High Ground

I've been reading the ridiculous coverage about the rich parents paying colleges/universities obscene amounts of money so their undeserving children will have a place in school. You may ask how I have the nerve to make that judgement call. It's simple. If it takes that much money to guarantee an admission, then the kid obviously didn't or cannot make the cut. Based on the few comments the kids made, I found no reason to change my mind.

Here's the thing...arrest the parents or whatever, fine the schools or whatever, but the kids are supposedly adults, so what are their consequences? They get a free ride in more ways than one? The way I see it is simple--the parents never treat their children as adults, the kids never grow up and learn to be adults. Never.

If the kid went along with the scam, then I believe there should be some sort of consequence. Maybe no admission to college for five years. Maybe not ever. Or maybe all the money paid should go into a special account that covers the college costs for students who would never have a chance otherwise to attend college. Or maybe require the ninnies to work a real job...like digging ditches or picking up trash along the beaches and highways or sorting recyclables, for the same time period they would have taken in school.

While mom and dad are having their careers trashed and their pics flashed all over the media, the kids are living the good life. Is this where we've arrived? It's fine to want better lives for your children, but teaching them the 'anyway to get ahead, legal or not' life plan isn't the way to go. It teaches the kid nothing except entitlement.

All of us learn by making mistakes. Some have the resources to escape the consequences. I'm pretty sure that isn't a good thing for them or our educational system or our country. We no longer know where the high ground is because we're so busy dancing on the low ground.