3 ms·

That devalues the paper that hundreds of thousands of kids earned the hard way. It's sad.

amenhotep 2y ago
I take your point, but to be nitpicky, does it really devalue it? How many prospective students who've legitimately earned a place at Stanford would prefer to use it rather than sell it for $25m? That is a great deal of money.
- FredPret 2y ago
  Kids aren't selling their degrees for $25m. Smart kids are earning degrees that are very prestigious because of how smart they are. Then dumb kids pay $25m in donations and bribes via their parents to get degrees right alongside the smart kids. So now when you see a Stanford degree, is it from a smart kid or a dumb kid? That's why it's devaluing.
  - Clubber 2y ago
    Yes, this. To add to that, say hypothetically, I'm an employer and I want to grow my company by building some software. I decide to shoot for the moon and hire a Stanford grad. I happen to get one of the "paid for," ones and they're just like the many, many other not great programmers. Through that experience the Stanford grad I hired isn't any better than the many, many other not great programmers I can hire from any school. Why would I ever give preference to a Stanford degree over any other? All the great programmers with Stanford degrees who earned them through really hard work, smarts and discipline are devalued because that one guy who Stanford said was good enough by awarding him a (paid for) degree, wasn't good enough. If you can pay for admittance, most likely you can pay for grades too.
    - neilv 2y ago
      > Why would I ever give preference to a Stanford degree over any other? For a software developer, you shouldn't.
    - pfannkuchen 2y ago
      This comes off as a bit naive to me. The Stanford grad with parents who paid $25M for admission is not applying for a programming job, and certainly not cold just on the strength of their resume. They will move in their parents’ network, which now has a graph edge with the Stanford network and vice versa. This sort of thing is more about power networks than it is about education.
      - FredPret 2y ago
        True but that kid is still running around sporting an unearned degree. He will meet many people from all walks of life over the course of his life. The smart kids can tell that this is a dumb kid with a Stanford degree. It does not look good. Also, there's a smart poor kid out there should've been in his place.
        pfannkuchen 2y ago
        So I’m not 100% sure that the motives are pure all around. But! I think it’s very plausible that network-mixing with wealthy families, who collectively have some significant control over the economy because that’s what wealth fundamentally is in our society, may actually be critical to the value of attending elite universities for the merit-based-selection group.
    - musicale 2y ago
      > If you can pay for admittance, most likely you can pay for grades too. Do you mean paying for tutoring (in which case you actually learn the material), or more devious shenanigans like faking your work, cheating or hiring lookalikes to sit for exams, bribing professors, etc.? Interestingly enough, Stanford does seem to be changing its honor code (after more than a century?) to permit exam proctoring. Now that we are in the chatGPT era, I suspect in-person exams will become more important for grading purposes.
      - Clubber 2y ago
        >Do you mean paying for tutoring (in which case you actually learn the material), or more devious shenanigans like faking your work, cheating or hiring lookalikes to sit for exams, bribing professors, etc.? The latter of course. Academic integrity standards have been in place for centuries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_integrity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_integrity
        musicale 2y ago
        Which forms of pay-for-grades are likely to be effective at Stanford?
  - Newlaptop 2y ago
    It's not like the kids at Ivys or Stanford are really smarter than a random STEM student at the University of Texas, Iowa State or Georgia Tech anyway, the difference is mostly just privilege or luck. Did the kids parents live in the right school district or pay for the right private school? Did the kid play a sport well enough to play on the college team? Are they an underrepresented minority? Are they a legacy? Did they have adults in their lives that encouraged them to apply? That knew the secret do's and don'ts about how to write an essay or talk in an interview? Admissions to elite schools is based on several dozen variables, among which "smart" or "hard working" are not weighted any higher than the others. A student is probably not thriving at Stanford if they're actually "dumb", but the median computer science student at any of the schools I mentioned above could be swapped into a Stanford classroom and remain an average student.
    - musicale 2y ago
      > It's not like the kids at Ivys or Stanford are really smarter than a random STEM student at the University of Texas, Iowa State or Georgia Tech anyway, the difference is mostly just privilege or luck. A privileged upbringing could very well benefit brain health, and intelligence: better nutrition, more exercise, lower stress, more stimulating environment, etc. If (elite school) students have higher SAT scores and better grades, does that actually correlate with "intelligence"[1] or college success[2]? Or are they just average students who got better coaching for tests or happened to get lucky? [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6963451/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6963451/ [2] https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-12-22/grades-vs-sat-scores-which-is-a-better-predictor-of-college-success https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-12-22/grades-v...
credit_guy 2y ago
I think of it as some form of social subsidy. Universities with large endowments get a lot of money from donations, and they can afford to offer generous financial aid to non-rich students. The flip side is that some rich kids have a lower barrier of entry, probably the richer the lower. Life is not perfect, or fair, but this subsidy is a pretty decent outcome in an imperfect world.
WeylandYutani 2y ago
The real geniuses will rise to the top of their profession even if they didn't get to study at MIT but had to settle for a normal university.
- neilv 2y ago
  https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/99345-i-am-somehow-less-interested-in-the-weight-and-convolutions https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/99345-i-am-somehow-less-int... > “I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.” ― Stephen Jay Gould, The Panda's Thumb: More Reflections in Natural History
musicale 2y ago
The justification I have heard is that a single rich pay-to-win student pays the way for multiple poor brilliant students.

I take your point, but to be nitpicky, does it really devalue it? How many prospective students who've legitimately earned a place at Stanford would prefer to use it rather than sell it for $25m? That is a great deal of money.

FredPret 2y ago
Kids aren't selling their degrees for $25m. Smart kids are earning degrees that are very prestigious because of how smart they are. Then dumb kids pay $25m in donations and bribes via their parents to get degrees right alongside the smart kids. So now when you see a Stanford degree, is it from a smart kid or a dumb kid? That's why it's devaluing.
- Clubber 2y ago
  Yes, this. To add to that, say hypothetically, I'm an employer and I want to grow my company by building some software. I decide to shoot for the moon and hire a Stanford grad. I happen to get one of the "paid for," ones and they're just like the many, many other not great programmers. Through that experience the Stanford grad I hired isn't any better than the many, many other not great programmers I can hire from any school. Why would I ever give preference to a Stanford degree over any other? All the great programmers with Stanford degrees who earned them through really hard work, smarts and discipline are devalued because that one guy who Stanford said was good enough by awarding him a (paid for) degree, wasn't good enough. If you can pay for admittance, most likely you can pay for grades too.
  - neilv 2y ago
    > Why would I ever give preference to a Stanford degree over any other? For a software developer, you shouldn't.
  - pfannkuchen 2y ago
    This comes off as a bit naive to me. The Stanford grad with parents who paid $25M for admission is not applying for a programming job, and certainly not cold just on the strength of their resume. They will move in their parents’ network, which now has a graph edge with the Stanford network and vice versa. This sort of thing is more about power networks than it is about education.
    - FredPret 2y ago
      True but that kid is still running around sporting an unearned degree. He will meet many people from all walks of life over the course of his life. The smart kids can tell that this is a dumb kid with a Stanford degree. It does not look good. Also, there's a smart poor kid out there should've been in his place.
      - pfannkuchen 2y ago
        So I’m not 100% sure that the motives are pure all around. But! I think it’s very plausible that network-mixing with wealthy families, who collectively have some significant control over the economy because that’s what wealth fundamentally is in our society, may actually be critical to the value of attending elite universities for the merit-based-selection group.
  - musicale 2y ago
    > If you can pay for admittance, most likely you can pay for grades too. Do you mean paying for tutoring (in which case you actually learn the material), or more devious shenanigans like faking your work, cheating or hiring lookalikes to sit for exams, bribing professors, etc.? Interestingly enough, Stanford does seem to be changing its honor code (after more than a century?) to permit exam proctoring. Now that we are in the chatGPT era, I suspect in-person exams will become more important for grading purposes.
    - Clubber 2y ago
      >Do you mean paying for tutoring (in which case you actually learn the material), or more devious shenanigans like faking your work, cheating or hiring lookalikes to sit for exams, bribing professors, etc.? The latter of course. Academic integrity standards have been in place for centuries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_integrity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_integrity
      - musicale 2y ago
        Which forms of pay-for-grades are likely to be effective at Stanford?
- Newlaptop 2y ago
  It's not like the kids at Ivys or Stanford are really smarter than a random STEM student at the University of Texas, Iowa State or Georgia Tech anyway, the difference is mostly just privilege or luck. Did the kids parents live in the right school district or pay for the right private school? Did the kid play a sport well enough to play on the college team? Are they an underrepresented minority? Are they a legacy? Did they have adults in their lives that encouraged them to apply? That knew the secret do's and don'ts about how to write an essay or talk in an interview? Admissions to elite schools is based on several dozen variables, among which "smart" or "hard working" are not weighted any higher than the others. A student is probably not thriving at Stanford if they're actually "dumb", but the median computer science student at any of the schools I mentioned above could be swapped into a Stanford classroom and remain an average student.
  - musicale 2y ago
    > It's not like the kids at Ivys or Stanford are really smarter than a random STEM student at the University of Texas, Iowa State or Georgia Tech anyway, the difference is mostly just privilege or luck. A privileged upbringing could very well benefit brain health, and intelligence: better nutrition, more exercise, lower stress, more stimulating environment, etc. If (elite school) students have higher SAT scores and better grades, does that actually correlate with "intelligence"[1] or college success[2]? Or are they just average students who got better coaching for tests or happened to get lucky? [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6963451/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6963451/ [2] https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-12-22/grades-vs-sat-scores-which-is-a-better-predictor-of-college-success https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-12-22/grades-v...

credit_guy 2y ago

I think of it as some form of social subsidy. Universities with large endowments get a lot of money from donations, and they can afford to offer generous financial aid to non-rich students. The flip side is that some rich kids have a lower barrier of entry, probably the richer the lower. Life is not perfect, or fair, but this subsidy is a pretty decent outcome in an imperfect world.

WeylandYutani 2y ago

The real geniuses will rise to the top of their profession even if they didn't get to study at MIT but had to settle for a normal university.

neilv 2y ago
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/99345-i-am-somehow-less-interested-in-the-weight-and-convolutions https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/99345-i-am-somehow-less-int... > “I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.” ― Stephen Jay Gould, The Panda's Thumb: More Reflections in Natural History

musicale 2y ago

The justification I have heard is that a single rich pay-to-win student pays the way for multiple poor brilliant students.