Students can now apply to college as members of a small group rather than as individuals, Bloomberg News reports, noting that the program is supported by Senator Elizabeth Warren and by former FDIC chairman Sheila Bair, who is now a college president: "What if the school allowed certain students to apply as part of a group?...In some cases, Bair said, the school slightly eased its traditional admissions standards for certain students' friends, to allow them both to enroll...Donors, including San Francisco-based Bank of the West, a unit of BNP Paribas SA, are covering slightly less than half the cost."
The Bloomberg story doesn't explore the question of how a bank wound up as a donor to this Warren-Bair program.