Isn't that exactly what universities (at least top universities) are and always have been? If you wanted to be a top cleric in the middle ages, you'd study in

Isn't that exactly what universities (at least top universities) are and always have been? If you wanted to be a top cleric in the middle ages, you'd study in a university with the best manuscripts, the best scholars and the best clergy connections. Whether you want to get into tech, academia or government you will try to get into the best universities because they have the best alumni network, the best resources and the best name recognition. Now of course this only applies to extremely ambitious people (I don't think being ambitious is necessarily a good thing). Plenty of people are fine working at a regional bank. Plenty of people are fine living a simple, stable life in a local government administration. Those jobs can even be attractive to ambitious people, if you're a first generation immigrant from a dirt-poor background, a stable local government job with decent pay and benefits is certainly something worth striving for. For such people a local community college will provide just the same level of knowledge and skills they'd get at a big name university. I can't quite put my fingers on what's wrong with the article, but it rings to me as the perspective of someone who's only familiar with fancy colleges and has little knowledge (or care) for what actually goes on and who actually goes to smaller institutions.