4 ms·

He's right about housing being the #1 issue, but it's hardly the only problem created by America's ruling class. I bet he's entirely blind to the fact that the

by staunch 11y ago

He's right about housing being the #1 issue, but it's hardly the only problem created by America's ruling class. I bet he's entirely blind to the fact that the only reason his paper is getting so much attention is that he's an "MIT graduate". Attending an elite school like MIT is not even a 1%'er thing, it's a 0.1% thing. There's probably some poor person, who went to a shitty college, that's even smarter and has a better theory but we'll never hear about it. Think about their career trajectories and the inequality of their outcomes. Of course the 99.9% contains almost all of the smartest people, but they get almost none of the opportunity. This elitism is absolutely pervasive in American society. Microsoft: "Harvard dropout inks deal with IBM" Google: "A new search engine from Stanford." Facebook: "The exclusive Harvard social network" Dropbox: "Google Drive killer coming from MIT Startup". This paper: "MIT graduate student says income inequality is actually about housing" Something like 95%+ of people that get into elite schools graduate. It's not hard to graduate, it's just hard to get in, and the test for getting in is so gameable and rigged that almost no one pretends it isn't anymore. As long as the rich can spend fortunes buying elite credentials for their children, we're going to have a ruling class and a worker class.

oldmanjay 11y ago
Lots of assertions and anger, not much substance. About the only thing I get from your comment is you have great antipathy for the people on top.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- galago 11y ago
  My personal observation is that there is a lot of close, personal interaction at top tier schools. So, while this isn't entirely wrong, its missing a useful observation. Academics working in a curated environment encounter the best ideas and encounter less 'noise' from bad ideas. This isn't a problem that's easy to solve, although technology is slowly chipping away at it. Currently there's not substitute though, for being in the same room with Picketty and other smart people, which probably happened when Picketty visited MIT after the publication of Capital in the 20th Century.
- Qwertious 11y ago
  Generally speaking, ad-hominem is best served as a side-dish. Or not at all.
- wfo 11y ago
  It's easy to take nothing from the thoughts of another when you yourself have nothing to give.
kiba 11y ago
I don't care about the distinction between classes. I care more about stress, how many months to go before I go broke, if I can get a job or not, or if I can keep a job, or what is my working condition, how many vacation days I get off, and so on. How lazy are the 1%ers don't concern me.
TTPrograms 11y ago
That's why those schools all require a copy of your parents' paystubs as part of their applications.
- tuberry 11y ago
  To be fair, they require proof of income for financial aid, and your ability to pay for college is certainly a big factor. Most colleges (particularly the elite colleges) wouldn't want to enroll students who don't graduate.
  - TTPrograms 11y ago
    https://www.edvisors.com/plan-for-college/college-admissions/need-blind-admissions/ https://www.edvisors.com/plan-for-college/college-admissions... Including: Harvard MIT Stanford Princeton Columbia etc.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
- staunch 11y ago
  "And while many of the wealthiest colleges offer need-based scholarships for their poorest students, they enroll a relatively small percentage of low-income students compared to their less wealthy peers. The 10 wealthiest private colleges hold cash and endowments that, combined, total nearly $180 billion. A median 16 percent of their 2012-13 enrollees received Pell Grants, a form of federal aid only available to low-income students, according to an analysis of federal data." “We are spending the most money as a society educating the wealthiest people.” -- Ronald Ehrenberg, director of the Cornell University Higher Education Research Institute https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/05/21/rich-universities-get-richer-are-poor-students-being-left-behind https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/05/21/rich-universi... http://money.cnn.com/2015/04/28/pf/college/ivy-league-low-income-students/ http://money.cnn.com/2015/04/28/pf/college/ivy-league-low-in... https://www.bostonglobe.com/magazine/2015/04/09/what-like-poor-ivy-league-school/xPtql5uzDb6r9AUFER8R0O/story.html https://www.bostonglobe.com/magazine/2015/04/09/what-like-po... http://www.forbes.com/sites/maggiemcgrath/2013/11/27/the-challenge-of-being-poor-at-americas-richest-colleges/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/maggiemcgrath/2013/11/27/the-cha... http://www.cnbc.com/2015/09/16/top-1-of-harvard-grads-richer-than-americas-1.html http://www.cnbc.com/2015/09/16/top-1-of-harvard-grads-richer...
aetherson 11y ago
It seems deeply unlikely to me that children of the 0.1% make up more than 5% of MIT.
dopamean 11y ago
This comment rings very true for me. I am 30 years old and come from a solidly middle class background - mother was a high school teacher and my father was an airline pilot. I grew up in the Hamptons (Southampton to be exact) and went to a private school. After that I went to U Penn. I ended up dropping out in my sophomore year. I spent the next couple years doing literally nothing productive. I could best be described as very self destructive in those years. Now, I'm 30. I have a very well paying job. I have quite a bit of money in my bank account. Things are good for me. Much better than some people I know who started off with less than me and worked twice as hard. I cant help but think that my own status in life can mostly be attributed to the access I had to people of power and wealth. Though my family could hardly be considered part of the 1% I did manage to rub shoulders with enough of them that I have received some residual benefit. School was a huge part of that. It's a weird thing. I sometimes feel guilty about it. Particularly when I meet people who are smarter or harder working than I am.
rtl49 11y ago
It's worth pointing out the silliness of the title ("well, if an MIT grad student claims things are so, who am I to suggest otherwise?"). But it isn't so difficult as you seem to think for a somewhat talented and hard-working student of the middle class to be accepted to an elite school. I think there are many here who can attest to this. The wealthy will always have an advantage, but it isn't as though it's easy to literally buy admission. The sheer number of do-nothing rich kids who never make the cut is evidence of this.
- learc83 11y ago
  Considering that almost half of Harvard students come from families in the top 4% by income, I'd say the rich have a pretty big advantage. Harvard is basically free for low income students, yet they make up a very small percentage of total students. One thing they could do is to increase their outreach to lower income students. When I was in high school, I had no idea that Harvard was affordable for me. Looking back, I probably had the SAT scores and grades to get in, but I never even considered it as a possibility. http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2012/1/26/diversity-lack-figures-evidence-harvard/ http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2012/1/26/diversity-lack-f...
  - rtl49 11y ago
    I think I understated the advantage the wealthy have while making the point that the parent comment had overstated it. That said, I'm embarrassed to admit my opinion was mostly informed by anecdotal evidence, and your example with Harvard is certainly better than that. The "fact sheet" in the article is dead, but the conclusion seems reasonable. I'd hoped my comment might serve as some encouragement of the sort outreach might, not as a justification for the current state of economic diversity at elite schools.
ssalazar 11y ago
> Something like 95%+ of people that get into elite schools graduate. It's not hard to graduate, it's just hard to get in As someone from a middle class background who went to a top-tier school, you have no idea what you are talking about. Sure, there were/are plenty of humanities majors who had relatively light workloads, but as an engineering major I worked my ass off 8 days/week.
- staunch 11y ago
  Compare your struggle as a well off person attending an elite university to what your poor counterparts were doing at the same time. They were cleaning bathrooms, waiting for buses in the cold, dealing with criminals in bad neighborhoods, and living in apartments with cockroaches. While they worried about buying food and paying the rent, you "worked your ass off" doing homework in total safety and comfort. But I was wrong. Poor kids who get into MIT ("Recipients of a Federal Pell Grant") only graduate at a rate of 87%. It's just the wealthy students with such incredibly high graduation rates. http://web.mit.edu/ir/pop/students/graduation_rates.html http://web.mit.edu/ir/pop/students/graduation_rates.html
  - humanrebar 11y ago
    Poor kids don't make it to top tier schools. It's hard to have good "intangibles" when you have to work while going to high school to pay for your own room and board. Maybe you can get a 4.0 and good SAT scores, but so can a 50,000 other teenagers.
    - remarkEon 11y ago
      -> It's hard to have good "intangibles" when you have to work while going to high school to pay for your own room and board. OTOH, that sounds like a pretty darn good "intangible" to me and would certainly warrant further consideration in my book.
      - humanrebar 11y ago
        I agree, but even if you considered that a good intangible, there are many students who have to work to support themselves and their families. By definition, the things the 1% do to be impressive will always be more unusual and stand out. You pilot your own hot air balloon, are fluent in Farsi, and put in 500 hours helping the underprivileged(a) write resumes? Impressive. (a) If you are underprivileged, you might have time to volunteer somewhere, but typically supporting your family doesn't count as helping the underprivileged. Changing grandma's bedpans isn't volunteer work, and it's kind of exploitative to make that a major portion of your college application.
ryanmonroe 11y ago
>Something like 95%+ of people that get into elite schools graduate. >It's not hard to graduate, it's just hard to get in, These two things are related
RogtamBar 11y ago
>Attending an elite school like MIT is not even a 1%'er thing, it's a 0.1% thing. No. If you're insanely hard working, passably smart and somehow lucky, you can get in. I knew someone like that - and she reported that she was one of the dumber people there. If 0.1% have their kids there, these are not slacking at all. > test for getting in is so gameable and rigged that almost no one pretends it isn't anymore. SAT tests are rigged?
biswaroop 11y ago
You seem to be confusing graduate school with undergraduate school. None of the grad students I work with at MIT have rich families. Many come from very non-elite colleges. They're smart and hard-working, much like grad students elsewhere. We get paid below national average salaries to work 60 hour weeks on technically challenging projects. That said, MIT has an unfair reputation of containing geniuses. Elite schools do have a greater impact, but only the true theories/discoveries stand the test of time.

by staunch 11y ago

oldmanjay 11y ago

Lots of assertions and anger, not much substance. About the only thing I get from your comment is you have great antipathy for the people on top.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
galago 11y ago
My personal observation is that there is a lot of close, personal interaction at top tier schools. So, while this isn't entirely wrong, its missing a useful observation. Academics working in a curated environment encounter the best ideas and encounter less 'noise' from bad ideas. This isn't a problem that's easy to solve, although technology is slowly chipping away at it. Currently there's not substitute though, for being in the same room with Picketty and other smart people, which probably happened when Picketty visited MIT after the publication of Capital in the 20th Century.
Qwertious 11y ago
Generally speaking, ad-hominem is best served as a side-dish. Or not at all.
wfo 11y ago
It's easy to take nothing from the thoughts of another when you yourself have nothing to give.

kiba 11y ago

I don't care about the distinction between classes. I care more about stress, how many months to go before I go broke, if I can get a job or not, or if I can keep a job, or what is my working condition, how many vacation days I get off, and so on. How lazy are the 1%ers don't concern me.

TTPrograms 11y ago

That's why those schools all require a copy of your parents' paystubs as part of their applications.

tuberry 11y ago
To be fair, they require proof of income for financial aid, and your ability to pay for college is certainly a big factor. Most colleges (particularly the elite colleges) wouldn't want to enroll students who don't graduate.
- TTPrograms 11y ago
  https://www.edvisors.com/plan-for-college/college-admissions/need-blind-admissions/ https://www.edvisors.com/plan-for-college/college-admissions... Including: Harvard MIT Stanford Princeton Columbia etc.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
staunch 11y ago
"And while many of the wealthiest colleges offer need-based scholarships for their poorest students, they enroll a relatively small percentage of low-income students compared to their less wealthy peers. The 10 wealthiest private colleges hold cash and endowments that, combined, total nearly $180 billion. A median 16 percent of their 2012-13 enrollees received Pell Grants, a form of federal aid only available to low-income students, according to an analysis of federal data." “We are spending the most money as a society educating the wealthiest people.” -- Ronald Ehrenberg, director of the Cornell University Higher Education Research Institute https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/05/21/rich-universities-get-richer-are-poor-students-being-left-behind https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/05/21/rich-universi... http://money.cnn.com/2015/04/28/pf/college/ivy-league-low-income-students/ http://money.cnn.com/2015/04/28/pf/college/ivy-league-low-in... https://www.bostonglobe.com/magazine/2015/04/09/what-like-poor-ivy-league-school/xPtql5uzDb6r9AUFER8R0O/story.html https://www.bostonglobe.com/magazine/2015/04/09/what-like-po... http://www.forbes.com/sites/maggiemcgrath/2013/11/27/the-challenge-of-being-poor-at-americas-richest-colleges/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/maggiemcgrath/2013/11/27/the-cha... http://www.cnbc.com/2015/09/16/top-1-of-harvard-grads-richer-than-americas-1.html http://www.cnbc.com/2015/09/16/top-1-of-harvard-grads-richer...

aetherson 11y ago

It seems deeply unlikely to me that children of the 0.1% make up more than 5% of MIT.

dopamean 11y ago

This comment rings very true for me. I am 30 years old and come from a solidly middle class background - mother was a high school teacher and my father was an airline pilot. I grew up in the Hamptons (Southampton to be exact) and went to a private school. After that I went to U Penn. I ended up dropping out in my sophomore year. I spent the next couple years doing literally nothing productive. I could best be described as very self destructive in those years. Now, I'm 30. I have a very well paying job. I have quite a bit of money in my bank account. Things are good for me. Much better than some people I know who started off with less than me and worked twice as hard. I cant help but think that my own status in life can mostly be attributed to the access I had to people of power and wealth. Though my family could hardly be considered part of the 1% I did manage to rub shoulders with enough of them that I have received some residual benefit. School was a huge part of that. It's a weird thing. I sometimes feel guilty about it. Particularly when I meet people who are smarter or harder working than I am.

rtl49 11y ago

It's worth pointing out the silliness of the title ("well, if an MIT grad student claims things are so, who am I to suggest otherwise?"). But it isn't so difficult as you seem to think for a somewhat talented and hard-working student of the middle class to be accepted to an elite school. I think there are many here who can attest to this. The wealthy will always have an advantage, but it isn't as though it's easy to literally buy admission. The sheer number of do-nothing rich kids who never make the cut is evidence of this.

learc83 11y ago
Considering that almost half of Harvard students come from families in the top 4% by income, I'd say the rich have a pretty big advantage. Harvard is basically free for low income students, yet they make up a very small percentage of total students. One thing they could do is to increase their outreach to lower income students. When I was in high school, I had no idea that Harvard was affordable for me. Looking back, I probably had the SAT scores and grades to get in, but I never even considered it as a possibility. http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2012/1/26/diversity-lack-figures-evidence-harvard/ http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2012/1/26/diversity-lack-f...
- rtl49 11y ago
  I think I understated the advantage the wealthy have while making the point that the parent comment had overstated it. That said, I'm embarrassed to admit my opinion was mostly informed by anecdotal evidence, and your example with Harvard is certainly better than that. The "fact sheet" in the article is dead, but the conclusion seems reasonable. I'd hoped my comment might serve as some encouragement of the sort outreach might, not as a justification for the current state of economic diversity at elite schools.

ssalazar 11y ago

> Something like 95%+ of people that get into elite schools graduate. It's not hard to graduate, it's just hard to get in As someone from a middle class background who went to a top-tier school, you have no idea what you are talking about. Sure, there were/are plenty of humanities majors who had relatively light workloads, but as an engineering major I worked my ass off 8 days/week.

staunch 11y ago
Compare your struggle as a well off person attending an elite university to what your poor counterparts were doing at the same time. They were cleaning bathrooms, waiting for buses in the cold, dealing with criminals in bad neighborhoods, and living in apartments with cockroaches. While they worried about buying food and paying the rent, you "worked your ass off" doing homework in total safety and comfort. But I was wrong. Poor kids who get into MIT ("Recipients of a Federal Pell Grant") only graduate at a rate of 87%. It's just the wealthy students with such incredibly high graduation rates. http://web.mit.edu/ir/pop/students/graduation_rates.html http://web.mit.edu/ir/pop/students/graduation_rates.html
- humanrebar 11y ago
  Poor kids don't make it to top tier schools. It's hard to have good "intangibles" when you have to work while going to high school to pay for your own room and board. Maybe you can get a 4.0 and good SAT scores, but so can a 50,000 other teenagers.
  - remarkEon 11y ago
    -> It's hard to have good "intangibles" when you have to work while going to high school to pay for your own room and board. OTOH, that sounds like a pretty darn good "intangible" to me and would certainly warrant further consideration in my book.
    - humanrebar 11y ago
      I agree, but even if you considered that a good intangible, there are many students who have to work to support themselves and their families. By definition, the things the 1% do to be impressive will always be more unusual and stand out. You pilot your own hot air balloon, are fluent in Farsi, and put in 500 hours helping the underprivileged(a) write resumes? Impressive. (a) If you are underprivileged, you might have time to volunteer somewhere, but typically supporting your family doesn't count as helping the underprivileged. Changing grandma's bedpans isn't volunteer work, and it's kind of exploitative to make that a major portion of your college application.

ryanmonroe 11y ago

>Something like 95%+ of people that get into elite schools graduate. >It's not hard to graduate, it's just hard to get in, These two things are related

RogtamBar 11y ago

>Attending an elite school like MIT is not even a 1%'er thing, it's a 0.1% thing. No. If you're insanely hard working, passably smart and somehow lucky, you can get in. I knew someone like that - and she reported that she was one of the dumber people there. If 0.1% have their kids there, these are not slacking at all. > test for getting in is so gameable and rigged that almost no one pretends it isn't anymore. SAT tests are rigged?

biswaroop 11y ago

You seem to be confusing graduate school with undergraduate school. None of the grad students I work with at MIT have rich families. Many come from very non-elite colleges. They're smart and hard-working, much like grad students elsewhere. We get paid below national average salaries to work 60 hour weeks on technically challenging projects. That said, MIT has an unfair reputation of containing geniuses. Elite schools do have a greater impact, but only the true theories/discoveries stand the test of time.