US admissions scandal mastermind Rick Singer jailed

A federal judge has sentenced the mastermind of the US college admissions scandal to three-and-a-half years in prison, largely concluding a four-year prosecution that the government declared to have fundamentally changed norms in higher education.

The lead organiser of the conspiracy, former Los Angeles college admissions counsellor Rick Singer, also was ordered to pay more than $19 million (£16 million) in restitution and forfeitures.

Just before his sentencing by US District Judge Rya Zobel, Mr Singer apologised and confessed his shame, blaming his actions at least in part on a father who stressed winning above all else.

“By ignoring what was morally, ethically, and legally right in favour of winning what I perceived was the college admissions game, I have lost everything,” he told the court.

The head of the US Justice Department’s office in Boston, which oversaw the case, declared after Singer’s sentencing hearing that she saw the case as fundamentally upending admissions practices across academia.

From the start of the prosecutions in March 2019, said US attorney for the District of Massachusetts, Rachael Rollins, “it was clear that this case would change the way colleges and universities did business, and it most certainly did”.

That definitive assessment, however, is not widely shared, as US university leaders have consistently contended – with the general backing of Ms Rollins’ predecessor as US attorney, Andrew Lelling – that the country’s higher education establishment was a victim of Singer’s schemes.

And US lawmakers, despite initial cries of alarm back in 2019, never imposed any significant repercussions or policy consequences on the university sector.

“There have been a few changes” in higher education that can be attributed to the scandal, said one leading admissions expert, Jon Boeckenstedt, vice-provost for enrolment management at Oregon State University, “but I would not say it’s changed the way colleges do business.”

The main shift that seems evident, Mr Boeckenstedt said, was that many highly selective institutions now give prospective athletes referred by a coach an additional layer of vetting and review.

Yet, he said, “at many private institutions, the children of wealthy and/or connected and/or alumni parents still have a legal, college-endorsed edge, similar to the one Singer got for his clients, although of course to a lesser degree than the one he provided”.

Singer offered his wealthy clients several options for helping their children gain admission to marquee institutions, usually involving the cooperation of a coach in a low-profile sport willing to accept a bribe in return for falsely vouching for the student as a valued future team member.

The University of Southern California had by far the most connections among several universities caught up in the scandal, with the families of 33 students alleged to have been involved. Other institutions for which Singer offered admissions assistance included Yale, Georgetown, Stanford, Wake Forest universities, and the University of Texas at Austin.

None of the institutions were alleged to have been knowing participants in Singer’s deceit, though evidence presented at one trial depicted some top USC officials as eager to work with Singer’s partners as part of a philosophy of aggressively monetising their sports operations.

More than 50 people, mostly parents and a few of the coaches and other key allies, were convicted in the overall scandal, after the FBI discovered Singer’s operation through an unrelated investigation into securities fraud involving one of the parents. Government agents then convinced him to secretly help compile evidence against those partners, in return for a reduced penalty. Almost all alleged participants admitted their guilt without risking trials, and almost all received prison sentences of a few months. The parents included several prominent business leaders and celebrities.

Because of his central role, Singer’s sentence was the longest, even as the judge declined a prosecution request for a six-year term. He was expected to report to prison by late February.

Only two others convicted in the scandal – Donna Heinel, a former athletics department official at USC, and Jovan Vavic, a former head coach of the USC water polo teams – are still to be sentenced.

paul.basken@timeshighereducation.com