The U.S. Department of Education has launched an investigation into several of the universities involved in the far-reaching college admissions scandal.
Yale said the "preliminary investigation" involved it and seven other universities "whose employees or applicants were named in the federal bribery investigation" and was examining whether they had "complied with regulations and requirements pertaining to the federal student aid program."
"We are reviewing the department's requests and will respond appropriately," Yale President Peter Salovey said in a statement.
The scheme began in 2011 and centered on a Newport Beach, Calif., college placement firm run by William "Rick" Singer. Parents are accused of paying Singer to help their children cheat on college entrance exams and to falsify athletic records of students so they could secure admission to top universities including the University of Southern California, UCLA, Stanford, Georgetown and Yale, court records show.
USC and UCLA have said they would cooperate with the probe.
Prosecutors allege that Singer instructed parents to donate funds to a fake charity he had established as part of the scheme. Most of the parents paid at least $200,000, but some spent up to $6.5 million to guarantee their children admission to top universities, authorities said. Parents were then able to deduct the donations from their income taxes, according to the Internal Revenue Service.
The scheme itself was fairly simple, prosecutors said: Singer instructed parents to seek extended time for their children on ACT and SAT exams. In at least one instance, a student claimed to have a learning disability to obtain medical documentation required by the College Board and ACT Inc. to grant additional time on the tests, according to court documents.
The Associated Press reported that in addition to Yale, the Department of Education is also probing Wake Forest, Stanford and Georgetown, USC, the University of San Diego, the University of Texas at Austin and UCLA.
Federal regulators requested a variety of records and information about students and employees implicated in the scheme.
U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos foreshadowed such an investigation shortly after the massive scandal was publicly revealed earlier this month.
"Every student deserves to be considered on their individual merits when applying to college, and it's disgraceful to see anyone breaking the law to give their children an advantage over others," DeVos said in a March 13 statement. "The department is looking closely at this issue and working to determine if any of our regulations have been violated."
The investigation is separate from the criminal probe headed by the Justice Department, which has so far resulted in dozens of arrests _ from coaches to administrators to admissions counselors to wealthy parents.
"I can confirm that the university received a letter from the Department of Education yesterday," University of San Diego spokeswoman Pamela Gray Payton said Tuesday. "I have not read the letter. But the university will comply with the letter's request."
USD was implicated in the effort to fraudulently admit two students from the same Beverly Hills family, although only one ended up attending the university. Its former men's basketball coach, Lamont Smith, has been identified as the unnamed coach accused in court documents of accepting bribes on behalf of the students, but he has not been charged.
