncovered by the FBI. Among those charged are Hollywood actors, college athletic coaches, business leaders, and CEOs and executives in finance, real estate, and other industries.
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Thirty-three parents are accused of paying a collective $25 million to William Singer, owner of the Edge College & Career Network, to boost their children's chances of getting accepted into an elite university.

Individual bribes reportedly cost as much as $6.5 million and fell into two schemes: having their children pose as athletes to become accepted into Division-1 universities or have stand-ins take SAT and ACT exams for their children.

Read more: CEOs, investors, and entrepreneurs are among those named in the college admissions cheating scandal - here are the 22 business leaders who've been charged by the FBI

According to a Department of Justice press release, Singer orchestrated the scandal, bribing coaches and university administrators or arranging for test stand-ins. According to charging documents, actress Lori Loughlin and husband fashion designer Mossimo Giannulli paid $500,000 to a fake nonprofit to have their daughters, Olivia and Isabella, designated as recruits to the University of Southern California's crew team, when neither daughter rowed crew.

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How the super-rich can legally buy better chances for their kids

Not all college consultants operate illegally — there's a whole "shadowy" world where the super-rich can legally buy greater chances for their kids to be accepted into elite schools, reported Dana Goldstein and Jack Healy of The New York Times.

Parents can purchase a five-year package of college admissions consulting from Ivy Coach for up to $1.5 million, Goldstein and Healy wrote, adding that they might also pay $300 for a one-hour admissions expert consultation or make multi-millionaire donations to schools.

The latter tactic is common among wealthy parents trying to get their children into top-tier schools, reported Business Insider's Jacob Shamsian.

Consider Charles Kushner, who gave a $2.5 million donation to Harvard in 1998 shortly before his son, Jared — who reportedly did not have a high enough GPA or SAT scores — was admitted.

But gifts in that amount may not cut it today.

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"In recent years the costs of ensuring special treatment for an application have moved beyond comfortable reach even for the rich," Goldstein and Healy wrote.

Such donations need to be hefty — a mere $10 million is "an entry-level gift that might not even get the attention of the admission office," Steven Mercer, a private college consultant based in Santa Monica, told The Times.
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