There will not be a separate admissions system for the wealthy, U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling vowed Tuesday as he announced his offices indictment of dozens of people accused of paying huge bribes to help their children gain admission to elite colleges and universities.

The latest college admissions scandal is especially juicy because it involves the corruption-ridden world of college sports. Some of the parents allegedly faked their kids participation in sports like soccer, tennis and water polo, and coaches at big-name schools like the University of Southern California, UCLA, Wake Forest, Stanford, the University of Texas at Austin, and Georgetown were among those indicted. But this wasnt exclusively a sports scandal.

I wouldnt single out athletics as being ripe for exploitation here, said Natasha Warikoo, an associate education professor at Harvard. Whats ripe for exploitation is the overall system.

Rich people are going to do rich people things.

And in the cut-throat world of college admissions, one of the most common things rich people do is use athletics to gain access to elite academic institutions for which they might not otherwise qualify.

College sports have long provided a separate admissions system, to quote Lelling, that largely benefits the wealthy. Collegiate athletics have helped ensure that the higher education system is rigged in favor of wealthy, white people. Those rich, white, indicted folks who faked their kids athletic careers were exploiting a system that privileges even the rich, white folks who dont cheat.

The system is broken, and today is nothing but another example of the troubling dysfunctionality of college sports, Don Jackson, a sports attorney and owner of The Sports Group legal practice, said Tuesday. Especially because of the fact that none of these kids were really athletes.