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I agree with the 'stop arguing over elite schools' bit. To me, elite schools look like a huge waste of money and I urge anyone considering an elite school to st

I agree with the 'stop arguing over elite schools' bit. To me, elite schools look like a huge waste of money and I urge anyone considering an elite school to study the law of diminishing returns. To other people, going to such a school is absolutely worth it and crucial to their life plan. Let them charge what the market will bear and let them accept students within the same framework that any other business follows when determining what customers to work with. Part of what makes so-called elite schools elite is scarcity, so even if you completely rewrote how they operate, the number of actual students affected would be too small to move the needle anyway.

kelseyfrog 3y ago
Elite schools transmute money into merit. Even if we completely marketize them, the human biases that exist in relation to them are sticky. This doesn't mean that "people's biases are wrong, therefore the consequences are irrelevant." It means that the choices made must account for those biases. The choices we make regarding merit laundering, must account for people's biases toward graduates. We would be fools not to.
- dbrueck 3y ago
  > Elite schools transmute money into merit. Eh, I don't know. Those schools transmute money into networks for sure, but the degree they do it for merit seems drastically less, perhaps it's even initially a negative at first. I mean, the lazy rich kid who got into Yale because of daddy is such a well-established stereotype now that it's almost the default expectation. :)
  - kelseyfrog 3y ago
    The point of laundering is sneaking in just enough bad with the good that it's more difficult/expensive to sort it out again than it is to accept that it's good and doesn't damage the brand. The reputation of elite institutions is a product of them mixing in just enough bad[sons and daughters of the elite[1]] with the meritorious[high student performers] that it's not worth it for us to sort it out ourselves and doesn't damage the reputation of the institution. The lazy rich kid to you, may be the perfect candidate to a VP hiring for an influential role. I'd be hasty to generalize your own perspective to those who are filling those seats. I brought up merit laundering for a reason: offering free public institutions reduces the merit pool for elite institutions in a way that reduces their efficacy in laundering merit. The meritorious care far less about the reputation of elite institutions than the elite do. After all, the launderers gain more from cleaning the dirty money than they do from dirtying the clean.
    - dbrueck 3y ago
      > The lazy rich kid to you, may be the perfect candidate to a VP hiring for an influential role. If the candidate is perfect because of the skills, work ethic, etc. then they by definition have merit, so that's not the type we're talking about. > I'd be hasty to generalize your own perspective to those who are filling those seats. I'm not. :) > The meritorious care far less about the reputation of elite institutions than the elite do. Yes, that's what I've been saying from the get-go.
      - kelseyfrog 3y ago
        > If the candidate is perfect because of the skills, work ethic, etc. then they by definition have merit, so that's not the type we're talking about. I mean like that "nobody got fired for choosing IBM"-type perfect fit.

kelseyfrog 3y ago

Elite schools transmute money into merit. Even if we completely marketize them, the human biases that exist in relation to them are sticky. This doesn't mean that "people's biases are wrong, therefore the consequences are irrelevant." It means that the choices made must account for those biases. The choices we make regarding merit laundering, must account for people's biases toward graduates. We would be fools not to.

dbrueck 3y ago
> Elite schools transmute money into merit. Eh, I don't know. Those schools transmute money into networks for sure, but the degree they do it for merit seems drastically less, perhaps it's even initially a negative at first. I mean, the lazy rich kid who got into Yale because of daddy is such a well-established stereotype now that it's almost the default expectation. :)
- kelseyfrog 3y ago
  The point of laundering is sneaking in just enough bad with the good that it's more difficult/expensive to sort it out again than it is to accept that it's good and doesn't damage the brand. The reputation of elite institutions is a product of them mixing in just enough bad[sons and daughters of the elite[1]] with the meritorious[high student performers] that it's not worth it for us to sort it out ourselves and doesn't damage the reputation of the institution. The lazy rich kid to you, may be the perfect candidate to a VP hiring for an influential role. I'd be hasty to generalize your own perspective to those who are filling those seats. I brought up merit laundering for a reason: offering free public institutions reduces the merit pool for elite institutions in a way that reduces their efficacy in laundering merit. The meritorious care far less about the reputation of elite institutions than the elite do. After all, the launderers gain more from cleaning the dirty money than they do from dirtying the clean.
  - dbrueck 3y ago
    > The lazy rich kid to you, may be the perfect candidate to a VP hiring for an influential role. If the candidate is perfect because of the skills, work ethic, etc. then they by definition have merit, so that's not the type we're talking about. > I'd be hasty to generalize your own perspective to those who are filling those seats. I'm not. :) > The meritorious care far less about the reputation of elite institutions than the elite do. Yes, that's what I've been saying from the get-go.
    - kelseyfrog 3y ago
      > If the candidate is perfect because of the skills, work ethic, etc. then they by definition have merit, so that's not the type we're talking about. I mean like that "nobody got fired for choosing IBM"-type perfect fit.