the Cento

First-year Rachel West was working in the admissions office when she found something that would soon draw national attention. Every week, Monday through Thursday, West tries to conquer the massive pile of beige folders on her desk. Each one contains a few pages about potential students and neatly fits into one of several categories.

Last Wednesday afternoon, West found something that could not be sorted so easily. A black folder stuck out from the bottom of the pile with a lone page poking out of one corner. It caught her eye; she said in a private interview that “there was just something about it — I knew I had found something big.” And she was right. When she opened the folder, she found a finance report detailing bribery conducted by our very own Centre College.

The report consisted of only a few lines, but what meaningful lines they were. Two 1.5 million dollar deposits were listed under Recent Transactions to the same account.

No names were listed. West suspected that something was up. She stashed the folder in her backpack and hurried back to her dorm after her shift was done. West typed in the account number from the form into Google. All of the results had one name in common.

Forbes Magazine.

West wondered what reason Centre could possibly have to bribe a business journal — and then she remembered. Forbes recently ranked Centre College the 24th best college in the nation and the best college in the South.

West, a friend of mine, contacted me at three a.m. the next morning. She had been up all night doing research and crunching numbers. She sent me a jumbled, barely-readable account of what she thought she had found. I didn’t believe it, at first – until I saw what she had attached.

Centre College is raising tuition by $2500 per person. In the body of the email, calculations waited for me:

1200 students x $2500 = $3,000,000

Two $1,500,000 deposits = $3,000,000

I read it over and over again. Sure enough, the numbers worked out. Centre College was raising tuition to pay for illegal bribes to Forbes magazine.

That afternoon, I did some research of my own and made a few phone calls. I found the author responsible for ranking Centre College. He agreed to bust open the story as long as he could remain anonymous and have time to take care of his affairs before Forbes found out.

The man said a representative from Centre College called him and asked to meet in a Starbucks not far from the office building where Forbes is based. The so-called representative, whose identity is unknown, had received inside information from a friend at the company. Centre was to be ranked #255, one spot ahead of Seattle University and one spot behind Transylvania University.

The author said, “I knew it was unethical, but what else could I do? I’ve got a kid in college and another getting ready to finish high school. I needed the money.” He agreed to rank Centre as the number one college in the South; the representative agreed to pay him two sums of money—one before the transaction, one after.

Our college’s reputation is forever tarnished. There is no excuse for such behavior, and the nation will decide the consequences. I cannot imagine that prospective students will be impressed when they see that a once-religious college has been participating in bribery.

As the Cento was the first media outlet contacted, this story cannot be found anywhere else as of yet. On behalf of the staff, I wish you a happy first of April.