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Ah, the 'regulation is the answer' argument. > I'm sorry, but you don't need to have come from Stanford to be smart enough to work at Yahoo! or Google or etc

Ah, the 'regulation is the answer' argument. > I'm sorry, but you don't need to have come from Stanford to be smart enough to work at Yahoo! or Google or etc It's like every other human relationship, the more you have to offer the higher your standards can be. Google can afford to hire only top CS people (or accomplished non-traditional ones) because they're Google. Yahoo!... I don't think that's going to work out so well. The market will take care of it soon enough.

phillmv 14y ago
No, it's the "redistribute the wealth" argument. Whether you do it by funding welfare or schools or giving tax refunds, it's up to you. >It's like every other human relationship, the more you have to offer the higher your standards can be. It's more complicated than that. Since the prestige of your alma mater is largely divorced from the quality of the teaching therein, it's also an expression of class discrimination. I have this burning suspicion - borne out by my own anecdotal experience - that the most important thing distinguishing the median Harvard undergraduate from the median Good State School undergraduate is a capacity to absorb the tuition fees. Setting up a system that rewards having been born to rich parents is ultimately detrimental, in my opinion. It's just a lot easier to check whether you came from Stanford than to determine if you're smart.
- boling11 14y ago
  >I have this burning suspicion - borne out by my own anecdotal experience - that the most important thing distinguishing the median Harvard undergraduate from the median Good State School undergraduate is a capacity to absorb the tuition fees. Not true. Even near the upper end, the price tag is not insanely high compared to top state schools -- Harvard policy states that families with annual incomes below $60,000 pay only a student contribution of a few thousand dollars, and families with annual incomes between $60,000 and $180,000 pay the student contribution plus a family contribution averaging 10 percent of annual income.
farinasa 14y ago
>the more you have to offer the higher your standards can be. This assumes that a more reputable school necessarily represents a higher quality of education, which isn't necessarily true.
pron 14y ago
The kind of things "the market" takes care of is vanishingly small, and even when it does it rarely works in favor of most people. Why shouldn't we act in some way to make sure society as a whole benefits from our economy as much as it can? After all, our economy exists to serve us, not the other way around.

phillmv 14y ago

No, it's the "redistribute the wealth" argument. Whether you do it by funding welfare or schools or giving tax refunds, it's up to you. >It's like every other human relationship, the more you have to offer the higher your standards can be. It's more complicated than that. Since the prestige of your alma mater is largely divorced from the quality of the teaching therein, it's also an expression of class discrimination. I have this burning suspicion - borne out by my own anecdotal experience - that the most important thing distinguishing the median Harvard undergraduate from the median Good State School undergraduate is a capacity to absorb the tuition fees. Setting up a system that rewards having been born to rich parents is ultimately detrimental, in my opinion. It's just a lot easier to check whether you came from Stanford than to determine if you're smart.

boling11 14y ago
>I have this burning suspicion - borne out by my own anecdotal experience - that the most important thing distinguishing the median Harvard undergraduate from the median Good State School undergraduate is a capacity to absorb the tuition fees. Not true. Even near the upper end, the price tag is not insanely high compared to top state schools -- Harvard policy states that families with annual incomes below $60,000 pay only a student contribution of a few thousand dollars, and families with annual incomes between $60,000 and $180,000 pay the student contribution plus a family contribution averaging 10 percent of annual income.

farinasa 14y ago

>the more you have to offer the higher your standards can be. This assumes that a more reputable school necessarily represents a higher quality of education, which isn't necessarily true.

pron 14y ago

The kind of things "the market" takes care of is vanishingly small, and even when it does it rarely works in favor of most people. Why shouldn't we act in some way to make sure society as a whole benefits from our economy as much as it can? After all, our economy exists to serve us, not the other way around.