Australia and Canada allow foreigners to buy citizens if they invest a million dollars in thier new home. The basic justification is that sufficient investment benefits others in ways that justify their admission.
Colleges and Universities might take a lesson from this. Instead of rejecting applicants, colleges and universities might instead announce a price at which the institution is made sufficiently better off to justify admitting an otherwise weak applicant.
If Geroge Soros is willing to pay Princeton a billion dollars so that his child can attend, Princeton could possibly reduce the price to all other students (and/or create a lot more discoveries to benefit the world).
Instead of rejecting applicants, Universities could name the price and let applicants reject them.
Possibly the University would want the transcripts to reflect what the price of admission was for these weaker candidates -- but possibly not... if the applicants could pull good grades, maybe they should obtain an untarnished diploma. [Australian passports don't indicate whether you bought your citizenship either!)
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Good idea, and I get it is already implemented. If Soros wants his dumb kid in Harvard, all he has to do is donate enough to the endowment. Happens all the time.
Also effectively happens already with athletes. I don't see a problem with universities lowering admission standards in exchange for cash, athletic ability or whatever as long as it is done openly. In this way universities who choose to have a strictly merit-based policy can effectively set themselves apart.
Although I do not object to stupid people being able to buy themselves special privileges if the community benefits, the mindset that education is a privilege has rather nasty implications for society in general. The true basic resource of the human race is its intellectual capabilities and the species is in deep trouble because of the proliferation of stupid and selfish policies. If education of good minds from the top to the bottom were treated in development concepts in the same way as, for instance, oil resources, the benefits would be overwhelming to society as a whole.
Let 'em pay...as long as they stay out of the way. Any community transforms itself when a critical mass of its members exhibits similar characteristics. Having a few lesser talented rich kids around is fine if their money provides facilities, faculty salaries and scholarships that benefit the majority. But we want to avoid an environment where a critical mass of affluent and less talented students transforms the community into one of mediocrity.
Why not offer honorary college degrees to the unqualified rich, without the requirement that they actually attend? Let them come to the games and wear the sweatshirts and...give more money without polluting the educational environment for the serious students.
I worked at a school in China that did use this method. Students who scored high enough on an entrance exam were admitted. Students who scored below the cut-off paid tuition per each point they missed. These students were generally in separate classes, but because most of them missed the admission cut-off by only a few points, the quality of the student body did not suffer too much.
There are many ways to raise money. Use them or make up new ones, but don't compromise your raison d'etre. Compromising the quality of the student body in order to raise money is like letting food companies pay you to test out unhealthy ingredients.
Its already happening in India but sadly the name of the account is BRIBE. Idea is good as long as people come to realize how much their reluctance or parties in past are costing them now and how they are going to recover these losses in due course of time and also how serious, from now on they should take their responsibilities.
The idea becomes even more humane and attractive if these funds are partially spent on the less fortunate around the world by opning new schools and supporting bright poor students to continue studies and help make this world a better place for them and others.