I couldn’t disagree more with “some folks are just born with the smarts to do well on standardized tests…”
As if folks come out of the womb with SAT prowess. Nah. Sorry - but that minimizes the 13 years of hard work the bulk of these kids put into studying EVERY year. I once read while beginning teaching in FL - and example of why the state standardized test - the FCAT - was unfair to Black and Brown kids: “there was a question about skiing ⛷️…”
WTF? Apparently, because they’d grown up in FL and were socioeconomically disadvantaged and couldn’t vacation in Vail, CO with the rest of the country - they had NO CLUE what snow was. There was a racial bias to these kids.
As far as money buying a better education; well, one could argue, “it takes a village”
For every kid that gets accepted to Harvard ; there’s 10 highly overqualified who don’t get into Harvard.
There are different learning styles, and I think there are some who naturally do better on multiple choice tests and some who do better with essays and/or assessing charts and graphs, for example., despite practice and coaching. To the extent I could have ever proved I could be competitive in and graduate from an Ivy League school , I would have needed essays. I am grateful the bar exam was two days of essays and only one day multiple choice!
You are THE living embodiment of success: came from a small, oppressed Steel town in Appalachia...went to a public university on plenty of grit and grades...then on to Law School and became a successful attorney. Ain't nothing stopping those who choose to do the same in this great country called America. In fact, it would be even EASIER to argue how much exponentially MORE access there is to free quality educational resources, teachers, supplemental support at the swipe of a finger...YouTube. EVERY library in the U.S.A. has FREE WiFi, computers, printers courtesy of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation...cost to taxpayers...ZERO...Bill picks up this $1-2 Billion dollar a year in charity. Oh - and then there's cell phones - walking high-speed internet computers. Not to mention - the number of public school teachers who would LOVE nothing more than a student to stay after class or school so they could "catch them up with a concept, test, or review". I work at a non-profit these days teaching English to immigrants and refugees who are in one word: HUNGRY. They take voracious notes, come to class EVERY day, and are on the edge of their seats willing and ready to learn. They speak nearly ZERO English. Many have barely the clothes on their backs. They live in crammed apartments, take buses to class, and have left behind all they know, love, friends, and family and ONE family their pets - to come here and chase the American Dream. And AT LEAST 1/2 of my class of 17 students are over the age of 50. Many in their 60's and 70's. Why can't American teenage kids do this again? Because they don't know how to write an essay? Because they can't guess better than 25% on a multiple choice quiz?
SOOOO much freaking opportunity here. Folks can't GIVE AWAY free grant money fast enough for NON ultra rich and ultra privileged. The money just sits there in accounts unused EVERY year for college and high school. Here is ONE website from the actor Matthew Mcconaughey's charity...
"The just keep livin Foundation's Greenlights Grant Initiative helps school districts nationwide access billions of dollars of available federal funding to create safer school environments and ensure the well-being of our children."
I think there is a HUGE disconnect in America between going to college, going to Ivy League, and getting a future job.
Mike Rowe has an AMAZING new series from Dirty Jobs..
I wholeheartedly agree with you: College is a business now and costs WAY too much. It's criminal what these schools are charging in tuition so they can sit VP of X, Y, and Z to read emails, window dress DEI, and pretend they are helping others like at CSCC...where the graduation rate is 16%...and they know it's because they have ZERO to LITTLE admission standards and the majority of their students are ESL refugees and immigrants or poor performing HS students. If they want better output, then they have to attract better input of students.
CSCC is LITERALLY giving away FREE college educations and I'm confident this won't matter a lick in their graduation rates of underserved minority populations struggling socioeconomically.
In hindsight, if you and I understood finances like the ultra wealthy - we’d have learned at our mediocre public university - that on their tax forms at the end of the year:
Tuition, room/board, and charitable booster donations are most likely recorded as a liability / loss not as an asset / profit. Albeit - the charitable booster donation is recorded as a write off. Who knows what their tax attorney records in their offshore Bahamian and Swiss Bank accounts while sipping on fresh hand-picked (by some lowly fruit harvester immigrant) strawberry Daiquiri on a sugar sand beach using FREE PUBLIC WiFi from the hotel!
Besides - we’re talking about Ivy League schools who are grooming the next Hamas Terrorist protestors, right?
I mean - for that $250,000 year education - they’re learning seems to not be so focused on critical thinking as you mentioned.
Are these the goobers the Titans of Wall Street? The next Senators and SCOTUS?
In some ways I agree with this, Zin. What I didn't mention in this post is the cost of tuition, room and board—astronimical as you mentioned. But not sure it is a tax write-off.??? Is it?
I believe it is. On my IRS form - it asks “will anyone be attending college?”
There’s also an itemized list of things being asked if you paid for: tuition, books, laptops, room and board; I’m pretty sure!
I guess my bigger point was: these are HUGE expenses and costs to even the ultra rich and ultr privileged: $100,000’s.
Even if a parent was justifying putting his son at Harvard’s MBA program - to eventually become a corporate officer or run his company upon retirement - it’s still an investment.
I’m not a fan of - well, because the wealthy choose Ivy League schools , it means this somehow “amplifies the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.”
On any ledger - rich or poor - college is a deficit.
I still contend that wealthy individuals / families stay wealthy because they have specific skills, experience, and hard work just as poor people have a relative amount of skills, experience, and work ethic. Unfortunately, the careers the latter are in are less valued.
I know CSCC has job postings - I actually applied for - of bartender that requires a HS education that pays $20 an hour plus tips.
Whereas - a position in the writing center requires a BA and pays $18 an hour.
Why go to college at all? And who cares if you go to a REALLY expensive college?
If a millionaire family does NOT send his child who has benefitted in every other way from being ultra-privileged: food, shelter, clothing, safety, medici care, etc. to an Ivy League + school or NO COLLEGE AT ALL - what happens to that ultra privileged and in a few decades ultra wealth(y) to be inherited child as an adult?
Isn’t it safe to assume - this ultra wealthy and ultra privileged person will go on to a “normal” university like you and I : “THE” where the GAP between their ultra privilege and ultra wealth will be EVEN MORE beneficial than their public school, middle class peers?
I would imagine a $million dollar or $billion dollar a year family income goes A LOT farther at The OSU than it does in Boston; and that’s just on tuition savings of ~$10,000 year (OSU) versus ~$40,000 year (Harvard et al); we’re not even talking about housing, food, and extracurriculars.
At the end of the day (or 4 years) - if you come from an ultra wealthy and ultra privileged family - a 4 year degree and even a graduate degree such as an MBA - doesn’t really matter much because they’re likely going on to work in daddy’s corporation again by way of some form of ultra privilege nepotism, right?
In other words - the amplification of the rich getting richer is not vis a vis - my kid went to an Ivy League school that the ultra rich family paid extensively for as you pointed out - likely in a plaque or dining hall or building or booster donations PLUS $100,000’s in tuition and room and board; the amplification of the rich is from whatever Golden Goose and its eggs they’ve already likely been sitting on for decades in the form of a great career.
Great read as usual Joan! Great research on wealthy families and Ivy League schools.
I’d love to see a follow up on this topic - a look at wealthy kids that Don’t go to Ivy League schools.
Thanks Zin! And poor bastards, indeed... In my opinion, some children are just born with the type of smarts necessary to do well on standardized test and in school. But we both know the kind of nurturing that good, private grade schools and high schools give to their students—not just with above average teachers but the more personal attention you get from guidance counselors, coaches and more. it makes a difference to be "helped" by both your family and education professionals. Unfortunately, money can buy that help.
This hit home. After the service, I attended a community College where I was on the deans list, was accepted to a journalism school and was passed up for internships by kids that had privilege and whose parents donated large sums to the school despite their marginal grades and lack of awards that I won. I was so disillusioned by my senior year that I left midyear, needing three credits to graduate.
Oh no! What a story, Brian! As I understand it, it is very difficult to get into any journalism school, so that is a feat in itself. Have you thought about going back for those three credits???? Would it mean anything to you, now?
At my age, I'm not sure it would make much of a difference. I apologize for sharing this; your report just struck a nerve. I too come from a small mining [copper] town and so my folks weren't able to help me from a financial standpoint.
Thanks for these excellent resources, Jarrod. I do agree the types of changes you mention are important to even the playing field. And legacy admissions are just plain dollar signs and discriminatory.
I really had no idea when I was 18. Neither of my parents had gone to college at all. I chose the state school with the lowest tuition and didn't apply anywhere else. It never would have occurred to me that I could or should be choosier. I needed a college education, this particular place was a college I could come closest to affording, so that's where I went. Now, I do believe I received a good education there. But what I did NOT get were contacts with kids from rich and powerful families. I didn't even know that was a thing, honestly. I believed I just had to learn well and success would follow. By the time my kids grew up I knew better, but I had become a single mother by then and it would have been folly to recommend they set their sights higher. We couldn't afford even the state school. Hello, student debt!
Thanks for your comment, Michelle. I certainly understand—in-state tuition is a powerful draw. I actually don't know whether I received a good education because I have nothing to compare it to. I did learn and had some good classes and professors. But I did not learn how to think, which is what the prep schools and elite colleges do. What I believe is that it was too big to get much personal attention and that is a huge help to have people who care about your outcomes. I mentioned the "pipeline" between private high schools and elite colleges, and to me, that is the key—those places really go to bat for their students with resources that I still don't know about!
My daughter got a master’s; my son dropped out of college and became a welder. He makes more than any of us, and is likely the most liberal and well-read welder in the factory. He does a form of it that requires knowledge of trigonometry — they were thrilled to realize he had this rare blend of skills. The work suits his solitary bent.
I couldn’t disagree more with “some folks are just born with the smarts to do well on standardized tests…”
As if folks come out of the womb with SAT prowess. Nah. Sorry - but that minimizes the 13 years of hard work the bulk of these kids put into studying EVERY year. I once read while beginning teaching in FL - and example of why the state standardized test - the FCAT - was unfair to Black and Brown kids: “there was a question about skiing ⛷️…”
WTF? Apparently, because they’d grown up in FL and were socioeconomically disadvantaged and couldn’t vacation in Vail, CO with the rest of the country - they had NO CLUE what snow was. There was a racial bias to these kids.
As far as money buying a better education; well, one could argue, “it takes a village”
For every kid that gets accepted to Harvard ; there’s 10 highly overqualified who don’t get into Harvard.
There are different learning styles, and I think there are some who naturally do better on multiple choice tests and some who do better with essays and/or assessing charts and graphs, for example., despite practice and coaching. To the extent I could have ever proved I could be competitive in and graduate from an Ivy League school , I would have needed essays. I am grateful the bar exam was two days of essays and only one day multiple choice!
You are THE living embodiment of success: came from a small, oppressed Steel town in Appalachia...went to a public university on plenty of grit and grades...then on to Law School and became a successful attorney. Ain't nothing stopping those who choose to do the same in this great country called America. In fact, it would be even EASIER to argue how much exponentially MORE access there is to free quality educational resources, teachers, supplemental support at the swipe of a finger...YouTube. EVERY library in the U.S.A. has FREE WiFi, computers, printers courtesy of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation...cost to taxpayers...ZERO...Bill picks up this $1-2 Billion dollar a year in charity. Oh - and then there's cell phones - walking high-speed internet computers. Not to mention - the number of public school teachers who would LOVE nothing more than a student to stay after class or school so they could "catch them up with a concept, test, or review". I work at a non-profit these days teaching English to immigrants and refugees who are in one word: HUNGRY. They take voracious notes, come to class EVERY day, and are on the edge of their seats willing and ready to learn. They speak nearly ZERO English. Many have barely the clothes on their backs. They live in crammed apartments, take buses to class, and have left behind all they know, love, friends, and family and ONE family their pets - to come here and chase the American Dream. And AT LEAST 1/2 of my class of 17 students are over the age of 50. Many in their 60's and 70's. Why can't American teenage kids do this again? Because they don't know how to write an essay? Because they can't guess better than 25% on a multiple choice quiz?
SOOOO much freaking opportunity here. Folks can't GIVE AWAY free grant money fast enough for NON ultra rich and ultra privileged. The money just sits there in accounts unused EVERY year for college and high school. Here is ONE website from the actor Matthew Mcconaughey's charity...
https://www.greenlightsgrantinitiative.org/
"The just keep livin Foundation's Greenlights Grant Initiative helps school districts nationwide access billions of dollars of available federal funding to create safer school environments and ensure the well-being of our children."
I think there is a HUGE disconnect in America between going to college, going to Ivy League, and getting a future job.
Mike Rowe has an AMAZING new series from Dirty Jobs..
https://mikerowe.com/
I wholeheartedly agree with you: College is a business now and costs WAY too much. It's criminal what these schools are charging in tuition so they can sit VP of X, Y, and Z to read emails, window dress DEI, and pretend they are helping others like at CSCC...where the graduation rate is 16%...and they know it's because they have ZERO to LITTLE admission standards and the majority of their students are ESL refugees and immigrants or poor performing HS students. If they want better output, then they have to attract better input of students.
CSCC is LITERALLY giving away FREE college educations and I'm confident this won't matter a lick in their graduation rates of underserved minority populations struggling socioeconomically.
In hindsight, if you and I understood finances like the ultra wealthy - we’d have learned at our mediocre public university - that on their tax forms at the end of the year:
Tuition, room/board, and charitable booster donations are most likely recorded as a liability / loss not as an asset / profit. Albeit - the charitable booster donation is recorded as a write off. Who knows what their tax attorney records in their offshore Bahamian and Swiss Bank accounts while sipping on fresh hand-picked (by some lowly fruit harvester immigrant) strawberry Daiquiri on a sugar sand beach using FREE PUBLIC WiFi from the hotel!
Besides - we’re talking about Ivy League schools who are grooming the next Hamas Terrorist protestors, right?
I mean - for that $250,000 year education - they’re learning seems to not be so focused on critical thinking as you mentioned.
Are these the goobers the Titans of Wall Street? The next Senators and SCOTUS?
God, let us pray, 🙏🏻 I hope not.
In some ways I agree with this, Zin. What I didn't mention in this post is the cost of tuition, room and board—astronimical as you mentioned. But not sure it is a tax write-off.??? Is it?
I believe it is. On my IRS form - it asks “will anyone be attending college?”
There’s also an itemized list of things being asked if you paid for: tuition, books, laptops, room and board; I’m pretty sure!
I guess my bigger point was: these are HUGE expenses and costs to even the ultra rich and ultr privileged: $100,000’s.
Even if a parent was justifying putting his son at Harvard’s MBA program - to eventually become a corporate officer or run his company upon retirement - it’s still an investment.
I’m not a fan of - well, because the wealthy choose Ivy League schools , it means this somehow “amplifies the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.”
On any ledger - rich or poor - college is a deficit.
I still contend that wealthy individuals / families stay wealthy because they have specific skills, experience, and hard work just as poor people have a relative amount of skills, experience, and work ethic. Unfortunately, the careers the latter are in are less valued.
I know CSCC has job postings - I actually applied for - of bartender that requires a HS education that pays $20 an hour plus tips.
Whereas - a position in the writing center requires a BA and pays $18 an hour.
Why go to college at all? And who cares if you go to a REALLY expensive college?
If a millionaire family does NOT send his child who has benefitted in every other way from being ultra-privileged: food, shelter, clothing, safety, medici care, etc. to an Ivy League + school or NO COLLEGE AT ALL - what happens to that ultra privileged and in a few decades ultra wealth(y) to be inherited child as an adult?
Isn’t it safe to assume - this ultra wealthy and ultra privileged person will go on to a “normal” university like you and I : “THE” where the GAP between their ultra privilege and ultra wealth will be EVEN MORE beneficial than their public school, middle class peers?
I would imagine a $million dollar or $billion dollar a year family income goes A LOT farther at The OSU than it does in Boston; and that’s just on tuition savings of ~$10,000 year (OSU) versus ~$40,000 year (Harvard et al); we’re not even talking about housing, food, and extracurriculars.
At the end of the day (or 4 years) - if you come from an ultra wealthy and ultra privileged family - a 4 year degree and even a graduate degree such as an MBA - doesn’t really matter much because they’re likely going on to work in daddy’s corporation again by way of some form of ultra privilege nepotism, right?
In other words - the amplification of the rich getting richer is not vis a vis - my kid went to an Ivy League school that the ultra rich family paid extensively for as you pointed out - likely in a plaque or dining hall or building or booster donations PLUS $100,000’s in tuition and room and board; the amplification of the rich is from whatever Golden Goose and its eggs they’ve already likely been sitting on for decades in the form of a great career.
Great read as usual Joan! Great research on wealthy families and Ivy League schools.
I’d love to see a follow up on this topic - a look at wealthy kids that Don’t go to Ivy League schools.
What happens to these poor bastards?
Thanks Zin! And poor bastards, indeed... In my opinion, some children are just born with the type of smarts necessary to do well on standardized test and in school. But we both know the kind of nurturing that good, private grade schools and high schools give to their students—not just with above average teachers but the more personal attention you get from guidance counselors, coaches and more. it makes a difference to be "helped" by both your family and education professionals. Unfortunately, money can buy that help.
This hit home. After the service, I attended a community College where I was on the deans list, was accepted to a journalism school and was passed up for internships by kids that had privilege and whose parents donated large sums to the school despite their marginal grades and lack of awards that I won. I was so disillusioned by my senior year that I left midyear, needing three credits to graduate.
Oh no! What a story, Brian! As I understand it, it is very difficult to get into any journalism school, so that is a feat in itself. Have you thought about going back for those three credits???? Would it mean anything to you, now?
At my age, I'm not sure it would make much of a difference. I apologize for sharing this; your report just struck a nerve. I too come from a small mining [copper] town and so my folks weren't able to help me from a financial standpoint.
Please, this is a wonderful comment to share and exactly responsive to what I wrote. When you say: "This hit home", that is why I write. So thank you!
As a public university graduate, I have a few offbeat takes here.
1) As supportive as I am of affirmative action, I think the more pertinent issue is a combination of undersupply and administrative myopia. If I controlled higher ed, I’d pair holistic, UC-style low-income outreach (https://edsource.org/2023/university-of-california-looks-to-share-expertise-after-decades-without-affirmative-action/693374) with cuts to administrator pay and measures to expand supply (through helping researchers improve their teaching skills, and building more student housing and MOOCs) based on population growth. Junking legacy admissions and forgiving student loans are a good start. (I recommend this link for more: https://darrellowens.substack.com/p/the-distraction-and-distortion-of)
2) As this video points to (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITwNiZ_j_24), and as James Fallows hinted in 1985 (https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1985/12/the-case-against-credentialism/308286/), college (and business school) shouldn’t be the end-all, be-all of higher ed. Rather, it should be just one of many, about teaching people to question themselves and the strictures and structures of society. Businesses should focus less on resume ink and more on acumen, while the federal government should see what Colorado (https://www.forbes.com/sites/patrickgleason/2017/06/16/the-tremendous-promise-of-trumps-apprenticeship-initiative-and-what-states-can-do-to-assist/) and Connecticut (https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/roads-to-recovery-how-the-pandemic-is-accelerating-workforce-training) have done and embrace Swiss-style comprehensive job training for all those outside of colleges
Thanks for these excellent resources, Jarrod. I do agree the types of changes you mention are important to even the playing field. And legacy admissions are just plain dollar signs and discriminatory.
I really had no idea when I was 18. Neither of my parents had gone to college at all. I chose the state school with the lowest tuition and didn't apply anywhere else. It never would have occurred to me that I could or should be choosier. I needed a college education, this particular place was a college I could come closest to affording, so that's where I went. Now, I do believe I received a good education there. But what I did NOT get were contacts with kids from rich and powerful families. I didn't even know that was a thing, honestly. I believed I just had to learn well and success would follow. By the time my kids grew up I knew better, but I had become a single mother by then and it would have been folly to recommend they set their sights higher. We couldn't afford even the state school. Hello, student debt!
Thanks for your comment, Michelle. I certainly understand—in-state tuition is a powerful draw. I actually don't know whether I received a good education because I have nothing to compare it to. I did learn and had some good classes and professors. But I did not learn how to think, which is what the prep schools and elite colleges do. What I believe is that it was too big to get much personal attention and that is a huge help to have people who care about your outcomes. I mentioned the "pipeline" between private high schools and elite colleges, and to me, that is the key—those places really go to bat for their students with resources that I still don't know about!
I definitely credit college with teaching me how to think. My education was good. I just didn’t gain contacts.
I'm glad for you and happy that your children have headed to college, too! I think the state university I went to was just too darn big.
My daughter got a master’s; my son dropped out of college and became a welder. He makes more than any of us, and is likely the most liberal and well-read welder in the factory. He does a form of it that requires knowledge of trigonometry — they were thrilled to realize he had this rare blend of skills. The work suits his solitary bent.
Wow—that's wonderful!