The Secret Truth Behind Uncle Jesse’s Girl & the College Admissions Scandal
It’s time we all broke up with Aunt Becky’s ideas.
A bunch of rich kids and their parents cheated the system — again.
People lined up crying for justice.
Public outrage ensued.
A media frenzy stole the national spotlight.
The FBI stormed in hammering down celebrity indictments faster and harder than your grandma playing Slapjack.
Sh*t got real. Rightly so. Because the circus came to town early this year.
Meanwhile, high school seniors and their parents squirm — “But I can’t afford to cheat the system,” they think silently to themselves. “Is that what it takes to get accepted at a good school?”
You gotta feel for the students who got the shaft. Not the rich kids whose admission status now looks murky. But the ones who applied and got rejected from the perpetrating universities. Man, I feel for them.
Put Yourself in Their Shoes.
Imagine being told your entire life the only way to succeed was to get into a top tier college — a front page program.
So you work your ass off. You check all the boxes. You build a resume immaculate enough that Donald Trump’s wife would eat off it.
Then — you get rejected.
And you’re stuck wondering — did I miss my one and only shot to make something of myself?
Dude. That’s a lot for a fragile 18-year-old psyche to handle.
What’s worse…we hardly feel shocked this scandal took place. Outraged? You betcha. But not surprised.
It feels sinister, but somehow fitting rich people could cheat the system. That their kids could enjoy privileges others can’t access. That their hefty checkbooks, fancy names, and social clout could pull off such a stunt.
But here’s a secret very few are talking about: they are actually the real losers here.
Aunt Becky and her band of foie-gras-eating phonies didn’t just drop fat fraud stacks — they got sold a pipe-dream.
So dry your eyes all my college reject friends and family and saddle up for some hard truths that never made it to the Hollywood gossip grapevine.
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Truth Number 1 — Don’t Bet on Losing Horses to Win Big
It doesn’t take but 15 minutes asking around to realize college is a huge gamble today.
But in case you prefer statistics:
- The average college graduate carries $37,172 of student debt.
- Of the 66.7% of US HS graduates who enroll in college, only 52.9% of college students earn a degree.
- The average student now takes six years to complete a degree program.
- 83% of college students don’t have jobs lined up before graduation.
- Oh, and here’s a fun one — 72% of all US jobs do not require a college degree.
I don’t know about you, but if I’m jockey, I wouldn’t want to be riding a college-educated horse– and if you’re betting, the outcomes look pretty bleak, too.
Truth Number 2 — Employers Won’t Ask You To Recite the Hippocratic Oath
It’s enough that college outcomes put a financial burden on students. Huge debt loads. Not to mention the years they missed out on gaining meaningful work experience.
But employers are catching on, too. They don’t seem convinced college degrees equal employability — and many graduates agree. Need some proof — here:
- 84% of hiring managers said it was at least ‘Somewhat Difficult’ to fill open positions due to lack of skills.
- Employers say recent graduates often lack basic workplace know-how.
- Students are not nearly as prepared as they could or should be, and they actually know it while they’re in college.
- Only 34% of students said they believed they would graduate with the skills needed to find jobs and succeed in the job market.
- 38% of [college students] say searching for a job is difficult. 24% say it’s very difficult.
So while students are banging down the doors to get degrees, employers aren’t lined up on the other side waiting to hire them.
They don’t seem interested in students’ degrees or classwork — they want proof graduates can do the job.
Truth Number 3 — Your Mom Was Right (And Wrong)
Remember all those awkward family Christmases when everyone asked what you want to be when you grow up?
And when drunk Uncle Ronnie tried to shut down your audacious three-year-old goal, your hero of a mom jumped to your defense — “Don’t crush her dreams! She can be anything she wants to be if she just works hard enough!”
Aren’t moms the best? Mine is. I’ll fight you over it. But where was I?
Oh yeah. Mom was right.
You can be anything you want to be. Today, the cost of information is virtually zero. With a laptop and wifi connection, you have more knowledge at your fingertips than entire previous generations of geniuses combined.
That’s huge.
But here’s where your Mom was wrong — you don’t have to go to college anymore to prove you’ve accessed and absorbed a portion of that wealth of knowledge.
Today, you can create your own signal for a few bucks and a half dozen hours of your time. You don’t need four years and a hundred thousand dollars to do it.
And here’s the best part — employers are waking up to this idea, too. Where the degree is dying, they’re beginning to look for better signals to measure aptitude, prove ability, and reduce the risk of hiring.
So if you’re on the brink of college, hug your mom and take her first piece of advice — go be whatever you want to be — but ditch the degree.
And hell, even if you think college is right for you, do yourself a favor and try some stuff first. Go narrow down your career options in the real world for a couple years before you cuff yourself to a huge debt load figuring it out.
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So, before you go crucify any celebrities over their asinine attempt to cheat the college system…
Remember, they’re the real losers here for thinking college was worth millions of dollars (and maybe jail time).
But you’re not a loser — you’re smarter than them. Be smarter.
As always, tip your bartenders and thanks for reading.
Originally published atwww.quora.com in response to the question: “What is something that needs to be said?”
I’m Director of Marketing @CareerCrash. You can find me spitting fire on Quora or tweet storming about launching careers and getting ahead –– Oh, and I wrote a book on those topics: Don’t Do Stuff You Hate.
