My friend Nicole's fame as a whistleblower continues. CBS Evening News did a story on her and parent-funded "tutors" who help kids cheat their way through high school and college:
LOS ANGELES, May 26, 2005
(CBS)
When Nicole Kristal couldn't make a living making music in Hollywood, she tried her hand at an older profession. Well, sort of.
"I was an academic prostitute," she says. "That's harsh, not really.
"I mean, I sold my mind for money."
As CBS News Correspondent Byron Pitts reports, Kristal's "clients" paid her to cheat.
At $40-an-hour, she wrote college admission essays for high school students and term papers for college seniors.
One kid, she says, would've failed his class without her help.
"He flunked all the tests," says Kristal.
And where did these kids get the money to pay her?
"It's not the kids, it's the parents, actually," she says.
Asked what it says about our society that there's a market for her services, Kristal says: "I think it shows how competitive our society's become and that it's become mostly about status, not education."
So who's to blame?
Continue reading below, or see the whole story and video at CBS.
