Why would the New York Times bother to do a story on your slightly unhelpful yet quasi altruistic non-profit tech start-up? Because your name is Joshua Kushner, your brother Jared owns the New York Observer, and the word “scion” can be applied to you, that’s why.

It seems aside from pimping themselves out to a shady Mexican billionaire and music mogul David Geffen the Times is buttering up the Kushners for a loan by writing a 1,300 word profile on little bro Joshua’s new pet project UniThrive. Besides being all jazzed that they might get some sweet Kushner cash, there was a fail. The reporter didn’t even check out the microfinance group Kiva.org and the Times was forced to run a correction yesterday. That’s just odd given UniThrive co-founder Tanuj Parikh is the cousin of Kiva’s president.

Details and why begging is the new working after the jump.

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Now that we’re back for summertime fun, it seems like a good time to catch up on all the things we missed while seeing Star Trek 79 times. This is a first in a multi-part series making up for lost time. It will continue through the next few weeks or until Jared Kushner fires all of us, whichever comes first.

It’s inevitable really. With the death of print imminent–and more importantly, a $3.2 million apartment that one can’t not buy–the Harvard silver-spoon legacy and New York Observer publisher has been on a pink slip rampage. At the start of May, the Observer’s cleaning lady got the boot. Then just over a week ago, a significant portion of the writing staff was axed. Amongst the casualties are former Gawker editor and Penn alum Doree Shafrir and Princeton eating club investigator and popular guy Spencer Morgan. But Jared Kushner’s thirst for blood was not yet quenched. So last Thursday, he acquired the daily e-newsletter (and money vacuum) Very Short List and fired everyone there.

As for those who got the boot, you would think that Kushner with all his riches would be able to generously compensate his former employees. However, they’re reportedly just getting the standard minimum of one week of severance pay per year of service. And that’s because Jared Kushner has already pledged his massive wealth to those who are truly needy: Harvard students looking for loans.

Jared Kushner–the Harvard alum who bought the New York Observer as his graduation present and recently fired the cleaning lady to cut costs–and his brother Joshua have a new enterprise. It’s called UniThrive and works kind of like Robin Hood. (Take from the rich. Give to the soon-to-be rich!)

Basically, a student loan networking website currently in beta. Students who register at the website request a loan of up to $2,000. Alumni then search for students, pick the ones they like, and pledge some money to loan in order to fulfill the students’ requests. The best part is that all the loans are 0% interest. It’s a great deal–as long as you go to Harvard, because the only school whose students can use this website is the Kushners’ alma mater.

It’s not as if the people behind UniThrive know much about the debt Harvard students face, having been accepted after Big Kush donated $2.5 million to the school. The website’s pitch to Crimson alumni paints it as a social networking site as much as a donation site. And though the Kushners may not be hip to some internet trends (see the Twitter pages of Jared and Josh), this new website does resemble a financial aid-version of match.com. Jared is actually very familiar with dating sites, as he likely met his fiancee through JDate.

At least the Kushners with their billions of dollars are finally doing something to help those in need. And who could be more needy than students accepted to the most prestigious school in the country? Take that you freeloading third-world entrepreneurs! You’re not good enough for Harvard money.