Last month, the world was left in shock after the FBI exposed the true corruption that takes place within the United States education system. Colleges across the country were accused of accepting bribes and allowing students in who would normally not meet their demanding criteria.

Disgraced actresses, Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin, were among the wealthy parents who testified in court on April 4th after evidence of them cheating and bribing the system to get their children into prestigious universities emerged.

Huffman, Loughlin, and Mossimo Giannulli were among ten defendants who waived a pretrial hearing and signed conditions of their release; after that they were free to leave. Three other defendants rescheduled their court dates and Gregory and Amy Colburn pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud and money laundering conspiracy.

Huffman released a statement on April 9th stating that she would be pleading guilty for paying $15,000 for her daughter to cheat on the SAT and it is rumored that she may spend as little as four months in prison. It is not known whether or not Loughlin and Giannulli will plead guilty or take a plea deal. They could face two to two and a half years in prison if convicted (ELLE). This sentence seems extremely lenient due to the fact that they cheated and bribed their children into elite schools, taking the opportunity away from extremely hardworking and deserving students (CNN).

Olivia Jade and Isabella Giannulli, prominent students involved in the scandal,  have withdrawn from USC on their own in fear of harassment and have been completely distraught. Senior associate athletic director, Donna Heinel, and water polo coach, Jovan Vavic, have both been fired from USC for involvement in the scandal. USC’s interim President Wanda M. Austin has announced that they plan to use any money received in connection with the alleged scheme to fund scholarships for underprivileged students.

Salma Almoradi (12) thinks “it’s so crazy how extensive and deep this scandal was and how so many people were involved,” and is  “definitely glad that these people are getting the punishment they deserve for trying to cheat the system and take away spots from deserving applicants to these prestigious schools.”

Last month John Vandemoer pleaded guilty for accepting $110,000 and $160,000 in bribes to recruit unqualified students as sailing applicants when neither student had experience. Stanford has also recently expelled an unidentified student who lied on their college application and was linked to a $500,000 donation from the charity involved in the college admissions scam.

Many of the other schools, such as UCLA, Yale, Georgetown University, etc., involved have fired many coaches for accepting bribes and are currently still investigating other students involved in the scandal.

The investigation is still ongoing and many of the people involved are yet to plead and be sentenced. This scandal was able to shed light on the internal corruption of the education system, and will hopefully never occur again