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White-Collar Crime’s role in the education system has been garnering the attention of many over the course of recent years, especially with the College Admission Scandal. The College Admission Scandal highlighted celebrities, CEOs, paying an exorbitant amount of money to have their children admitted into prestigious educational institutions such as University of Southern California, Yale, Georgetown, and others. Laurie Laughlin and Felicity Huffman became the faces of the scandal due to their statuses and the public’s perception of their moral cleanliness being tarnished by fraudulent acts which, when observed through a critical lens, the actions they took worked against the best interests of their fans, critics, and general public on a global scale because the schools which were involved in the scandal are world renown and attract a plethora foreign students. However, the unethical payola—or bribing, that was involved in the scandal robbed others of educational opportunity.

The College Admission Scandal was a major issue of ethics, in part because there were so many acts of white-collar crime being committed by school staff to the likes of allowing other people to take the test in place of the enrolling student, which is fraudulent and never legitimately allowed by any educational institution under any circumstances. The universities would grant longer periods of time for the entrance and placement exams to be administered to the point of two to three days, which isn’t a bad thing but they did so for the sake of cheating which aligns it as an act of dishonesty. According to the College Admissions Scandal film, degree requirements continue to increase yet the University admission rates decreasing are cause for the effect of desperate yet wealthy parents willing to do what it takes to guarantee that their child is successful in life by getting into the prestigious school of either their choice or legacy but the cost is two- fold, in that the price tag is hefty—to the likes of $500,000; The second price is the cost of opportunities missed by prospective students, scaling from local to global. (Voice of America) There are other types of educational white-collar crime which offenses such as plagiarism, embezzlement, ghost-writing, and sexual harassment and abuse— fortunately none of which were involved in the College Admission Scandal.

Just as white-collar crime is in the education system, one of the vectors of white-collar crime which connect education white-collar crime to economic white-collar crime is student loan fraud. There are other types of monetary fraud which fall under general white-collar crime and educational white-collar crime, yet student loan fraud is unique in that it’s a type of loan only available to students, and much easier to obtain than other types of loans in the economic sphere due to students being its exclusive and target audience. It becomes fraud when the funds are used for expenses outside the realm of scholastic expenses. Scenarios of educational white-collar criminal intent of student loans include but aren’t limited to lying about intent of enrollment; wrongful to no intent of paying back the loan; false statements on forms regarding qualifications for loan; student loan fraud rings; identity fraud; fee-based financial aid seminars. (Payne) Educational institutions prepare students for a wide array of professions, some to the likes of the litigation, law enforcement, and law making—all within the legal system.

In white-collar crime, the term ‘fiduciary’ is ubiquitous. Although Payne doesn’t explicitly define it in White-Collar Crime, 3rd Edition, it is mentioned alongside public trust. It means that a person acting in a fiduciary capacity is doing so in representation and trust of an entity—either a person or organization. Even a citizen calling the 911-Emergency Operator is held to a fiduciary capacity because dishonesty will lead to turbulence in law enforcement’s operation of investigating the emergency and providing a proper solution.

Another thing about white-collar crime in institutions of social control and education is that there is the potential threat of the egregious activities spilling into other fields such as from law enforcement to education, as well as other fields. For example, a law enforcement officer designated to a college might conduct their self below their fiduciary capacity which may lead to sexual harassment or abuse of one or more students or even financial coercion. Additionally, Brian Payne began the Attorney Misconduct section of the Crime in Systems of Social Control with a quote he deemed cite-worthy, “One author notes that lawyers are viewed as ‘simply a plague on society’. Instances of famous attorneys getting into trouble hit the media with great regularity.” (Payne).

Considering all of the white-collar crime that occurs throughout each industry, lawyers are viewed as a plague on society, and the lawyers eventually become prosecutors and judges, it’s a good thing that there’s regulation but it hasn’t been enough to stop the white-collar crime from growing and being a plague itself.