As a driven yet financially-strapped teenager, Toby Macfarlane knew his family couldn’t afford to send him to the University of Southern California. But he was enamored with the private school and determined to make it there.
He did — in that pull-oneself-up-by-the-bootstraps kind of way — through a combination of scholarships, grants, loans and part-time jobs.
Decades later, Macfarlane, a successful title insurance executive living in Del Mar, wanted to ensure his children had a significantly easier path to his alma matter — one that ended up taking them through the “side door.”
It cost Macfarlane $450,000 in fees and bribes at the time.