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There's only four times as many people in the USA now as there were in the early 20th century, and still only about a thousand slots for Harvard freshmen.
by thrower123 5y ago
There's only four times as many people in the USA now as there were in the early 20th century, and still only about a thousand slots for Harvard freshmen.
- q-big 5y agoBut I bet the number of universities has increased by a lot.
- AnimalMuppet 5y agoWhy do you think that's relevant? The post you replied to was talking about Harvard, and the article was talking about the Ivy League. Has the number of Harvards increased? Has the Ivy League expanded very much?
- rejectedandsad 5y agoBecause there are lots of opportunities to get an education that aren’t nearly as selective. The number of total slots has increased considerably. I think they should build more UCs and more UTs and A&Ms etc but to a great extent they already have and increased the class sizes to boot.
- AnimalMuppet 5y agoTrue. But we weren't talking about getting an education. The article is about Ivy League, and the immediate antecedent was about Harvard. Sure, you can get an education anywhere. But Harvard and the rest of the Ivy League are all about prestige and social connections. You aren't going to get that at A&M.
- rejectedandsad 5y agoThat’s the ultimate problem and why these schools are harmful. Letting in another thousand cognitive elites isn’t going to change anything.
- AnimalMuppet 5y agoAh. You're not wanting to change to multiple Harvards, you're wanting to change to zero Harvards. And I kind of sympathize with that position. Education is helpful for society as a whole. Letting "elites" network so that they can position themselves to have outsized impact? Maybe not so much.
- rejectedandsad 5y agoCorrect. Even making UTAustin guaranteed acceptance to the top 14% of the class instead of 7% would be better than adding another Harvard in Texas. The non linearity of the rewards is the problem. I’m orders of magnitude worse off than my valedictorian, who went to an Ivy, because I didn’t get into any good schools. Abolish all of the top schools.
- xhkkffbf 5y agoI don't know for certain, but I bet the number of universities has decreased. There were thousands of small colleges in every small town. Many have gone out of business. The state colleges have really increased in size but many small colleges have disappeared.
- bachmeier 5y agoNot really. "The number of colleges and universities grew from 1,851 in 1950 to 3,535 in 1990 to 6,900 in 2013." https://college-education.procon.org/history-of-college-education/ https://college-education.procon.org/history-of-college-educ...