Well, pilgrims. It has always been the case that if you give a college or university a lot of money or real estate for some purpose like a building or an endowed chair, you acquired a lot of leverage with that school in the matter of admissions of interest to you. Higher education is a form of business. A wag recently said that Harvard is basically a hedge fund with a university held as a subsidiary. How big is the Harvard endowment? How many Harvard Clubs are there in the Boston area?
It matters not if the schools is public or private. They all want the money. The service academies don't need the money but they still want it in order to gold plate their athletic programs. Students at the academies are chosen for admission by the institutions, not by the people who nominated them.
A building given as gift will cost you millions. An endowed chair will cost you millions.
The people who participated in Singer's scheme paid far less than that. They actually got a discount compared to the more traditional way of paying for admissions. pl
