> Stanford said what the public wanted to hear.

There's a bait and switch that colleges do. Also hospitals, but mostly colleges.

On the one hand they go out and tell people what a value driven organization it is, how their passion is making the world a better place -- when they are asking for money from people almost of whom have far less in the bank than they already do and when they are defending things like very adventagous tax rates.

On the other hand when they get caught doing something that looks unprincipled or rapacious they all of a sudden become economists lecturing you about how of course every organization acts as an interest maximizier and what are you naive?

Well maybe we were naive. But now that everyone knows what the deal is maybe they can lay off the disingenuous appeals for donations and tax expenditures. Fool me once and all that.

I agree. I think universities can be both, but they should just be honest about it! There’s nothing wrong with being both a for profit institution that needs to turn a profit and a value driven organization. Be up front though, and don’t make outsiders feel in the wrong when they call you out for mixed messaging.

Laws, like sausages, cease to inspire respect in proportion as we know how they are made. -- John Godfrey Saxe

It would appear that scholarships follow a similar vein.

Our society is culturally configured to promote lying here. Instead of addressing the issue openly like adults, people decide to operate covertly, driven by competition and fear of missing out.

It'll be nice when we start to culturally grow up a bit and begin trusting the world. Collaboration/hybridization is much quicker than competition when it comes to genetic evolution & I suspect the same holds for cultural evolution.

One issue I think we need to address is how society basically judges things based on sound-bite descriptions of them. This is an area where I think IT can contribute, by trying to find ways to bias our communication technologies against such practices.

I think this is a result of design methodologies and motivations geared toward talking advantage of human attention instead of respecting/cultivating it.

We need a design theory based on mindfulness.

So, to start with, shut down the rules against discussing salaries or university costs with coworkers and other students, respectively.

I don’t know if there are rules against that. I think it’s more an unspoken rule that may have consequences if violated, although I’m fairly certain that’s illegal. The impetus is more on us to be open with each other about salary. It’s only in the company’s best interest for us not to do so.

According to the article,

"[Allcock’s report] says the school also tells applicants not to reveal to their classmates the size of their discount."

Unwritten or unspoken, it does need to go.

that seems as illegal as telling your employees that they can't share salaries

Seems as wrong, not as illegal. Legal is a specific technical standard.

> So, to start with, shut down the rules against discussing salaries or university costs with coworkers and other students, respectively.

No, this will expose evidences of institutional and systemic racism and question people about the country name. Should it be United State or Segregated State?

How can any individual claim to 'know' what the press and public want to hear? This is a comically self serving assertion and anyone making this kind of claim is acting in a political and manipulative manner.

This is the best apologism for a liar, because apparently that's what the person lied to 'wanted to hear', according to the liar.

Integrity does not depend on what people want to hear. Stanford can articulate their view point and do their own thing. Lying betrays a lack of belief in their view point and a lack of integrity.

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