The recent scandals involving wealthy people trying to use bribes to open a "side door" into universities for their children amused me. The problem for me went beyond the moral issues, the impact on their children, and the general amount of unspoken favouritism shown in the admissions process.
So why did it amuse me?
Because if parents want to bribe someone to get their children into university, why not have them just bribe the universities directly in a bidding war for a few admission places each year?
Here's an editorial I wrote on this topic nearly thirty years ago. It could and should be easily adopted by any university.
University Underfunding: An Immodest Proposal
by John Palmer
Ontario universities are in a financial bind. Our elected representatives have made it clear that increases in university funding will not keep pace with the rate of inflation; at the same time, universities are not being allowed to raise tuition fees as much as they would like. The result is the growing use of very large classes, less essay writing by students, and the loss of some of the world's best scholars to other universities outside Ontario. If revenues are not allowed to keep pace with costs, quality will continue to suffer.
These are times that call for creative adjustments. Raising tuition fees (along with greater OSAP awards) is a good beginning — charge more to rich students without discouraging low-income students from attending university. But these schemes are limited by the province and cannot deal fully with the underfunding problem.
Let me offer another partial solution: auction off fifty extra admission places to the highest bidders without regard to academic ability or secondary school performance.
Before the howls of indignation approach the volume of a supersonic jet breaking the sound barrier, consider these arguments in favour of the scheme:
1. The extra costs of providing a UWO education for an additional 50 students per year, even 50 who are less likely to be successful here, are probably quite low, perhaps no more than two or three thousand dollars per student. So long as the auctioned-off places bring in more revenue than they cost, they will provide a net gain for the university.
2. There appear to be many students, judging from our admission cut-off, who would like the prestige and education they could receive from attending UWO. It is likely that in a bidding situation some would offer quite sizeable donations to UWO in exchange for such a privilege.
Here's how the scheme would work: Every student who is denied admission to UWO on academic grounds would be sent a bidding form. Those wishing to bid for one of the fifty places would sign documents promising to donate to UWO the amount of their bids, if successful. They would mail the bids to an independent auditor, the highest fifty bids would be accepted, and the successful bidders would be legally bound to pay the bid.
Students making winning bids would not be identified on any university records (aside from provisions for anonymous followup research), and would not receive favourable treatment in future years. This would be a one-time donation to the university which would do no more than entitle successful bidders to pay tuition and to try to succeed in university. Even students donating $20,000 would be required to meet the progression standards set out in the Calendar.
If parents want to give out bribes to get their children admitted to university, Let them bribe the university itself instead of intermediaries, like sports coaches or others.