How the prince got into a top-tier school

Daniel Golden wrote a Pro Publica piece just after Trump stole the election, and it’s being re-upped now. It’s about the puzzle of how Jared Kushner got into Harvard.

I bet you’ve guessed already.

My book exposed a grubby secret of American higher education: that the rich buy their under-achieving children’s way into elite universities with massive, tax-deductible donations. It reported that New Jersey real estate developer Charles Kushner had pledged $2.5 million to Harvard University in 1998, not long before his son Jared was admitted to the prestigious Ivy League school. At the time, Harvard accepted about one of every nine applicants. (Nowadays, it only takes one out of twenty.)

I also quoted administrators at Jared’s high school, who described him as a less than stellar student and expressed dismay at Harvard’s decision.

“There was no way anybody in the administrative office of the school thought he would on the merits get into Harvard,” a former official at The Frisch School in Paramus, New Jersey, told me. “His GPA did not warrant it, his SAT scores did not warrant it. We thought for sure, there was no way this was going to happen. Then, lo and behold, Jared was accepted. It was a little bit disappointing because there were at the time other kids we thought should really get in on the merits, and they did not.”

That’s the story of their lives, all of them – Donnie Two-scoops, Princess Ivanka, Prince Jared, Donnie2 the thug – they all bought their way into power.

Golden was doing research on rich people and donations to Harvard and enrollment of rich donors’ children. The name Kushner caught his eye.

Charles and Seryl Kushner were both on the committee. I had never heard of them, but their joint presence struck me as a sign that Harvard’s fundraising machine held the couple in especially fond regard.

The clips showed that Charles Kushner’s empire encompassed 25,000 New Jersey apartments, along with extensive office, industrial and retail space and undeveloped land. Unlike most of his fellow committee members, though, Kushner was not a Harvard man. He had graduated from New York University. This eliminated the sentimental tug of the alma mater as a reason for him to give to Harvard, leaving another likely explanation: his children.

Sure enough, his sons Jared and Joshua had both enrolled there.

Charles Kushner differed from his peers on the committee in another way; he had a criminal record. Five years after Jared entered Harvard, the elder Kushner pleaded guilty in 2004 to tax violations, illegal campaign donations, and retaliating against a witness…Charles Kushner had hired a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law, who was cooperating with federal authorities. Kushner then had a videotape of the tryst sent to his sister. He was sentenced to two years in federal prison.

That’s who Prince Jared’s father is, let’s never forget. These people are rotten all the way through. (Jared could be a rebel child who repudiates his father’s loathsome ways…but of course he’s not.)

PJ’s daddy bought him entry to Harvard and then PJ’s wife’s daddy made him a prince with a security clearance he shouldn’t have and responsibility for the Middle East and Mexico and who knows what else he shouldn’t be allowed within miles of.

2 Responses to “How the prince got into a top-tier school”