Zandar at Balloon Juice flags this bullsh*t From CNN:
Justin Combs worked hard in high school to improve his football game and earn a 3.75 GPA . He recently received a $54,000 merit-based scholarship to UCLA, where he’ll play football.
[…]What do you think? Should the Combs family keep, return or donate the money? Should students with wealthy parents have access to merit-based scholarships and financial aid?
There is so much wrapped up in this, but call me pre-occupied or sensitive, but I feel some of this is about perceptions of race especially when it comes to a rapper of boastful larguesse like Puff Daddy (an entertainment persona).
Well, Sean Combs is a good daddy (as in father) apparently. His son never had to work like he did to get to college and be gainfully compensated. I bet his son has a million times better chance that his friends won’t get shot to death like the late great Christopher Wallace did in his early twenties, and his son graduated high school with a 3.75 and some top football skills to boot. He got a scholarship because he deserves it.
And yes, his father is a braggadocio rapper. So what. Families that are many generations over wealthy (Trumps, Hiltons, Prescott-Bushes) never have this asked of them. In fact, it’s seen as rude to talk about their f*cking money. But the same news organization (CNN) where we are scolded about talking about say a Romney’s wealth (even when it’s a rationale he wants to use for being our country’s president), they demand penance from P. Diddy who literally built his wealth from nothing and has a kid that on two levels of merit deserves to be in college.
The real question CNN needs to be asking is: why the hell is college so expensive that an underclassmen with average grades who can’t play football at a BCS schol can’t even come close to working through college with say a summer job plus work study? Kids used to be able to do that. They can’t anymore unless they are a part time student at a very cheap institution.
They also need to ask why the cost for tuition has inflated anywhere from 400% to 1000% (based on how you look at it and what type of institution) over the last three decades?