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> Do they have that narrative though? We already have affirmative action, which is the explicit inclusion of race/gender/class in admissions criteria. We are al

> Do they have that narrative though? We already have affirmative action, which is the explicit inclusion of race/gender/class in admissions criteria. We are already a long ways from pure meritocracy. I think affirmative action is a bad idea for exactly this reason. It has eroded the narrative. It's trendy for left-wing types to argue things like "Harvard isn't a meritocracy" or to sneer at the idea of a meritocracy altogether (don't get me started on the right-wing types). > More importantly, this policy wouldn't destroy those narratives. You can make the scale very steep such that you have to pay quite a bit to get your average student in, and the steepness of that curve will be determined by the eliteness of the institution. You have the same meritocratic rules, they're just tempered by money. I think doing this in the open would be a disaster. What won't destroy the narratives is implementing your idea in the background. This has already happened to some degree. Most students at Harvard don't pay very much. Their education is subsidized by rich families one way or another. But I don't think that's a good thing. Somewhere along the line our institutional narratives have become cliched in people's minds. Maybe this will lead us to a wonderful new world where we can be perfectly rational and implement ideas like yours. But I doubt it. I think if we lose the institutional narratives we're going to lose the institutions. Maybe the new institutions will be better, who knows? (I'm not optimistic).

darawk 7y ago
> I think affirmative action is a bad idea for exactly this reason. It has eroded the narrative. It's trendy for left-wing types to argue things like "Harvard isn't a meritocracy" or to sneer at the idea of a meritocracy altogether (don't get me started on the right-wing types). I too hate those people passionately. I'm all for meritocracy in general. I'm just also for pareto-optimal outcomes in resource-constrained environments. > I think doing this in the open would be a disaster. What won't destroy the narratives is implementing your idea in the background. This has already happened to some degree. Most students at Harvard don't pay very much. Their education is subsidized by rich families one way or another. Ya it's definitely already a thing in the background. And maybe that's the right level for it, i'm not sure. Though I think we could basically be providing free tuition to say, 75% of students by opening it up to people who aren't willing to donate a building, but could pay say 500k/year. Which is quite a large group of people, especially when you consider international students. > But I don't think that's a good thing. Somewhere along the line our institutional narratives have become cliched in people's minds. Maybe this will lead us to a wonderful new world where we can be perfectly rational and implement ideas like yours. But I doubt it. I think if we lose the institutional narratives we're going to lose the institutions. Maybe the new institutions will be better, who knows? (I'm not optimistic). That could be. But I think a big part of the problem right now is that we don't treat education enough like a financial investment. The narrative around it is already too imbued with some moral character that it doesn't really have. We have people going into debt to earn degrees in poetry or psychology, in part because of this odd narrative that a college degree magically endows you with the ingredients for success - regardless of what that degree is in. I think dosing that with a degree of financial realism might be a benefit.
CydeWeys 7y ago
> I think doing this in the open would be a disaster. Thought experiment: What would happen if it were public knowledge how much each student was paying to attend school? If you were far down the sliding scale and you were spending hundreds of thousands of dollars per year to get in, and that was public knowledge, would it hurt the school's reputation as much? Then it would be clear why this particular person got in, and their intelligence (or lack thereof) wouldn't weigh against people who earned their place by merit, which you could tell by seeing that their tuition cost is low or zero.

darawk 7y ago

> I think affirmative action is a bad idea for exactly this reason. It has eroded the narrative. It's trendy for left-wing types to argue things like "Harvard isn't a meritocracy" or to sneer at the idea of a meritocracy altogether (don't get me started on the right-wing types). I too hate those people passionately. I'm all for meritocracy in general. I'm just also for pareto-optimal outcomes in resource-constrained environments. > I think doing this in the open would be a disaster. What won't destroy the narratives is implementing your idea in the background. This has already happened to some degree. Most students at Harvard don't pay very much. Their education is subsidized by rich families one way or another. Ya it's definitely already a thing in the background. And maybe that's the right level for it, i'm not sure. Though I think we could basically be providing free tuition to say, 75% of students by opening it up to people who aren't willing to donate a building, but could pay say 500k/year. Which is quite a large group of people, especially when you consider international students. > But I don't think that's a good thing. Somewhere along the line our institutional narratives have become cliched in people's minds. Maybe this will lead us to a wonderful new world where we can be perfectly rational and implement ideas like yours. But I doubt it. I think if we lose the institutional narratives we're going to lose the institutions. Maybe the new institutions will be better, who knows? (I'm not optimistic). That could be. But I think a big part of the problem right now is that we don't treat education enough like a financial investment. The narrative around it is already too imbued with some moral character that it doesn't really have. We have people going into debt to earn degrees in poetry or psychology, in part because of this odd narrative that a college degree magically endows you with the ingredients for success - regardless of what that degree is in. I think dosing that with a degree of financial realism might be a benefit.

CydeWeys 7y ago

> I think doing this in the open would be a disaster. Thought experiment: What would happen if it were public knowledge how much each student was paying to attend school? If you were far down the sliding scale and you were spending hundreds of thousands of dollars per year to get in, and that was public knowledge, would it hurt the school's reputation as much? Then it would be clear why this particular person got in, and their intelligence (or lack thereof) wouldn't weigh against people who earned their place by merit, which you could tell by seeing that their tuition cost is low or zero.