The American Dream has slowly but surely turned into the American Nightmare; the notion that anybody, regardless of wealth, race or social class, can make it to the top has become thoroughly discredited.

Wealthy parents bribing and cheating to ensure their kids into elite schools is nothing new; the upper classes have long since rigged the system in their favor to ensure that the door remains closed to all but their own, often mediocre offspring. But while the concept of the 1% looking after themselves is well known, it’s not often that a concrete, infuriatingly obvious example of the process actually occurring is made public.

The college admissions scandal has finally shone a light onto this shadowy world of influence and coercion, and it might just open up a whole can of worms. This case involved “Fifty people, including Hollywood stars, top CEOs, college coaches and test administrators, who allegedly took part in the scheme to cheat on tests and admit students to leading institutions as athletes, regardless of their abilities.”

The scandal has rocked the academic world in the U.S, raising questions about whether “qualified students were denied entry to accommodate children of the rich and famous.” Actresses Lauri Loughlin and Felicity Huffman have been implicated in the scheme, although it’s unclear whether their children were aware of it at the time. One of Loughlin’s daughters, influential Vlogger and social media star Olivia Jade, will not be returning to one of the Universities heavily involved in the scam, the University Of Southern California. 

If this kind of bribery and blatant cheating happens in schools it begs the question: where else is corruption occurring? Who knows what dirty secrets are hiding in the worlds of politics, high finance and the weapons industry, for example?

Writer Jaimie Leigh has done us all a service recently, by penning an eye-opening piece that further exposes the festering injustice that runs deep through American society. The post, which has already been shared over 30k times, details her experience working for wealthy clients, writing papers and doctoring resumes to ensure that lazy, entitled rich kids get the right ‘personal brand’ for Ivy league universities. Because once you have the right credentials, parentage and connections, your actual talents and work ethic cease to matter. You’ve made it and you can tell everybody that you are ‘self-made,’ while bright and hard-working people from less privileged backgrounds find the doors locked shut.

With 2020 elections on the horizon, these are exactly the kind of conversations that America needs to be having, rather than the endless distractions over the personalities of individual politicians. The problem goes far beyond any individual, it is systematic and needs to be rooted out if the American Dream is ever going to remotely achievable.

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