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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

by gbrown 8y 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 8y 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 8y 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 8y 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.

by gbrown 8y ago

darawk 8y 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 8y 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 8y 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.