It’s baffling to all us middle-classers how college is priced as a luxury, especially given how difficult it is to be accepted where one wants to go. The Ivy Leagues and other silver spoon schools, however, don’t necessarily value intelligence over money–here’s why.

Recently, parents of Hollywood’s elite have been charged with fraud because of bribes, fake test takers and flat-out lies. The most notable of these charged parents are Felicity Huffman of “Desperate Housewives” and Lori Loughlin of “Full House.” All of the children involved, aware or not of their parents’ actions, will be denied admission or kicked out of the elite schools they’re not actually qualified to attend. Here’s the low down of what actually happened.

William Singer, owner of the Edge College and Career Network, was the middle man through all of Hollywood’s rich and famous to the Ivy Leagues. He connected the parents to students who would take mandated tests for their children, laundered their money through schools and bribed admissions officers. Singer has been charged with racketeering and obstruction of justice, among other charges, and plead guilty in Boston on Tuesday.

An example of Singer’s illegal actions leading to the acceptance of wealthy kids are Loughlin’s bribes of around $500,000 in total for both her daughters to be accepted to the University of Southern California on fake rowing credentials. Loughlin submitted photos of both girls on a rowing machine, and that is as far as their rowing career went.

As many as 50 people have been cited for their involvement, but the belief lingers that this is just the tip of a very deep and corrupt iceberg. Hours and countless more of hard work by the average American student can be replaced by an elaborate scheme by some of our country’s rich and famous–and it is outraging many. The 17.7% admissions rate at USC, for example, most likely would not have originally accepted Lori Loughlin’s girls based on their unimpressive credentials alone. The other schools involved are said to be Yale, Wake Forest and Georgetown, among others.

Sasha Seckers comments,”It’s frustrating that they abuse the college system when so many of us just want to go to school to get a decent education.”

Because a college degree from a prestigious university is a status symbol to the rich and famous, they genuinely believed they could purchase entry for their children. Class action lawsuits have been taken out against the schools themselves for taking away an opportunity from deserving students.