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Considering that the US universities consistently rank among the top and they do produce the significant portion of the groundbreaking innovation and technology

by mrtksn 4y ago

Considering that the US universities consistently rank among the top and they do produce the significant portion of the groundbreaking innovation and technology, maybe the American model has a merit? If you think about it, legacy admissions strengthens the connection of the alumni(which is likely to have significant career progress at the time of their offspring attends college) with the institution and gives them reasons to protect and the school from political hostilities. The legacy admission students give access to their successful parents connections. It should be nice to have the kids of Google founders as classmates, for example. Don't you think? It's not like the tests for admission can %100 accurately test the talents of the candidates anyway. Maybe diversity in admission is an actual strength that rest of the world lacks? What makes an institution elite anyways? I would say its legacy(the alumni) and its future(the candidates). There might be a healthy balance of giving up some resources from the future to keep the connections with the past strong.

21723 4y ago
> Considering that the US universities consistently rank among the top and they do produce the significant portion of the groundbreaking innovation and technology, maybe the American model has a merit? There's a long discussion to be had here, but... let me try to give the short version. Sure, the US does some things right. Mostly, though, it's momentum. The US made some very good decisions between 1940 and 1990 and academia evolves slowly, so it's only been in the past decade that we've started to see the loss of relevancy. > If you think about it, legacy admissions strengthens the connection of the alumni(which is likely to have significant career progress at the time of their offspring attends college) with the institution and gives them reasons to protect the school, and the legacy admission students give access to their successful parents connections. It should be nice to have the kids of Google founders as classmates, for example. Don't you think? This is a pretty naive view, and I say this as someone whose peer group is at least 50% elite college grads. Smart poors and legacy kids don't really mix. When the mixing does occur, it's predatory. The truth is that, by age 18, people who know they are and where they fit into society, and the rich kids have already been socialized to see us as the enemy, the teeming masses, the poors who exist to be exploited then discarded. If you want to "make connections", you have to do it in the first two years of prep school. Beyond that, it's too late. Those fuckers will never let you in. You have a better chance (still low, but nonzero) at violent overthrow with a large enough rabble armed with AK-47s. That said, you're not wrong that it benefits smart poors that rich brats also attend the same schools. It's a fog-of-war effect. At the individual level, you don't know if a person got in because they were smart or because they were rich. Thus, the rich brats look like they might be smart, and the smart poors end up with enough of a rich brat veneer to make it, at least, into middle--possibly lower-upper, if they don't make mistakes--management.
throw0101a 4y ago
> Considering that the US universities consistently rank among the top and they do produce the significant portion of the groundbreaking innovation and technology, maybe the American model has a merit? Britain had quite a lot of innovation during the 1800s when it coïncidentally also had one of the larger/est economies. As the economy of the US got larger and larger in the late-1800s / early-1900s all of a sudden it also coïncidentally started inventing a whole bunch more things. How much of the innovation and technology from having the largest economy in the world and the most money/capital to throw around? Certainly there needs to be a certain culture present, especially individualism and capitalism, but how much is 'brute size' a part of the equation?
- strikelaserclaw 4y ago
  Aren't most of the Phd's in STEM in America foreign born? If America no longer had this "brute force", then those people will likely go to the new cultural/economic capital of the world and a new country will rise which "innovates heavily"
matthewdgreen 4y ago
In my research field (CS), large universities have a big advantage. They have more resources (valuable for systems fields) and more students. Even if Harvard may have stronger undergrad students overall than random-U, their candidate pool of undergrads->potential PhD students tends to be much smaller. This isn't absolutely a rule (some smaller schools do very well in specific areas) but it's definitely a force I've noticed.
strikelaserclaw 4y ago
I would postulate US universities ranking among the top and producing groundbreaking innovation and technology is more a function of US being a cultural, economic hegemony for the past 80 years than it having some magical "system" that works. Before WW2, when you think of groundbreaking research you think of USA as a backwater compared to Europe. It is also my feeling that this American system is going to unravel in tandem with its economic/cultural collapse if nothing is done to heavily modify the rigged system.
- Longlius 4y ago
  The USA was hardly a backwater compared to Europe before WW2. Princeton had a world-class mathematics department where people came from all over the world to study and research, among them Alan Turing (whose collaborations with Alonzo Church turned out to be very important to this website). And even before the 20th century, American scientific acumen was fairly well-regarded. Benjamin Franklin's reputation in Europe was partially based on his scientific achievements. Europe's disdain for the Americas was almost always rooted in a belief of cultural superiority, not a belief that American science or engineering was weak.

by mrtksn 4y ago

21723 4y ago

> Considering that the US universities consistently rank among the top and they do produce the significant portion of the groundbreaking innovation and technology, maybe the American model has a merit? There's a long discussion to be had here, but... let me try to give the short version. Sure, the US does some things right. Mostly, though, it's momentum. The US made some very good decisions between 1940 and 1990 and academia evolves slowly, so it's only been in the past decade that we've started to see the loss of relevancy. > If you think about it, legacy admissions strengthens the connection of the alumni(which is likely to have significant career progress at the time of their offspring attends college) with the institution and gives them reasons to protect the school, and the legacy admission students give access to their successful parents connections. It should be nice to have the kids of Google founders as classmates, for example. Don't you think? This is a pretty naive view, and I say this as someone whose peer group is at least 50% elite college grads. Smart poors and legacy kids don't really mix. When the mixing does occur, it's predatory. The truth is that, by age 18, people who know they are and where they fit into society, and the rich kids have already been socialized to see us as the enemy, the teeming masses, the poors who exist to be exploited then discarded. If you want to "make connections", you have to do it in the first two years of prep school. Beyond that, it's too late. Those fuckers will never let you in. You have a better chance (still low, but nonzero) at violent overthrow with a large enough rabble armed with AK-47s. That said, you're not wrong that it benefits smart poors that rich brats also attend the same schools. It's a fog-of-war effect. At the individual level, you don't know if a person got in because they were smart or because they were rich. Thus, the rich brats look like they might be smart, and the smart poors end up with enough of a rich brat veneer to make it, at least, into middle--possibly lower-upper, if they don't make mistakes--management.

throw0101a 4y ago

> Considering that the US universities consistently rank among the top and they do produce the significant portion of the groundbreaking innovation and technology, maybe the American model has a merit? Britain had quite a lot of innovation during the 1800s when it coïncidentally also had one of the larger/est economies. As the economy of the US got larger and larger in the late-1800s / early-1900s all of a sudden it also coïncidentally started inventing a whole bunch more things. How much of the innovation and technology from having the largest economy in the world and the most money/capital to throw around? Certainly there needs to be a certain culture present, especially individualism and capitalism, but how much is 'brute size' a part of the equation?

strikelaserclaw 4y ago
Aren't most of the Phd's in STEM in America foreign born? If America no longer had this "brute force", then those people will likely go to the new cultural/economic capital of the world and a new country will rise which "innovates heavily"

matthewdgreen 4y ago

In my research field (CS), large universities have a big advantage. They have more resources (valuable for systems fields) and more students. Even if Harvard may have stronger undergrad students overall than random-U, their candidate pool of undergrads->potential PhD students tends to be much smaller. This isn't absolutely a rule (some smaller schools do very well in specific areas) but it's definitely a force I've noticed.

strikelaserclaw 4y ago

I would postulate US universities ranking among the top and producing groundbreaking innovation and technology is more a function of US being a cultural, economic hegemony for the past 80 years than it having some magical "system" that works. Before WW2, when you think of groundbreaking research you think of USA as a backwater compared to Europe. It is also my feeling that this American system is going to unravel in tandem with its economic/cultural collapse if nothing is done to heavily modify the rigged system.

Longlius 4y ago
The USA was hardly a backwater compared to Europe before WW2. Princeton had a world-class mathematics department where people came from all over the world to study and research, among them Alan Turing (whose collaborations with Alonzo Church turned out to be very important to this website). And even before the 20th century, American scientific acumen was fairly well-regarded. Benjamin Franklin's reputation in Europe was partially based on his scientific achievements. Europe's disdain for the Americas was almost always rooted in a belief of cultural superiority, not a belief that American science or engineering was weak.