The scandal was actually interesting because it showed the gulf between "rich" and "ultra-rich". The ultra-rich have always been able to buy their kids' way into college with 8-digit donations for new buildings; that's so obvious it's hardly even a secret. It's the merely-kinda-rich, who can't throw around that kind of money, who have to resort to the fake scholarships and so on.

Which makes it kind of difficult to feel bad for the colleges who were supposedly the "victim" of these scams: they have no problem with bribery, they were just complaining that they didn't get their cut.