This story was posted on the ProPublica websie
ProPublica editor Daniel Golden wrote a book a decade ago about how the rich buy their children access to elite colleges. One student he covered is now poised to become one of the most powerful figures in the country.
Golden begins:
My book exposed a grubby secret of American higher education: that the rich buy their under-achieving children’s way into elite universities with massive, tax-deductible donations.
he writes Kushner, even though he did not qualify, was accepted to Harvard, while others who were qualified, were turned away:
“There was no way anybody in the administrative office of the school thought he would on the merits get into Harvard,” a former official at The Frisch School in Paramus, New Jersey, told me. “His GPA did not warrant it, his SAT scores did not warrant it. We thought for sure, there was no way this was going to happen. Then, lo and behold, Jared was accepted. It was a little bit disappointing because there were at the time other kids we thought should really get in on the merits, and they did not.”
A spokesperson for Kushner Companies denied the allegations, claiming the Kushners donate to numerous universities, hospitals, and charities.
But:
Somebody had slipped me a document I had long coveted: the membership list of Harvard’s Committee on University Resources. The university wooed more than 400 of its biggest givers and most promising prospects by putting them on this committee and inviting them to campus periodically to be wined, dined, and subjected to lectures by eminent professors….
...Charles and Seryl Kushner were both on the committee. I had never heard of them, but their joint presence struck me as a sign that Harvard’s fundraising machine held the couple in especially fond regard.
Golden write that Kushner was singular in that he was the only one on the list with a criminal record, for tax violations, illegal campaign funds, and retaliating against a witness. So maybe that’s why
Although the university often heralded big gifts in press releases or a bulletin called — in a classic example of fundraising wit, “Re:sources” — a search of these outlets came up empty. Harvard didn’t seem eager to be publicly associated with Charles Kushner.
Golden said he contacted a Harvard official with whom he was on friendly terms, got a “no comment”, and when pressed, the official hung up on him.
By buying his unqualified son’s way into Harvard shut the door on others who had the qualifications to get in on their own merits. But looking at this family as a whole, this, sadly, should be no surprise.