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Many big tech companies are indeed led by people from Worker Bee schools (Midwestern state schools, SEC, ACC, etc.) Except for Google, famously founded by Stanf

Many big tech companies are indeed led by people from Worker Bee schools (Midwestern state schools, SEC, ACC, etc.) Except for Google, famously founded by Stanford students. Or Microsoft & Facebook: Harvard dropouts. It's quite a different story when you get to the people who really consider themselves Elite: big consulting firms, white shoe law firms, large media companies, and top echelons of the government. For those people, an Ivy League degree or equivalent is money, if not mandatory. I think, in addition to the percentage of incoming students who are historically marginalized, those schools should track "percentage of students whose parents did NOT go to college." If they really cared about providing opportunity for upward mobility, those are the people they'd go after.

corncob15 4y ago
Most colleges actually do track this metric - generally it's reported as "first-generation students." (Generally defined as parents without a four-year degree, not parents with zero college education, but same concept.) Here's Harvard's press release for the class of 2026, saying "Students who will be in the first generation of their family to graduate from a four-year college or the equivalent represent 20.3 percent of this year’s admitted class." https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2022/03/harvard-to-expand-financial-aid-starting-with-class-of-26/ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2022/03/harvard-to-ex... Yale doesn't report this statistic as far as I could find, although I found a blurb that says "more than one out of every six" (https://admissions.yale.edu/advice-first-generation-college-applicants https://admissions.yale.edu/advice-first-generation-college-...). Princeton's class of 2025 was 22% first-generation (https://www.princeton.edu/news/2021/04/06/extraordinary-year-princeton-offers-admission-1498-students-class-2025 https://www.princeton.edu/news/2021/04/06/extraordinary-year...).
- adamsmith143 4y ago
  Harvard has more students from the top 20% income percentile than the bottom 80%.
  - corncob15 4y ago
    This is true, but also doesn't conflict in any way with the 20% first-generation statistic. After all, the corollary of "20% first-generation" is that the vast majority of Harvard students do have one or more parents with a college degree.
- AlbertCory 4y ago
  Thanks. Has anyone graphed this over a longish time period (30-40 years)?

corncob15 4y ago

Most colleges actually do track this metric - generally it's reported as "first-generation students." (Generally defined as parents without a four-year degree, not parents with zero college education, but same concept.) Here's Harvard's press release for the class of 2026, saying "Students who will be in the first generation of their family to graduate from a four-year college or the equivalent represent 20.3 percent of this year’s admitted class." https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2022/03/harvard-to-expand-financial-aid-starting-with-class-of-26/ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2022/03/harvard-to-ex... Yale doesn't report this statistic as far as I could find, although I found a blurb that says "more than one out of every six" (https://admissions.yale.edu/advice-first-generation-college-applicants https://admissions.yale.edu/advice-first-generation-college-...). Princeton's class of 2025 was 22% first-generation (https://www.princeton.edu/news/2021/04/06/extraordinary-year-princeton-offers-admission-1498-students-class-2025 https://www.princeton.edu/news/2021/04/06/extraordinary-year...).

adamsmith143 4y ago
Harvard has more students from the top 20% income percentile than the bottom 80%.
- corncob15 4y ago
  This is true, but also doesn't conflict in any way with the 20% first-generation statistic. After all, the corollary of "20% first-generation" is that the vast majority of Harvard students do have one or more parents with a college degree.
AlbertCory 4y ago
Thanks. Has anyone graphed this over a longish time period (30-40 years)?