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Message: [QUOTE="Eric15, post: 4686925, member: 676"] Well said. This is a great article from National Affairs about how the tax code as it currently is written basically facilitates parents buying access for their kids, and it's subsidized by taxpayers. [URL unfurl="true"]https://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/payoff-based-college-admissions[/URL] "As many are aware, wealthy parents can donate large sums to elite universities and significantly raise the odds that their child will be admitted. At Harvard, being connected to a wealthy donor boosts an applicant's chances of admission by a factor of [I]nine[/I]. At Duke in recent years, up to 5% of the student body owed its admission to connections to deep-pocketed donors. Between 2013 and 2019, the state-supported University of California system admitted at least 60 students (and probably well over 400) due to family connections. As state auditors put it, "under normal circumstances" these applicants would otherwise have had "virtually no chance of admission." This is all unfolding at colleges that avow themselves bastions of equal opportunity and access. These same institutions are all too content to sell seats to the wealthy and connected and to reap the rewards. In so doing, even private universities are not acting as private actors making private decisions; their actions are effectively subsidized by the federal tax code. As long as there's no explicit [I]quid pro quo[/I] agreement between family and university (and these things are done via nods and winks), the IRS turns a blind eye to wealthy families claiming the charitable-giving deduction for the "gifts" that lead to their children's admission. Given the incomes and tax situations of those making these contributions, taxpayers can wind up paying up to 50 cents on the dollar of any check a deep-pocketed donor cuts to purchase a child's admission." [/QUOTE]

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