6 ms·

No. No amount of money should get you a way to get into an "elite" school if you don't deserve it. Unless we're ready to admit that these schools aren't really

No. No amount of money should get you a way to get into an "elite" school if you don't deserve it. Unless we're ready to admit that these schools aren't really elite if any billionaire's dumb dumb kid can get in with enough money thrown at the institution. The issue with trying to solve every single problem with money is that capitalism isn't designed to solve problems where a moral compass is needed.

skookumchuck 7y ago
Theocracies justify their existence by enforcing a moral code. They haven't worked out very well.
dls2016 7y ago
> if any billionaire's dumb dumb kid can get in with enough money thrown at the institution Do you really think this isn't already the case?
darawk 7y ago
> No. No amount of money should get you a way to get into an "elite" school if you don't deserve it. Why? What's so precious about elite schooling that you're willing to sacrifice 10 kids getting a free education just to prevent one billionaire's kid from going to an elite school? > The issue with trying to solve every single problem with money is that capitalism isn't designed to solve problems where a moral compass is needed. Except that capitalism will give more people an elite education, and your moral compass will give fewer of them one. There's a reason we don't guide economies by moral compass - it doesn't work very well.
- mochomocha 7y ago
  In the country I come from (France), all the top schools are publicly funded and you get in by taking exams where the whole country students compete once a year. Based on how you rank, you get in or not. Most of them have really low annual tuitions. In some of them, you're even paid! Hard to imagine anything remotely close here when there's always a way to throw money at something (your congressman, dean...) to get the outcome you want.
  - ajross 7y ago
    Go research financial aid programs and outcomes at elite US Universities. The fact that these schools are subject to financial pressure at the margins absolutely does not mean that they are closed to needy students. There are MANY unfair elements of the US educational system that disadvantage poor and minority students, but access to elite schools for the deserving fraction is just not one of them. We're doing fine here.
    - mochomocha 7y ago
      What about the middle-class kid who doesn't qualify to any of these programs whose chance to get the best teachers and nurturing environment is spoiled by the dumb rich kid taking a spot and wasting it? What about the extra administrative, time burden and uncertainty of outcome the poor kids have to suffer to chase all these financial aid programs? There's clearly room for improvement.
      - ajross 7y ago
        > What about the middle-class kid who doesn't qualify to any of these programs Citation needed. I was that kid myself. There are no "programs" to "qualify" for. You file a financial aid form. Whatever you and your parents can reasonably pay, you pay, and the school covers the rest. It works for everyone. And one of the reasons it works for everyone is revenue that the school generates, and yeah, that includes some shady benefactor greasing. I'm not going to sit here and deny that legacy admissions are distasteful and unfair. I jumped in the thread to point out that what they do not do is significantly disadvantage the needy. If you really care about these issues, call your congressperson about federal education funding and stop bitching at Harvard.
        anon12345690 7y ago
        yea that doesnt work. anyone with a family above poverty level basically gets no financial aid other saying get some loans. try asking literally any of the thousands of kids applying in california or texas or new york
- glangdale 7y ago
  The point of an elite school is that it's meant to be 'elite', i.e. selective. The more dumb rich kids get in, the more the value of the school's degree declines. This deal has always been bent at the high end ('buy us a new library wing and we'll ignore that little Timmy has a room temp IQ') but not overtly broken, which is what this proposal (and the behavior that people are being prosecuted for) amounts to.
  - darawk 7y ago
    > The point of an elite school is that it's meant to be 'elite', i.e. selective. The more dumb rich kids get in, the more the value of the school's degree declines. If that had any truth to it then affirmative action wouldn't work.
    - wahern 7y ago
      Has it? At the margins, but I don't think it's even come close to achieving the type of societal transformations envisioned. The percentage of African Americans at Harvard this past year was only 15%, roughly comparable to the overall population demographics (~%12 black, ~14% mixed). I suspect Harvard is average or above average in this regard. It's not saying much that the rich are okay with going to historically elite schools with the same demographic ratio as the country-wide general population. And before anybody brings up Asians as the exception, don't forget that smaller liberal arts colleges and less well known tier-1 private universities (e.g. George Washington) are still very popular with the wealthy, and those colleges are much whiter and richer. Even on HN you still see the trope about how Americans are more "creative" than the Chinese, and someone who claims that such sentiments don't at least partially reflect prejudices against American Asians and don't color college preferences are fooling themselves. I mean, if you don't get into Berkeley you can just wave it off with the observation that it's mostly Asian anyhow--i.e. you didn't really have a fair chance to get in and/or it's somehow less desirable than historically.
    - glangdale 7y ago
      It's pretty wild that you think that providing preference to the most able people who have typically come from disadvantaged backgrounds (i.e. affirmative action) is equivalent to providing preference to insanely rich people who are vastly underperforming their privileged cohort.
- gbrown 7y ago
  Elite schools are a great mechanism to entrench privelege. Paying to get your slacker kid a middling GPA at an elite school is a great way to connect them to a business network of other wealthy people, and fast track them for high paying jobs at the top of the corporate ladder. Also some poorer kids get a good education, while not quite being able to tap into those same connections. In terms of research output, it's true that elite institutions are at the top... but not if you adjust for their revenue and assets. We'd get way more bang for our buck socially and scientifically by spreading those billion dollar endowments around, and properly funding state institutions like most other sensible countries.
  - darawk 7y ago
    > Elite schools are a great mechanism to entrench privelege. Paying to get your slacker kid a middling GPA at an elite school is a great way to connect them to a business network of other wealthy people, and fast track them for high paying jobs at the top of the corporate ladder. Also some poorer kids get a good education, while not quite being able to tap into those same connections. The children of the wealthy already have connections. You know who doesn't? Poor kids. The poor kids they'd be subsidizing.
    - gbrown 7y ago
      Then why are wealthy people paying (and in many cases risking) so much to get their kids into elite schools? It's an important signalling complement to existing networks, and a way to extend them.
  - wahern 7y ago
    > We'd get way more bang for our buck socially and scientifically by spreading those billion dollar endowments around, and properly funding state institutions like most other sensible countries. The Obamacare fiasco has proven to me that such approaches are impossible in the near term. The 2017 tax cut really drove it home. How are people not seeing this? A principally public approach is not viable. It could be, as amply demonstrated around the world. But roughly 50% of the American population rejects these schemes when they're forced to reckon with the costs. It's been this way since before Roosevelt. Social Security was a watered down, private labor market-focused program for the precisely the same political reasons Obamacare was. The exceptions are clearly and demonstrably anomalous. For example, the heyday of public universities come from a time when only a fraction of the population went to college, much of the land and capital assets were donated, labor was relatively cheap, and the burden on the public purse was negligible.
roenxi 7y ago
There are many types of elites - financial elites, academic elites, social elites, etc, etc. An elite school tries to cater to all of those. It would be better if they were more up-front about this rather than pretending they are all about academic achievement but they would still be elite schools. And they'd still have some exceptionally bright students in their classes.

skookumchuck 7y ago

Theocracies justify their existence by enforcing a moral code. They haven't worked out very well.

dls2016 7y ago

> if any billionaire's dumb dumb kid can get in with enough money thrown at the institution Do you really think this isn't already the case?

darawk 7y ago

> No. No amount of money should get you a way to get into an "elite" school if you don't deserve it. Why? What's so precious about elite schooling that you're willing to sacrifice 10 kids getting a free education just to prevent one billionaire's kid from going to an elite school? > The issue with trying to solve every single problem with money is that capitalism isn't designed to solve problems where a moral compass is needed. Except that capitalism will give more people an elite education, and your moral compass will give fewer of them one. There's a reason we don't guide economies by moral compass - it doesn't work very well.

mochomocha 7y ago
In the country I come from (France), all the top schools are publicly funded and you get in by taking exams where the whole country students compete once a year. Based on how you rank, you get in or not. Most of them have really low annual tuitions. In some of them, you're even paid! Hard to imagine anything remotely close here when there's always a way to throw money at something (your congressman, dean...) to get the outcome you want.
- ajross 7y ago
  Go research financial aid programs and outcomes at elite US Universities. The fact that these schools are subject to financial pressure at the margins absolutely does not mean that they are closed to needy students. There are MANY unfair elements of the US educational system that disadvantage poor and minority students, but access to elite schools for the deserving fraction is just not one of them. We're doing fine here.
  - mochomocha 7y ago
    What about the middle-class kid who doesn't qualify to any of these programs whose chance to get the best teachers and nurturing environment is spoiled by the dumb rich kid taking a spot and wasting it? What about the extra administrative, time burden and uncertainty of outcome the poor kids have to suffer to chase all these financial aid programs? There's clearly room for improvement.
    - ajross 7y ago
      > What about the middle-class kid who doesn't qualify to any of these programs Citation needed. I was that kid myself. There are no "programs" to "qualify" for. You file a financial aid form. Whatever you and your parents can reasonably pay, you pay, and the school covers the rest. It works for everyone. And one of the reasons it works for everyone is revenue that the school generates, and yeah, that includes some shady benefactor greasing. I'm not going to sit here and deny that legacy admissions are distasteful and unfair. I jumped in the thread to point out that what they do not do is significantly disadvantage the needy. If you really care about these issues, call your congressperson about federal education funding and stop bitching at Harvard.
      - anon12345690 7y ago
        yea that doesnt work. anyone with a family above poverty level basically gets no financial aid other saying get some loans. try asking literally any of the thousands of kids applying in california or texas or new york
glangdale 7y ago
The point of an elite school is that it's meant to be 'elite', i.e. selective. The more dumb rich kids get in, the more the value of the school's degree declines. This deal has always been bent at the high end ('buy us a new library wing and we'll ignore that little Timmy has a room temp IQ') but not overtly broken, which is what this proposal (and the behavior that people are being prosecuted for) amounts to.
- darawk 7y ago
  > The point of an elite school is that it's meant to be 'elite', i.e. selective. The more dumb rich kids get in, the more the value of the school's degree declines. If that had any truth to it then affirmative action wouldn't work.
  - wahern 7y ago
    Has it? At the margins, but I don't think it's even come close to achieving the type of societal transformations envisioned. The percentage of African Americans at Harvard this past year was only 15%, roughly comparable to the overall population demographics (~%12 black, ~14% mixed). I suspect Harvard is average or above average in this regard. It's not saying much that the rich are okay with going to historically elite schools with the same demographic ratio as the country-wide general population. And before anybody brings up Asians as the exception, don't forget that smaller liberal arts colleges and less well known tier-1 private universities (e.g. George Washington) are still very popular with the wealthy, and those colleges are much whiter and richer. Even on HN you still see the trope about how Americans are more "creative" than the Chinese, and someone who claims that such sentiments don't at least partially reflect prejudices against American Asians and don't color college preferences are fooling themselves. I mean, if you don't get into Berkeley you can just wave it off with the observation that it's mostly Asian anyhow--i.e. you didn't really have a fair chance to get in and/or it's somehow less desirable than historically.
  - glangdale 7y ago
    It's pretty wild that you think that providing preference to the most able people who have typically come from disadvantaged backgrounds (i.e. affirmative action) is equivalent to providing preference to insanely rich people who are vastly underperforming their privileged cohort.
gbrown 7y ago
Elite schools are a great mechanism to entrench privelege. Paying to get your slacker kid a middling GPA at an elite school is a great way to connect them to a business network of other wealthy people, and fast track them for high paying jobs at the top of the corporate ladder. Also some poorer kids get a good education, while not quite being able to tap into those same connections. In terms of research output, it's true that elite institutions are at the top... but not if you adjust for their revenue and assets. We'd get way more bang for our buck socially and scientifically by spreading those billion dollar endowments around, and properly funding state institutions like most other sensible countries.
- darawk 7y ago
  > Elite schools are a great mechanism to entrench privelege. Paying to get your slacker kid a middling GPA at an elite school is a great way to connect them to a business network of other wealthy people, and fast track them for high paying jobs at the top of the corporate ladder. Also some poorer kids get a good education, while not quite being able to tap into those same connections. The children of the wealthy already have connections. You know who doesn't? Poor kids. The poor kids they'd be subsidizing.
  - gbrown 7y ago
    Then why are wealthy people paying (and in many cases risking) so much to get their kids into elite schools? It's an important signalling complement to existing networks, and a way to extend them.
- wahern 7y ago
  > We'd get way more bang for our buck socially and scientifically by spreading those billion dollar endowments around, and properly funding state institutions like most other sensible countries. The Obamacare fiasco has proven to me that such approaches are impossible in the near term. The 2017 tax cut really drove it home. How are people not seeing this? A principally public approach is not viable. It could be, as amply demonstrated around the world. But roughly 50% of the American population rejects these schemes when they're forced to reckon with the costs. It's been this way since before Roosevelt. Social Security was a watered down, private labor market-focused program for the precisely the same political reasons Obamacare was. The exceptions are clearly and demonstrably anomalous. For example, the heyday of public universities come from a time when only a fraction of the population went to college, much of the land and capital assets were donated, labor was relatively cheap, and the burden on the public purse was negligible.

roenxi 7y ago

There are many types of elites - financial elites, academic elites, social elites, etc, etc. An elite school tries to cater to all of those. It would be better if they were more up-front about this rather than pretending they are all about academic achievement but they would still be elite schools. And they'd still have some exceptionally bright students in their classes.