Some Colleges Have More Students From the Top 1 Percent Than the Bottom 60 (nytimes.com)

Students at elite colleges are even richer than experts realized, according to a new study based on millions of anonymous tax filings and tuition records. At 38 colleges in America, including five in the Ivy League -- Dartmouth, Princeton, Yale, Penn and Brown -- more students came from the top 1 percent of the income scale than from the entire bottom 60 percent. From a report on the NYTimes (alternate non-paywall link): Roughly one in four of the richest students attend an elite college -- universities that typically cluster toward the top of annual rankings (you can find more on our definition of "elite" at the bottom). In contrast, less than one-half of 1 percent of children from the bottom fifth of American families attend an elite college; less than half attend any college at all. Colleges often promote their role in helping poorer students rise in life, and their commitments to affordability. But some elite colleges have focused more on being affordable to low-income families than on expanding access. "Free tuition only helps if you can get in," said Danny Yagan, an assistant professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley, and one of the authors of the study.

Comments

Um, duh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you say legacies?

Re:Um, duh?

[TWX]

I don't think it's even a matter of legacy enrollment.

The elite school I'm acquainted with is MIT as my wife has her degree from there and spent several years interviewing students that had applied as part of their evaluation process. They do not consider money or othewise having an ability to pay when students apply, but on the other hand most students do come from households with means. This happens because students from households with means do better in school than students from households without means.

A specific case I remember was a student that had applied but wasn't going to go higher in high school mathematics than Trigonometry. This student wasn't going to get any Calculus instruction in high school at all. In order to get to Calculus in the school system as a senior, one had to do well enough in mathematics in the fifth grade in order to end up in the Honors Math in the sixth grade, to then take Pre-Algebra as a seventh grader and the first-year Algebra class as an eighth grader, so one could take second-year Algebra, Geometry, and Trig/Pre-calculus in one's freshman, sophomore, and junior years, to have time left one one's academic schedule for Calculus as a senior. Otherwise one has to take one of these mathematics classes, typically Geometry as it ties-in the least with the rest, as a summer-school make-up class in order to get ahead.

So, decisions/involvement/circumstances for the parents and household when the student is ten years old ultimately impact if that student, eight years later, will have the prerequisites to compete at an elite college. Poor parents, single parents, parents that end up with stressors that prevent them from committing the time and attention to their child's upbringing will, on average, harm that child's educational performance and will lead to reduced opportunities simply because the student does not have the academic basis in order to attend these schools.

Re:Um, duh?

[slew]

AFAIK, schools like MIT (or my alma mater Caltech), are the exceptions that proves the rule. Single dimensional focus on academics (e.g., STEM) might be *one* way to get into an "elite" school that has a narrow focus, but isn't really going to get you very far in an admissions pool at Harvard, or Stanford.

Poor parents, single parents, parents that end up with stressors that prevent them from committing the time and attention to their child's upbringing will, on average, harm that child's educational performance and will lead to reduced opportunities simply because the student does not have the academic basis in order to attend these schools.

Although "academic-basis" is one way to generalize and dismiss, there are so many more "poor" families that 1%-ers that doesn't fully explain the issue. I spent quite a bit of time working and researching college admissions (during and after my time in university) and perhaps one of the big problems qualified students from "poor" families have getting admitted to "elite" schools is that even if they are qualified, they don't actually apply (which makes it really, really hard to attend).

The reasons are numerous, but often are attributable to fear and low-expectations (e.g., of getting rejected, figuring out how to pay, distance from family and support systems, etc). Unfortunately, this behavior is ultimately self-defeating in many ways as it sets a lower internal "baseline" for themselves to judge their future success. Some of these were outlined in the infamous 1999 Dale-Kruger research report summarized below...

There are many estimates of the effect of college quality on students' subsequent earnings. One difficulty interpreting past estimates, however, is that elite colleges admit students, in part, based on characteristics that are related to their earnings capacity. Since some of these characteristics are unobserved by researchers who later estimate wage equations, it is difficult to parse out the effect of attending a selective college from the students' pre-college characteristics. This paper uses information on the set of colleges at which students were accepted and rejected to remove the effect of unobserved characteristics that influence college admission. Specifically, we match students in the newly colleted College and Beyond (C&B) Data Set who were admitted to and rejected from a similar set of institutions, and estimate fixed effects models. As another approach to adjust for selection bias, we control for the average SAT score of the schools to which students applied using both the C&B and National Longitudinal Survey of the High School Class of 1972. We find that students who attended more selective colleges do not earn more than other students who were accepted and rejected by comparable schools but attended less selective colleges. However, the average tuition charged by the school is significantly related to the students' subsequent earnings. Indeed, we find a substantial internal rate of return from attending a more costly college. Lastly, the payoff to attending an elite college appears to be greater for students from more disadvantaged family backgrounds.

Re:Um, duh?

[Anonymous Coward]

if I had mod points, I would give them to you. Though tuition is a small part of the cost of college these days. At most schools fees are more than tuition and books per semester are over $500.

You state one very apropos case.

Another case is that regardless of grades and classes, when one looks at the cost of a school, and what one has to pay out of pocket, one makes decisions. Poor/middle class people can't afford these schools.

I was accepted to MIT, they offered me no scholarship. I was accepted to Suffolk, Boston University and Roger Williams. I was an honors student and they had each offered me scholarship money, that was less than HALF what their tuition and fees was at that time. At that time government financial aid did not come close to the other half of the cost. My parents couldn't reliably afford to heat their house and I had to pay for heat for them from my job working as a line cook at a 99 restaurant. So, no, I didn't go to any of those schools. I went to the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth because while they gave me NO SCHOLARSHIP, I could get loans that covered tuition and fees.

Re:Um, duh?

[Anonymous Coward]

The application alone is sometimes a barrier for kids who haven't been prepared for the demands of some top schools. It's been a while since I filled out college applications, but Harvard's was at least straightforward - common application, addendum, essay, recommendations, and alumni interview. Anyone can complete it and get rejected. Others were an endless maze of abstract essay questions seemingly designed to keep out anyone who didn't think the right way or have the right strengths and experiences. The further schools diverge from a common application format, the more kids, no matter how qualified, will pass them over.

Re:Um, duh?

[Anonymous Coward]

MIT is very different from the schools they are talking about. Harvard, Yale, etc are schools for the "elite". Not the intellectual elite, but the social elite.

Re:Um, duh?

[Austerity Empowers]

but isn't really going to get you very far in an admissions pool at Harvard,

Ok, but STEM people shouldn't want to go there. Or actually any of the Ivy leagues mentioned. If you want tech, the big recruited schools are MIT, UCIC, GA Tech, etc.

  or Stanford.

Except maybe this one, although it's questionable.

d perhaps one of the big problems qualified students from "poor" families have getting admitted to "elite" schools is that even if they are qualified, they don't actually apply

As a father planning for his children's education, many years hence. I go to these schools websites and look at their tuition. It is beyond all reason for all but the very wealthiest. My house doesn't cost that much. And I have two children. So yes, unless their academics are far beyond the pale and their SAT scores are maxed out, I'd discourage them from applying.

I'm aware that there's some sort of pirates code with those tuitions, but honestly it's just not worth it at half the price unless you really want to be in academia or research (or perhaps Law), and even then only in relatively trivial liberal arts fields.

as it sets a lower internal "baseline" for themselves to judge their future success

Hence we discourage our children from even considering these schools by labelling them as schools for rich kids whose daddy's can buy their way in. Which, in my personal experience of 3 people, describes 2 of them really well (in fact they were dumb as stumps but daddy paid for people to cheat for them). Of course this does reinforce the effect. The good news is eventually these schools fall out of grace, hence my comment at the top, most of the Ivy League schools are fully worthless except for fields in which reputation matters more than skill (hence STEM oriented people can successfully bypass this hurdle). I'm not sure I'd want my kids to attend any of those schools, they're highly impractical for working class people who will need ROI on their college investment.

Of course I would like my children to be able to get in to MIT, and it has the same hurdles with cost and has the same very, very low acceptance rate.

Re:Um, duh?

[radl33t]

No. Tuition is the major cost followed by housing and food. $500 in fees per semester is negligible, unless it must be provided out of pocket.

Re:Um, duh?

[ChromeAeonium]

Not just that, but those with means have much more opportunity to do the exceptional things so-called elite colleges are looking for. Feeder schools with high rates of getting pupils into elite schools are a thing for a reason. An average kid with means is still much more likely to have an outstanding resume than an exceptional one student from a more modest background.

Apologists will say admissions at these places are money blind, but the reality is they just use proxies. It's the class equivalent of saying 'I'm not racist, but I won't hire people with funny names like Jose, Latasha, or Ahmed.'

The old saying 'Elite schools are where the wealthy launder privilege into credentials' once again holds true, and still no one cares. No one is holding them accountable for their classism. Point it out and some asshole accuses you of 'class warfare.' Far as I'm concerned, their should be an academic boycott of these places until conditions improve. It is baffling to me that, for all the progressives in academia, no one wants to touch this subject.

Re:Um, duh?

[paiute]

AFAIK, schools like MIT (or my alma mater Caltech), are the exceptions that proves the rule. Single dimensional focus on academics (e.g., STEM) might be *one* way to get into an "elite" school that has a narrow focus, but isn't really going to get you very far in an admissions pool at Harvard, or Stanford.

Except that MIT sees thousands more applicants than there are spaces - and all those applicants have 4.0s and all those applicants have won science fairs. The applicant that has that and has also written/acted/played an instrument/etc. is going to stand out.

Re:Um, duh?

[slew]

The application alone is sometimes a barrier for kids who haven't been prepared for the demands of some top schools. It's been a while since I filled out college applications, but Harvard's was at least straightforward - common application, addendum, essay, recommendations, and alumni interview. Anyone can complete it and get rejected. Others were an endless maze of abstract essay questions seemingly designed to keep out anyone who didn't think the right way or have the right strengths and experiences. The further schools diverge from a common application format, the more kids, no matter how qualified, will pass them over.

FWIW, college applications are much more straightforward today. Most schools** use the common application platform with a generally few addendums like the dreaded essays. Today, it is easier than ever to apply to as many schools as you have the time and patience to do. Of course making a 1/2-assed application to a school is probably a waste of time and money, the historical hoops you are referring to are largely non-existent today.

**including all Ivy Leagues (e.g., Harvard), Stanford, etc (with the notable exception of MIT).

Re:Um, duh?

[Registered Coward v2]

So, decisions/involvement/circumstances for the parents and household when the student is ten years old ultimately impact if that student, eight years later, will have the prerequisites to compete at an elite college. Poor parents, single parents, parents that end up with stressors that prevent them from committing the time and attention to their child's upbringing will, on average, harm that child's educational performance and will lead to reduced opportunities simply because the student does not have the academic basis in order to attend these schools.

Excellant points. Parental involvement and understanding of the college entrance "game" will always be a big factor in who applies and who gets in, and that probably correlates better with income than say a students potential to succeed in college. Applying to college can be daunting, and if you don't have a parent who has been through the process and have a school that is geared to getting kids in college it will be much more difficult. Add in the perception that "college is so expensive that we can't afford it" even though many schools will provide enough financial aid to make it affordable and you have a double whammy, plus if you don't see many kids going to college from your neighborhood you may not even have expectations of going to college.

You hit the nail on the head when you said the challenge is reaching these kids early in the educational process; but that takes money we as a nation seem unwilling to invest.

Re: Um, duh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait a minute. Why are so many of the greedy conservative top 1% attending our most liberal institutions? Could it be that they are really the greedy hypocritical liberal top 1%?

Re:Um, duh?

[pla]

even if they are qualified, they don't actually apply (which makes it really, really hard to attend).

Thread.

Is it "fair" that people who don't apply to a college (or job) are underrepresented at that college/job? Yes, of course if fucking is! Why is this even an issue?

Re:Um, duh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you say legacies?

In other news, Anonymous just released a draft of Trump's inauguration speech. It concludes with:
"...government of the billionaires, by the billionaires, for the billionaires, shall not perish from the earth."

There's some evidence that Melania helped write it.

Re:Um, duh?

[edwdig]

As a father planning for his children's education, many years hence. I go to these schools websites and look at their tuition. It is beyond all reason for all but the very wealthiest. My house doesn't cost that much. And I have two children. So yes, unless their academics are far beyond the pale and their SAT scores are maxed out, I'd discourage them from applying.

Never judge the cost of a college by the posted tuition fees. Schools give lots of financial aid. The only people that actually pay the posted rates are the people who can look at those numbers and not even flinch at the thought of them.

The high posted rates serve one purpose - to shift some expenses toward the really rich people that attend. Most people will get some form of financial aid, usually knocking off a large portion of the expense.

The high base rate + lots of aid available approach lets them shift more of the cost to the students with plenty of money and cut more breaks for those with less money.

Re:Um, duh?

[Anonymous Coward]

My comments were mainly geared toward the MIT-type schools (note the Harvard example listed as a counterpoint), but the worst was your alma mater Caltech. I have never seen such an extensive exercise in bullshitting since trying to make sense of the Caltech application in the '90s. The basic college application essay is easy (I just used something I wrote for myself in all of my applications), but they took it to the next level with essays on top of essays on top of essays. They basically took topics for the Writing SAT II that were rejected for being too esoteric. You could probably just go the "tell them what they want to hear" route, but I've never been able to do that (and yes, I am also terrible at getting out of jury duty). The experience of trying to figure out how to approach that application turned me off to the entire state. If they ditched that approach and went with a more standard application, then good for them.

But the dark side of making applying easier is the increase in fees, which seem to have kept pace with tuition. In my day, the rule of thumb was to apply to 5 schools, all of which together would only cost as much to apply to as one or two schools today (when the rule of thumb is what, 10 schools?). Between applications and standardized tests, you can spend $1,000 easily in your senior year of high school, all in the hopes of being able to spend tens of thousands per year for the next four or five years. Kids know what schools people in the classes ahead of them got into, so they have a pretty good idea where their socioeconomic background will get them (my high school, for instance, wasn't getting anyone into Harvard, Yale, Stanford, MIT, etc.). If you're probably not getting in anyway, why waste the money applying? The specific reasons may have changed, but the result remains the same - the application itself stands as a barrier keeping kids from even trying to get into top schools. I'm not sure there's a better way (recruiting like they do for sports?), but this way clearly has its problems.

Re:Um, duh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn! I am just about to 50 years old - so an old fart - but when I was in High School in the US they didn't even HAVE calculus. You took Algebra 2, Geomerty, Trig, and were done. There wasn't any other math class. And I was in the MGM, honors classes (what few were offered back then) and consistently scouted (along with 4 other top students in the school) by some of these top colleges (which I couldn't afford and wouldn't have gone to). Amazing how the education system has changed in those years...

Re:Um, duh?

[gfxguy]

The applications are easier, the financial aid applications are ridiculous. After doing FAFSA, many of these top-tier schools are asking for more intrusive information than you can imagine, including what savings we have for other children and having to estimate what our income and taxes will be for the next year and the year after. I was getting infuriated with my son's forms, had to dig out old tax records, my wife is self-employed, but doesn't technically own a company (freelance), but they wouldn't accept that as an answer... the financial aid forms take 10x longer to fill out. This might be a great reason why so few poor people are doing them. One of the forms even wanted my voter registration number and date I applied for it. WTF?

Re:Um, duh?

[JimSadler]

Yet we know that the best students normally come from the most costly homes. The children of the rich are exposed to far more advantageous items and experiences from toys to tutors to travel and there is also an expectation that a child from rich parents will be driven to compete with his family's income history. At the very least that means that children from normal families will have to be unusually diligent and dedicated to achieving academic superiority. That is fairly rare. Although I do maintain that a true scholar is almost unstoppable. From time to time we see geniuses blooming from wretched schools and miserable backgrounds. Einstein was sort of like that. Imagine the attitude in Germany that he had to live with before he immigrated to the US. Jews were hated and mistrusted in his era.

Re:Um, duh?

[Darinbob]

There's also some self selecting. I know I didn't even bother to apply to Stanford because I assumed that somewhere along the line we wouldn't have money for it unless there was a 4 or 5 year long complete scholarship. Others thought I was crazy. But it is a scary thought to think that you might have to change schools halfway through.

The math part is important too. I was probably first or second in my class, especially in math and science, but we didn't have calculus. I had pre-calculus but nothing to do the next year without spending half the day at a nearby junior college, which was only offered every other year. Neighboring schools did offer this. I know at least for Cal-tech that I know I would not be admitted without transferring from another college after catching up. So combine that with financial worries, and that means sticking to the state universities (which are top rated of course). Also Stanford didn't have an undergraduate computer science program at the time, oddly enough.

The irony though is that I knew a lot of students at my univerisity from one of the top high schools in the country who all tested out of beginning calculus class because their elite high schools offered it. But every single one of them struggled with diving straight into the later class without any buffering. None of them graduated sooner than other students. So my feeing is that advanced placement is highly overrated and does nothing but maybe get you an extra scholarship if you're lucky.

Re:Um, duh?

[Austerity Empowers]

The high posted rates serve one purpose - to shift some expenses toward the really rich people that attend

I'm aware of this, but you see the dilemma it creates. It creates a very strong "What's in your wallet" mentality, where the most important criteria for a child's acceptance at these places is how much their parents are willing to pay or have saved up vs. what the school thinks their parents should be able to pay or should have saved. Suffice it to say that most people in the world, even those that might have saved up sufficient money, would consider this amount of money to be mind bogglingly large, and it will directly affect when we can retire and possibly affect siblings options. We're in a strange position of trying to show that our wallet is not empty, but not full and figure out how much to volunteer that will get the kid accepted without going over. It's like the price is right.

Now, to the value. A middle class parent will want to focus on options that significantly improve the marketability of their children's skill-set, no other factors come in to play (no one particularly values a liberal education or spending money on anything without an ROI). Couple that with Ivy League schools general dis-utility in most professions, yes, as a parent I would actively discourage my child from applying or even thinking about it, from a young age. I need my kids to get the education they need to get a good job, that pays well more than the median. No other factors are involved here from my stand-point.

Exceptions: certain ivy league law and business schools, or, if I utterly fail at parenting, a child who wants to pursue some liberal arts field (that's not a fine art) and has an excellent academic record I may agree to fund, under very strong conditions. Basically if you cannot place in the top 10% of your class, every year, I'm cutting you off until you find a cheaper school and pick up a utility degree that will at least let you get a job that doesn't involve hamburgers or coffee.

So with all that said, I can understand why they don't see applications for a lot of people outside the 1%. While I haven't seen anyone put their thoughts into this topic into a serious condensed form, this is the prevailing attitude I think. We're just not seeing why we should pay so much money for so little practical return, and we're not wealthy enough to remotely consider the impractical return.

Re:Um, duh?

[wisnoskij]

"They do not consider money or othewise having an ability to pay when students apply"

Poor people might be stupid and bad with money, but even they know that if their parents live in a trailer that they cannot afford several hundred thousands dollars in education costs.

Re:Um, duh?

[ghoul]

Colleges began as a place for the rich to network. Trade schools were or the working class. Dont expect an Ivy to teach technical skills. They are all about the networking and hence of value to those who have enough inherited wealth to not need a backup.

Re:Um, duh?

[TWX]

Unfortunately for your position on it, schools like Harvard seem to enjoy the exact opposite of an academic boycott; researchers aspire to associate with these schools.

Re:Um, duh?

[TWX]

I took AP Calc in high school but I'm not usually all that good at standardized tests, my results on the AP exam were poor enough that I took it in college again the following year. Even what theoretically was the same curriculum was challenging, they're definitely not exactly the same. I can see how a kid that assumes that he or she did learn everything would be in trouble if they skipped the first-semester class.

Re:Um, duh?

[slew]

The applications are easier, the financial aid applications are ridiculous. After doing FAFSA, many of these top-tier schools are asking for more intrusive information than you can imagine, including what savings we have for other children and having to estimate what our income and taxes will be for the next year and the year after. I was getting infuriated with my son's forms, had to dig out old tax records, my wife is self-employed, but doesn't technically own a company (freelance), but they wouldn't accept that as an answer... the financial aid forms take 10x longer to fill out. This might be a great reason why so few poor people are doing them. One of the forms even wanted my voter registration number and date I applied for it. WTF?

I hate to break it to you, but so-called "poor" folks probably just have a handful of W2's, a couple of bank account, and maybe a 401K or two which probably means what is an intrusive examinations of finances for you, is probably just checking a few "Not Applicable" boxes on a form for them.

Re:Um, duh?

[slew]

even if they are qualified, they don't actually apply (which makes it really, really hard to attend).

Thread.

Is it "fair" that people who don't apply to a college (or job) are underrepresented at that college/job? Yes, of course if fucking is! Why is this even an issue?

Is the college treating applicants "fairly"? Maybe so.
Is society being "fair"? Debatable.

Re:Um, duh?

[slew]

Exceptions: certain ivy league law and business schools, or, if I utterly fail at parenting, a child who wants to pursue some liberal arts field (that's not a fine art) and has an excellent academic record I may agree to fund, under very strong conditions. Basically if you cannot place in the top 10% of your class, every year, I'm cutting you off until you find a cheaper school and pick up a utility degree that will at least let you get a job that doesn't involve hamburgers or coffee.

So your child somehow manages the amazing accomplishment of being accepted to an Ivy league school, and your ultimatum condition on them is that they must place at the top 10% in an Ivy league school or you cut them off? You know that fully 1/2 of the students they are competing against are in the top 1% of all college prospects, right?

So with all that said, I can understand why they don't see applications for a lot of people outside the 1%. While I haven't seen anyone put their thoughts into this topic into a serious condensed form, this is the prevailing attitude I think. We're just not seeing why we should pay so much money for so little practical return, and we're not wealthy enough to remotely consider the impractical return.

Well I can certainly see why they are unlikely to see an application from one of your kids... Certainly there isn't a compelling reason to spend your hard earned money to send your kids to an Ivy if you don't think it's worth the money (it is your money after all).

The question you should be asking yourself, though, is are your holding your kid back, or helping them make a better decision. Sometimes, the answer isn't obvious even if you think about it very deeply. I'm not saying this applies to you, but I've found (after talking to 100's of parents about college choices for their students over many years), parents often don't seem to have sufficient insights into their kids makeup to probably the answer this question very objectively, yet conversely, intelligent kids often seem to be quite sensitive to their parents financial position on college support and willing to sell themselves short. Sad but true.

Not having gone to any Ivy, I don't know myself, but I know several folks who have and apparently this is some value there in making it to the *next-level* of certain careers, or getting certain opportunities in business or government service. Unfortunately, it is also obvious that all this intangible value is only available to those students that have certain intangible talents to get the value from the opportunities to attend such an elite school. That isn't everyone and it would be a shame to waste the money on the school if the student doesn't have those intangible talents (unless you have money to burn).

Re: Um, duh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not surprised they only have a few boxes to check off. As usual, the poor people get the easy way out and continue to coast through life.

Re: Um, duh?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is wrong and does not apply to schools of today that have to show some PC conformance. Hoping that Trump fixes it back.

Re:Um, duh?

[TWX]

Colleges began as a place for the people that were going to run the country to get educations that enabled them to learn from the greater body of human knowledge in a multitude of fields. That's why there's an emphasis on humanities and other social aspects that seem out-of-step with the technical aspects, to try to instill a degree of social responsibility to those whose later decisions may have societal impacts far beyond their own households.

Re:Um, duh?

[DontTrustWhatIType]

Although "academic-basis" is one way to generalize and dismiss, there are so many more "poor" families that 1%-ers that doesn't fully explain the issue. I spent quite a bit of time working and researching college admissions (during and after my time in university) and perhaps one of the big problems qualified students from "poor" families have getting admitted to "elite" schools is that even if they are qualified, they don't actually apply (which makes it really, really hard to attend).

The reasons are numerous, but often are attributable to fear and low-expectations (e.g., of getting rejected, figuring out how to pay, distance from family and support systems, etc). Unfortunately, this behavior is ultimately self-defeating in many ways as it sets a lower internal "baseline" for themselves to judge their future success. Some of these were outlined in the infamous 1999 Dale-Kruger research report summarized below...

Self-selection (selecting out by not applying, selecting in by over applying) whether voluntary or involuntary is an extraordinary challenge to overcome. It is far from the only problem, but one which has no good solution. If the application fee is $300, then the child of someone making $275,000 a year can apply to the top 30 schools, whether or not they are academically exceptional, while the child of someone behind on rent cannot. There are many more people with exceptional ability in the bottom 60% by income or net worth than in the top 1%, but there are several fold more who apply from the top 1% than from the bottom 60%. Those with fewer means are more likely to stay close to home, have access to fewer resources during their K-12 experience, have fewer opportunities to visit or interview, the list goes on and on. Even when application fees are waived and interviews are not required to be in person, someone from a less privileged socioeconomic background is less likely to apply to a school that is perceived as more "elite". The institutions that fair better (and none do wonderfully well) spend much more time and resources trying to pull in exceptional candidates from all socioeconomic backgrounds. Similar problems exist with other diversity groups and it is not limited to students - filling staff, faculty, and researchers with diverse exceptional candidates is an ongoing struggle.

Re:Um, duh?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am amazed, I was designing machines (machine theory), in third-fourth grade, primary school. This means you would draw some movement curve, translate it into geometry, then solve the movement equations. I no longer remember it well, it was funny and mechanical and extracurricular, it was on my own, but in every course we would get advances in many math branches, as a matter of fact till calculus in twelfth grade. I winded up in an elite university, but I thought going higher than trigonometry was a matter of personal capabilities, not course design! Sounds like a bad excuse, or an early escape door to hide lack of capabilities an blame the system.

Re:Um, duh?

[gfxguy]

That's all I have - no investments besides my 401k, no other property besides my house... WTF do they need my voter registration for?

Positive feedback?

[Anonymous Coward]

Smart parents --> high earnings
Smart parents --> smart kids (doesn't matter if you believe that's due to nature or nurture, both are at play)
Smart kids with rich parents --> good K-12 schools (these turn up in wealthy neighborhoods, after all)
Smart kids from good K-12 schools --> admitted to ivy league schools.
Smart, wealthy young adults in ivy league schools pair up --> more smart kids
Rince, repeat.
How is this surprising?

Re: Positive feedback?

[Anonymous Coward]

Overly complicated explanation.
Poor people can't afford top colleges.
You don't even need a feedback loop to explain it.
Also, without education the poor will remain poor no matter how smart they are.

Re:Positive feedback?

[Oswald McWeany]

Exactly.

Also, if your parents are wealthy:

1) They're more likely to be still together providing a more stable two-parent upbringing.
2) They're probably only working one job. They're home in the evening to help the kid with homework.
3) You're going to get a healthier diet. Your brain will develop properly because you have the nutrition you need.
4) Your parents are going to value you getting an education more, because they have one and know how important it is.
5) You live in a neighborhood with high home values- which means higher property tax, which means your school is better funded.

Re: Positive feedback?

[MightyYar]

Even the summary indicates that these schools bend over backwards to accommodate their poor students. Not only that, this isn't an article about poor students, but rather the entire lower 60% income bracket is compared. If you are in the 60th percentile for income, you are not poor.

Also, without education the poor will remain poor no matter how smart they are.

I think that is a large part of what the parent was saying.

Re: Positive feedback?

[ShanghaiBill]

Overly complicated explanation. Poor people can't afford top colleges.

Not true. Top schools have huge endowments, and way more alumni donations, so they can offer more aid for poor students. Most do not consider ability to pay during the admissions process. If you are talented but poor, a top school is likely more affordable than a second tier school because of the more generous financial aid offered.

Re:Positive feedback?

[Anonymous Coward]

1) They're more likely to be still together providing a more stable two-parent upbringing.
> They're probably having 4 moms and 3 dads

2) They're probably only working one job. They're home in the evening to help the kid with homework.
> Yeah right, mom#3 is part time shopping and don't give a fuck about you

3) You're going to get a healthier diet. Your brain will develop properly because you have the nutrition you need.
> Yeah right, private cook is helping here

4) Your parents are going to value you getting an education more, because they have one and know how important it is.
> Or your parents will learn to their kids that low class peoples are like shit.

5) You live in a neighborhood with high home values- which means higher property tax, which means your school is better funded.
> Which means that the school itself have more pusher, more hard drugs

But all of theses won't stop you from being an "elite", since elitism is in fact a religion (where you help only other elitist).

Sorry, I'm salty today.

Re: Positive feedback?

[Rastl]

Overly complicated explanation. Poor people can't afford top colleges.

Not true. Top schools have huge endowments, and way more alumni donations, so they can offer more aid for poor students. Most do not consider ability to pay during the admissions process. If you are talented but poor, a top school is likely more affordable than a second tier school because of the more generous financial aid offered.

You missed the part where they may have the money but they don't increase the number of seats. So even though they set up programs to help low income students they don't necessarily have the space. When the kids applying have the same last name as some of those grants and a building on campus you know which one is going to get preference.

Re: Positive feedback?

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, without education the poor will remain poor no matter how smart they are.

Not absolutely true. Sure, there's a tendency in that direction, but in fact IQ score (whatever that's really measuring) turns out to be the best single predictor of income.

Sure, there are other factors, and it's not a completely reliable predictor, but statistically that's the way to bet.

Re: Positive feedback?

[ArmoredDragon]

Given that it's known that genes play the biggest role in one's intelligence, it's possible and even likely that this is simply a matter of pedigree.

Re: Positive feedback?

[Anonymous Coward]

Harvard is free if you can't afford it (but are accepted).

Re:Positive feedback?

[ShanghaiBill]

Smart parents --> high earnings
Smart parents --> smart kids (doesn't matter if you believe that's due to nature or nurture, both are at play)

This is a consequence of feminism. Two generations ago, lawyers were men and they married their secretaries. Doctors were men and they married nurses. Today, lawyers marry other lawyers, and doctors marry other doctors. Smart/rich people pair up, and dumb/poor people pair up. This is causing economic inequality, since it is not individual, but household income that is measured.

Re: Positive feedback?

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone with an 18 year old that just went through this process I can tell you that even though he is a national honor society member he chose to go into the military because the cost of college is so high. As a result his education will be paid without the need for him to go into tremendous debt. He is an Eagle scout and could get into probably any school he wanted to. This pressure is very real even though we are most certainly not poor. He opted for that path because he did not wish his parents to take on the burden of debt for his college despite us being very open and supportive of any choice he made.

If I put myself in the shoes of a parent who is poor I wouldn't see a different option though. I paid off my student loans within 8 years of graduating. My parents took on debt to help me and are still paying for it. Technically I pay for it since I give them money for it but again, that is because I do well now. If I was classified poor this would again not be an option. This is of course a success story, almost everyone I know who has a college degree doesn't use it in their current full time employment. As a result they don't make as much as I do with just a few exceptions as some have gone into real estate and are doing well.

Re: Positive feedback?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not aware of any convincing evidence for your irrelevant claim. Intelligence, academic success, and professional success are fairly weakly coordinated.

Re:Positive feedback?

[Gorobei]

All true, and for the top 1%:

6) You had part-time tutors, learning specialists, etc come in to help as needed when you weren't getting As in a class
7) Your maid took care of doing the dishes and making your bed so you got to read, play, learn, etc in all your free time
8) You know how to behave around rich people and college professors because you were around them all the time
9) You've been to several foreign countries by age 10, often with an expert guide just for your family
10) You know how to navigate a white-table cloth restaurant, a cocktail party, an art gallery, a meet-and-greet

Re: Positive feedback?

[Heathren-bert]

The schools may have aid to offer the poorer students, but the poorer kids probably never even consider going to one of these schools, simply because they cost so much before any aid would be awarded. If the student doesn't think they would be able to afford to go to the local state school, they aren't even going to consider moving across the country to attend an ivy league school. And would their teachers or guidance counselors even suggest to these students that they could possibly go to one of these schools and know that there might be ways for it to be affordable. The schools having the endowments and donations to use are great, but not sure if those that should know about them actually do know about them.

Re:Positive feedback?

[Anonymous Coward]

All true, and for the top 1%:

6) You had part-time tutors, learning specialists, etc come in to help as needed when you weren't getting As in a class
7) Your maid took care of doing the dishes and making your bed so you got to read, play, learn, etc in all your free time
8) You know how to behave around rich people and college professors because you were around them all the time
9) You've been to several foreign countries by age 10, often with an expert guide just for your family
10) You know how to navigate a white-table cloth restaurant, a cocktail party, an art gallery, a meet-and-greet

That's exactly how its described in the official book of stereotypes.

Re:Positive feedback?

[Anonymous Coward]

Smart parents --> high earnings
Smart parents --> smart kids (doesn't matter if you believe that's due to nature or nurture, both are at play)

This is a consequence of feminism. Two generations ago, lawyers were men and they married their secretaries. Doctors were men and they married nurses. Today, lawyers marry other lawyers, and doctors marry other doctors. Smart/rich people pair up, and dumb/poor people pair up. This is causing economic inequality, since it is not individual, but household income that is measured.

Or maybe all this inbreeding is causing the explosion in autism... If we simply are trying to get conversation started with blind speculation...

Re: Positive feedback?

[XXongo]

Even the summary indicates that these schools bend over backwards to accommodate their poor students. ...

They do-- but there are barriers which have already filtered poorer students out long before the acceptance/rejection decision by the college.

Money is a form of resources that can be used to solve problems. If the problem addressed is "how do I get my kid accepted into an elite university?"-- having money helps a lot in trying to solve that problem.

Re:Positive feedback?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's also true that many of them are just genetically smarter. I was the first person in my family to go to college, but when I went to an elite graduate school I noticed that most my peers were third and fourth generation college graduates. After only four generations of selective breeding the difference is already obvious. Compared to me and my peers they are super human. Most of them are attractive, athletic, have musical talent, and are exceptional academically. They are from the deep end of the gene pool, and most of us are from the shallow end.

Re:Positive feedback?

[Anonymous Coward]

While at first glance it sounds like a reasonable explanation we know that economic inequality used to be even worse so clearly it is wrong.

Re: Positive feedback?

[ChromeAeonium]

You're technically right, but the big factor at the crux of the matter is the if they get in part. Paying the way for 'one of the good ones' doesn't mean there is not still a huge classism problem in these schools.

Re:Positive feedback?

[Gorobei]

Oh, I actually picked five things true of my own kids. But good to know they are in some book.

Re:Positive feedback?

[Anonymous Coward]

This just in - Humans with more resources are using those resources to make sure that they and their progeny have more resources. Story at 10!

Re: Positive feedback?

[allcoolnameswheretak]

Precisely. For poor families, things like buying the train tickets or a car to be even able to get there, being able to pay for the accommodation and other resources, can already be a challenge.

I was struggling to pay for my train rides and my accommodation here in Europe, even without paying any University fees. I couldn't count on my parents to support me financially.

Re: Positive feedback?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not necessarily true. It's estimated that in 1930 the average testable IQ would be 80 compared to 100 now, that's more than 1 standard deviation lower. A 20 IQ point rise in the entire population as a whole is attributable to diet and education. But that's just the *average* increase due to environmental causes. Let's say that the bottom half of the population benefited only half as much as the top half from nutrition and education increases (which is plausible), that means that the bottom half would have increased by about ~13.33 IQ points and the top half by about 26.66 IQ points due to diet and education improvements, so you have at least a 1 standard deviation gap between the top and bottom scorers that's spread out purely because of unequal access to improved diet and education. The scales of these effects are far greater than the hereditibility estimates for IQ.

Re: Positive feedback?

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone who wasn't accepted to Harvard despite being a top student, I can't imagine someone poor (who likely has to work to help the family make ends meet and probably doesn't have the sort of home environment conducive to education) being able to make the cut without either being born a supergenius or working themselves so hard that they burn out by the time they turn 18. Sure, it's possible, but coming from a wealthy family in a wealthy school district (or a top private school) makes it about a thousand times easier. It's not like we're talking about Cornell here; I know complete idiots who got into Cornell. Harvard has standards that seem impossibly high to most teenagers.

Re: Positive feedback?

[Anonymous Coward]

High intelligence and high pay do not always go together.

High intelligence and sociopathic behavior - possibly.

Re: Positive feedback?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right. In addition, competing for those few seats puts even very smart and hard-working low-income kids at a big disadvantage.

A very big piece of this is that high schools with large numbers of low-income students tend to have under-staffed guidance offices, so kids often don't learn about applying to big-name schools, or that they could get a free ride if they get in. So most don't even try.

Similarly, a lack of school resources (e.g., do they teach AP classes) and personal resources (money and connections to do cool and impressive extra-curricular activities, like a summer internship at a university laboratory or a fancy Eagle-Scout project) can make it hard for a very smart and hard-working kid in a low-income family to compete for those few seats.

Re:Positive feedback?

[Oswald McWeany]

This just in - Humans with more resources are using those resources to make sure that they and their progeny have more resources. Story at 10!

There's nothing wrong with rich people wanting to give their own kids a leg-up in life and the best chance for future success that they can.

There's plenty wrong when society suppresses social mobility and makes success in life tied to how rich one's parents are.

Re: Positive feedback?

[ShanghaiBill]

Paying the way for 'one of the good ones' doesn't mean there is not still a huge classism problem in these schools.

Of course. But the problem is NOT that they are qualified but can't afford it. The problem is that they are not qualified. So the solution is not "more aid" or "more loans" but maybe fixing inequality in K-12.

Re:Positive feedback?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, you are OK with rich people taking advantage of their wealth. That by its very nature means others are disadvantaged. But that disadvantage can ALWAYS be called suppression by someone, no matter what form it takes.

Re:Positive feedback?

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL

We're not wealthy yet:

One income stream $80k
Married 5 years and have a daughter thats almost 4, we started a college fund when she was born.
We eat well/home cooked meals. Eat out a handful of times a year.
Neither of us are "college educated".
Have a car thats under 5 years old.
Own our own house (no financial help other than qualifying for down payment assistance in the state of WA, we contributed $0 to the downpayment).
Neighborhood with high value homes .. hmm not really, but its also not exactly a dump either, quiet street. 1980 tri-level on a 1/4 acre lot, most of the other houses are reasonably well maintained and the neighbours dont suck.
And before you think, oh you must work someplace where no one wants to be and houses are cheap etc, think again, I live 40 miles south of Seattle in small town served by the commuter rail system and commute to/from work in Seattle each day 100% on transit.

Its possible, but you have to use your brain, and be good at managing money.

Re:Positive feedback?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've heard this before, but do you have stats on how often that was true? My parents both met in university back in the early 1950s. All their friends met their spouses there too. Same for my wife's parents and their friends. The joke in those pre-feminist times was that women went to university to get their 'MRS' degree. If it happened frequently enough that there was a joke about it, then I suspect the whole 'marrying the secretary/nurse == social mobility' thing may be over-stressed by people who spend their time trying to find new ways to diss feminism.

And really, don't you think there's a cognitive disconnect in the implication that the way to achieve social mobility is to maintain a permanent underclass of women?

Re: Positive feedback?

[Chaset]

Some schools bend over backwards, but not Stanford. (at least that was the case 25 years ago)
All the places I got accepted to offered a financial aid package that made some sort of sense, albeit still difficult for my family.
What Stanford offered was a joke. It expected me to come up with 12K-per year, and my folks for another 12K ish, which the financial aid forms clearly showed we don't have. (the numbers are fuzzy, but it was all ridiculous.) They were telling me to my face "if you're not rich, no need to apply".

So I went elsewhere. They weren't my first choice anyways.

Re: Positive feedback?

[ShanghaiBill]

high schools with large numbers of low-income students tend to have under-staffed guidance offices

That was my situation last year when my daughter was applying to college. So I spent several thousand on an outside consultant who coached her on SAT techniques, helped her apply, and even co-authored her essays. She got into a very good university that was the best that we could have realistically hoped for. It was money well spent, but not many low income families could afford that.

Using my money to basically buy her way into a good school felt wrong, but when it is your own kid, you do what you gotta do.

Re: Positive feedback?

[MightyYar]

Right, but that's a more complex explanation that is essentially the exact point that the original commenter was making.

Re: Positive feedback?

[wisnoskij]

Just because they are poor does not mean they will beg for money.

Re: Positive feedback?

[ArmoredDragon]

Maybe, as that change has been attributable to an increase in dietary iodine. However it's also said that human intelligence is analogous to the tail feathers on a peacock, and since arranged marriages stopped being a thing in the west ever since world war 2, and faster/more affordable travel allows for a much broader mate selection, it's possible that we're inadvertently subjecting ourselves to selective selection instead of the more arbitrary selection we had before. This would also help explain the higher autism rates, which nobody has been able to pinpoint a cause for (and no, it's not vaccines.)

Re:Positive feedback?

[ghoul]

If I cannot use my wealth to give my children an advantage what is the point of the wealth? Why work hard and earn money if someone who doesnt will get the same opportunities for their kid.
Ye society should try to keep the ladder open for social mobility as smart kids can be born to poor parents and we would not want to lose their potential but the kids of wealthy parents have already got a track record so their is nothing wrong in society giving an advantage to the chidren of successfull folks. If really smart poor kids will catch up in 2 or 3 generations.

Re:Positive feedback?

[SimonInOz]

Let's review this list of reasons:
* divorce is inversely correlated with wealth - actually I doubt this is even true
* probably working only one job - really, why is this? Not true where I live
* Healthier diet - indeed, cheap food is not so good
* Parents value an education more - actually, the ones that seem to value it most are recent immigrants
* Neighborhood with higher property values means better funded schools - stupid way to fund schools, they should be funded according to need (check Finland, etc)

So only two points of 5 seems likely to be true, and the most important one, the funding, is the product of a really bad system.

I think the educations system needs a bit of a review. I'm sure Trump will fix that ... cough.

Re: Positive feedback?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not about begging for money. If you have the opportunity to go to a top tier school, and that school is offering to help mitigate the cost, why wouldn't you take them up on the offer? What's the alternative? Look at your bank account and say, "well I can budget for $15,000/year, so I'll restrict my options to tuitions below that and reject financial aid opportunities"?

You don't have to get down on your knees and beg for help. The notion that getting financial aid is a bad thing is part of the problem. Aid is just a part of the system, and last time I checked, college kids don't drink beers and chat about how much financial aid they get. No one really cares.

FWIW I am from a middle class family that received a moderate amount of FA from various sources to pay for state college. I then went to any Ivy for grad school and saw a mix of kids that were rich/legacy, but also a lot that would have had no chance of being there if not for FA.

Re: Positive feedback?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that's the point: we can't blame tuition costs for the observation that rich kids are going to top tiers and poor(er) kids aren't, because those schools are specifically trying to remove that barrier.

It's something farther down the socioeconomic inequity chain, whether it be that poorer kids can't focus on academics as much, as you suggest, or don't go to as good of K-12 schools, or don't get personal tutors, or something other factor.

The tuition isn't the issue, it's something deeper and probably much more difficult to solve.

Re:Positive feedback?

[Oswald McWeany]

If I cannot use my wealth to give my children an advantage what is the point of the wealth?

There is plenty of "point in wealth", I guarantee if they made equal schools across the country in poor and rich neighborhoods alike you wouldn't burn your pay-cheque and go live as a pauper.

Why work hard and earn money if someone who doesnt will get the same opportunities for their kid.

To set an example? For your own self-fulfillment?

If a kid is born to lazy parents- does that mean he deserves to be uneducated and have fewer opportunities? Just because his parents were lazy- or even stupid? If your child was swapped with another child at birth in the hospital, with that of the child of a poor family.

Would the child you lost suddenly have less worth to the world because now, he would grow up with different parents? Would he be less deserving of an education than if he had come home with you?

Ye society should try to keep the ladder open for social mobility as smart kids can be born to poor parents and we would not want to lose their potential but the kids of wealthy parents have already got a track record so their is nothing wrong in society giving an advantage to the chidren of successfull folks. If really smart poor kids will catch up in 2 or 3 generations.

I think it's admirable for a parent to want the best for their child to succeed. I'm certainly going to do the best I can for my children and my children as a result are going to be better off than those from poor families. I'm not saying you shouldn't use your wealth to give your children every advantage you can. It's your responsibility as a parent.

Conversely, the responsibility of society is to give equal opportunity to all people, irrespective of their parent's wealth. Society should try and even the playing field to give each child a chance to succeed, that's part of the logic behind public schools (the other part being, we're all better off living in a society of educated people rather than uneducated people).

Poor families grow up in poor neighborhoods. Poor neighborhoods generate less property tax, which in most states is how schools are funded. Poorly funded schools get the worst teachers, the worst facilities, etc. Even if poor families had the same rate of two-parent households, or the same rate of enthusiasm for learning that richer families had. Even if the kids in poorer families got enough proper nutrition to develop brain growth (lack of nutrition strongly linked to lower intelligence). Even if their home lives were perfect- they still have the disadvantage of going to crappy schools where the other students aren't as focused, the teachers are worse, and the facilities are crap.

If a child is up for adoption with a rich family and a poor family. That same child with the same initial potential, will be much more likely to succeed if a rich family adopts him rather than if a poor family adopts him. Instead of studying law, he could be pushing meth.

Re: Positive feedback?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm in the top 1% I don't do many of those things I don't have a maid, I don't travel regularly, I go to nice restaurants but not at any higher frequency than most people I like my 6.25 all day China buffet regularly.

Not coming from the 1% but now being a part of it it's interesting to hear what people think is true vs what is actually happening, not working 3 jobs being home at night for your kids that doesn't happen all the time because you know how you get in to the 1% you work hard and you work a lot at a good paying job and that comes with trade offs. I'm not complaining about where I am but I think you are miss informed if you think we spend all day at the country club and yachting.

Re:Positive feedback?

[Oswald McWeany]

Let's review this list of reasons:
* divorce is inversely correlated with wealth - actually I doubt this is even true

By it's very nature, having one parent providing funds is going to make your less well off than having two parents providing funds. A lot of the kids growing up in poverty in this nation have several siblings each, all from different fathers, none of them involved in their life.

* probably working only one job - really, why is this? Not true where I live

Really? Doctors and Lawyers where you live are just as likely to have a night/weekend job to have to pay bills as the waitresses working at the Waffle House? That's interesting.

* Parents value an education more - actually, the ones that seem to value it most are recent immigrants

This is true, and children of immigrants tend to move up the socio-economic ladder too because of this. It's also true, if your parent went to University, he's more likely to push you to achieve the same compared to the parent who dropped out of beauty school.

* Neighborhood with higher property values means better funded schools - stupid way to fund schools, they should be funded according to need (check Finland, etc)

I agree completely. I think this is a big issue, and also a low hanging fruit that would be easy to fix.

I think the educations system needs a bit of a review. I'm sure Trump will fix that ... cough.

He will set up Trump Elementary, Trump Middle, and Trump High schools all across this country- to help prepare students for Trump University.

Re: Positive feedback?

[TheCastro1689]

There are several reasons. I've read and you can google it, that one reason of increased autism rates is because people are waiting to get married, and usually find a mate in their career or field. So a lot of these people are marrying other intelligent people that probably have low level aspergers or other autistic genes which leads to more autistic kids. I have also recently read a study linking low iron to autism in babies, so older people having kids are absorbing less vitamins in general and probably eating poorly (just working people problems) and not getting enough nutrients. Combine smart working older people that have no time to cook and eat healthily and you get a boost in autism. There's also the fact that autism is ridiculously broad nowadays to add in more people now being diagnosed as well.

Re:Positive feedback?

[ghoul]

You are talking about what is fair for the child. I am talking about what is fair for the parents. 2 different aspects. You might want to be fair to all kids but the fact remains if people are not going to get a benefit from wealthy what is their motivation to work hard?

Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[damn_registrars]

The "elite" schools, based on their reputation, generally only attract applicants who believe they can afford to go there. I had exceptional ACT/SAT scores but I was not interested in the financial burden of such schools so I went to a large public research university instead. However people who are living lifestyles that can afford such expenses will consider applying. It didn't matter in my case that there tuition assistance and financial aid; the cost gap at the time was still too enormous between podunk state and Yale to even consider bothering with an application.

Even if the gap has reduced on the tuition level, the cost of living at those schools is still very very high and the students know that.

Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[plague911]

I agree your view a common held but problematic myth. There are many many things that can be improved about this nation. But collage affordability is not one of them. Speaking as someone who went to a tier II school which was more expensive than several of the Ivy's. No matter how poor you are you can afford to go to the best schools.

I survived just fine entirety on scholarship, pell grants, student loans, and internship money. At times I was a bit hungry, but not tooo bad. It can be done.

Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[Anonymous Coward]

Too true. I dreamed of attending MIT or CalPoly: when I learned it would be around $25k/semester the reality sunk in that I was limited to my state college.

Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[Anonymous Coward]

I had exceptional ACT/SAT scores but I was not interested in the financial burden ....

Serious? Didn't you apply anyway and talk to their financial aid people? I mean if your scores where truly that good, you could have gotten a shit load of academic scholarships.

Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[avandesande]

For middle class folks (say around 100k household income) it's not worth the bother. You won't qualify for financial aid, yet it is as affordable as if you had zero income.

Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[avandesande]

If you are middle class you can't get financial aid.

Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[Anonymous Coward]

I had the exact same attitude. Didn't even bother with the Ivy, but decided that the local university was good enough and I'd save a ton in both tuition and housing.

The dirty "secret" that my counselor didn't bother telling me was that if an ivy school wants you, they will bend over backwards to get you if money is the issue. My gf went to an Ivy. Paid less than I paid for my state school because they hooked her up with scholarships, grants, and a bullshit afternoon "computer lab monitoring" gig that basically meant she was there to put paper in the printer and spent the rest of her time studying. Had I known, I'd have pushed harder and actually tried to get in. But, as they say, fortune favors the bold.

Re: Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[Anonymous Coward]

Must have been one of them new fangled tier II schools that don't care 'bout grammar and proper spellin'.

Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, she does have a vagina. There's a lot of scholarship money out there explicitly earmarked for putting pussies instead of dicks into classroom seats.

Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[Anonymous Coward]

My understanding is that Harvard gives out grants and scholarships if a family earns less than 90k.

Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[CrimsonAvenger]

There are many many things that can be improved about this nation. But collage affordability is not one of them.

Yes, one of those things is that people could learn to spell in primary school.

Or does it really cost all that much to make a piece of art that is assembled from a variety of different forms?

Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[MightyYar]

Then things have changed. In the 90s, both my brother and I got a combination of grants and loans. Neither of us nor our parents had any savings to speak of - so we financed almost the entire amount. My parents were solidly middle class.

Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't count on it. Unless your scores are in the 99th (or maybe even 99.9th) percentile across the board and you have an impeccable student resume, you might get a token scholarship that covers books and snacks and little more. Even then, so many scholarships are earmarked for specific demographics, study areas, activities, parents' jobs, etc. that the opportunity for pure academic scholarships is limited. And if your parents can afford to pay the interest on a student loan, don't count on much in financial aid either. There's a lot of aid out there, but most of it is either narrowly focused or spread very thin. I made a similar decision to turn down acceptance to a big-name school in favor of a less expensive and lesser-known school because they offered me the opportunity to graduate without debt (scholarships took the price down to what my family could afford), while the big-name school would have cost full price - no academic scholarship, no financial aid, total cost of about $150,000 20 years ago. The decision took me all of 30 seconds to make.

Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[Nethemas the Great]

Applications cost money; $75 in their case. Since admission is obnoxiously competitive, and the tuition incomprehensibly large, what would be the motivation?

Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[omnichad]

Correct.

Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[phantomfive]

when I learned it would be around $25k/semester the reality sunk in that I was limited to my state college.

And that doesn't include housing, which can also be $20k a semester.

Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[avandesande]

Exactly my point. How is Harvard any more affordable for a family 100k a year than 10k?

Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[swb]

I always thought the elite schools attracted people not for their education but for the benefits of their social connections to a lot of rich and well-connected people.

What would Facebook be if Zuckerberg had instead gone to Purdue or Texas A&M instead of Harvard? How much of his success is due to the fact that he had access to a lot of rich and influential people?

Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[Arkham]

And that doesn't include housing, which can also be $20k a semester.

For that kind of money you could buy a VERY large house off campus.

Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[Nonesuch]

If you are middle class you can't get financial aid.

If you are upper middle class, your aid options are very limited, regular old middle class can get some financial aid. Our family income was smack dab in the center of "middle" class for Chicago metro area, but I qualified for a few need-based financial aid programs.

I attended IIT, a moderately expensive private research/tech school, and I received a Federal Pell grant, a subsidized (Stafford) loan, and made up the rest from the Federal Work-Study program, and of course wiped out my personal savings account. If I had instead attended University of Illinois at Chicago, a public research university, I would have received a full scholarship -- based primarily on my test scores, not on need.

Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[avandesande]

Loans do not count. Of course you can get loans... that cannot be discharged in bankruptcy.

Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[Oswald McWeany]

And that doesn't include housing, which can also be $20k a semester.

For that kind of money you could buy a VERY large house off campus.

The university I went to required you stay ON campus for the first two years. I think the going rate then was $7000 a year for lodging. That was 20 years ago, I can easily believe that's $20k today with the rate Universities have increased what they charge.

My third year I moved off campus, paid less and had a lot more space. The kids who came the year after me though had to sign up for four years living on campus. They did build some pretty slick on-campus housing for those in their third and fourth years though.

Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[avandesande]

I am talking about Ivy League here... would those crumbs pay the way for Harvard or Cornell?

Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[Anonymous Coward]

Who told you that YOU would have to pay that much? Someone on social media? Or did you just give up without even making an attempt to find out what YOUR cost would be?

Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[Oswald McWeany]

I was in college about the same time, I have 5 different grants/scholarships, but because I went to an expensive private school (that at the time I thought meant a better education), I still had to work a 35hr/week job and me and my parents split the cost after grants/scholarships.

That was in the 90s. There is no way I could make up the cost by working a full-time job now. Cheap public schools charge as much as the crappy expensive private school I went to.

It has helped find jobs though. Employers are always impressed with the school on my resume. I daren't tell them, the computer science department in that university was awful and I learn't nothing of practical use there in 4 years.

Pseudocode? I haven't used it once since graduating, they insisted proper programmers spend more time writing pseudocode than real code. They also told me that the average programmer writes three lines of code a day, and the rest of the time is spent trying to find bugs. I don't think I could hold down a job if that were true.

Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[Anonymous Coward]

Who told you that?

Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[Oswald McWeany]

A single child family MIGHT be able to pull that off if they started saving years in advance. 2 or 3 kids and no, $100k a year, and you can't afford the school.

Having multiple kids knocks you down the opulence ladder a few pegs. You may have average family income, but you're essentially upper lower class/lower middle class.

Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[sconeu]

It isn't. Because Harvard will give the kid from the family with 10K income a free ride (assuming he gets in at all).

Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[radl33t]

While the mighty intellects among us spend their time chiding others' casual writing mistakes on internet forums, those of us with lesser abilities concentrate on style and substance.

Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, it would be a good decision on your part to not apply. Your low self-esteem and lack of drive to overcome obstacles would result in your failing and dropping out even if you did get in. There were undoubtedly a lot of other places that were more suitable for you, where you could thrive and succeed.

Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[sconeu]

In 2008, UC was about $25000 per annum, including room and board.
By 2015, it was about $30000.

Thank the FSM both my wife and I had high paying jobs, because we were offered ZERO financial aid.

Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[phantomfive]

For that kind of money you could buy a VERY large house off campus.

You couldn't buy a house for that price, at least not in the places most of these universities are.
The reason housing is that expensive is because universities require you to stay in university housing, for a few semesters at least. Is that a ripoff? Yes it is.

Re: Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[Anonymous Coward]

He also thinks that being in six figures of student loan debt for the rest of your life qualifies as "affordable." Seems that tier II doesn't have any economics or accounting classes either.

Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[thinkwaitfast]

I just plugged random numbers into a the Harvard financial aid calculator, https://college.harvard.edu/fi...

A one parent household making $130k/year would get $48k worth of scholarships bringing the annual bill to under $20k. This does not sound unreasonable for someone making $130k.

Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[thinkwaitfast]

put paper in the printer and spent the rest of her time studying

I had that exact same job in college.

Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[thinkwaitfast]

Mostly this, but it's no guaranty and there are opportunities everywhere. A much larger factor is how well you can take advantage of them.

Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[msauve]

The solution is to require all colleges and universities to rename themselves to one of a limited number of names. A partial list might include:
Princeton
Harvard
University of Chicago
Yale
Columbia
Stanford
MIT
Duke

...for after all, it's been shown that it's not the education which matters as much as the name on a diploma. As a bonus, it would reduce the amount of resources wasted on collegiate sports.

Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[plague911]

http://quotationsbook.com/quot... One of the greatest functions of the internet is that it allows such poor minds to self identify.

Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[Anonymous Cow Ward]

That depends on the school. I'm a relatively recent college graduate from a middle-class family, and I got about a third of my tuition covered.

Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[slew]

Exactly my point. How is Harvard any more affordable for a family 100k a year than 10k?

At Harvard, a family that makes $100K/year will only pay at most $10K/year (Harvard caps tuition at 10% for income under $150k). Generally it makes it cheaper than a public university.

Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[Anonymous Coward]

Where have you been? Things changed rather drastically which was one of the major issues of this last election. College is way more expensive now than it was in the 90s. Hell, I went to college in the early 2000s, it was good that I finished early as tuition was doubling almost everywhere at that time. When I started it was about $75 per credit hour. Now it is between $490 to $600 per credit hour depending on major.

I didn't go to a top tier school either and $490 is the state cost for ASU.

Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[Bryan Ischo]

I'm pretty sure that's the kind of thing that people who can't get into these schools say to make themselves feel better.

Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[Bob the Super Hamste]

I liked one of my college jobs at the gas station working overnights. Sell the drunks and stoners lotto tickets and smokes occasionally and spend the rest of my time studying.

Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[Anonymous Coward]

I did. I paid the money to apply to a bunch of schools (about $1500 if I remember right).

I didn't make it into MIT, but was accepted at UC-Berkeley, University of Chicago, and Stanford plus a bunch of others including local private and state colleges

We road tripped for a couple weeks looking at schools, I eliminated a bunch that I didn't like.

Of the 6 I looked at and got financial aid estimates from Chicago was highest and Stanford was next (by $5k a quarter or so). Discounts for in-state tuition made 3 schools basically a wash tuition-wise. 1 would give me a free ride for tuition(combination of academic and athletic scholarships). My biggest problem was we were farming and the land value counted against assets, so we were land rich and cash poor.

I chose a state school, skipped the full ride, and worked part time through college. I took no cash from my folks but lot's of food ;-) Got out with one loan for $1600 at the end of my senior year to put down first/last month rent and I paid it off about 4 weeks later after my signing bonus came. My (now) wife went to the same place, she only did work study jobs, took more loans (~$30k), and the only thing she got from her parents was self confidence issues.

I occasionally regret not going to a bigger name school, but we are starting to push 40 now, have kids, a decent house with a pool(wife's) and a tennis court(mine), a little under $1M in our 401Ks for retirement, about a years salary tucked away (both in software, never know what is going to happen), and more "toys" than I know what to do with.

So I'm very happy with my choice, I hope my kids look at the whole picture like I did when they chose where they want to go and what they want to do.

Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[Anonymous Coward]

I actually find that pretty unaffordable. The bill is really $80K+living expenses for four years. Which is to say, somewhere around $120K (at-poverty-level living). $130K, after taxes/insurance, is around $90K. So, all told, the bill is around 15 months of professional labor. That seems really high to me.

Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[ranton]

Loans do not count. Of course you can get loans... that cannot be discharged in bankruptcy.

Why don't loans count? My ability to take out about $100k in loans with no collateral and horrible credit is directly responsible for my income rising from $40k to $160k in less than six years. I significantly turned my life around starting in 2009 (at age 28) primarily because of student loan availability regardless of credit rating or past academic history (which was also horrible for me at the time), which is only possible because they cannot be discharged in bankruptcy.

Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[Pfhorrest]

$100k household income is about 200% the median household income, so that not the best choice for "middle class". (It is around the mean household income, but some 75% of Americans are below the mean. Then again, real middle class status based on rent and interest expenses vs unearned incomes is large unattainable to even that 75% percentile, so maybe that's not such a bad choice, somewhere between the "like most people" and "actually capital-neutral" senses of "middle class").

Not that that undermines the rest of your point.

Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, one of those things is that people could learn to spell in primary school.

Or does it really cost all that much to make a piece of art that is assembled from a variety of different forms?

A: spelling, F: grammar, F: sentence quality

"Or is it prohibitively expensive to make a piece of art incorporating an eclectic assortment of materials glued to a common backing?"

Consider taking a remedial course in sentence composition prior to your next trolling session.

Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[Anonymous Coward]

While the mighty intellects among us spend their time chiding others' casual writing mistakes on internet forums, those of us with lesser abilities concentrate on style and substance.

Of which plague911 has fuck-all.

Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[MightyYar]

I know school is more expensive, and at quite a bit more than the pace of inflation. What I doubt has changed is the middle class getting financial aid - I'm betting they still do.

Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[MightyYar]

As I mentioned to the other commenter, I know that costs have increased - but I was addressing the claim that middle class kids do not get financial aid, which I'm pretty sure is absurd.

Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[MightyYar]

They count as financial aid. They certainly aren't grants or scholarships (which middle class students also qualify for), but they are still considered financial aid.

Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[Anonymous Coward]

Why bother? The content is clearly without substance: college prices are out of control and it's saddling a generation of young adults with historic debt out of the gate.

If someone's acting like a clown, they asking you to treat them like a joke.

Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[wisnoskij]

But most people go to college to get some Art degree what will ultimately hurt their earning ability. Going a hundred thousand dollar into debt, to come out the other side only qualified for a minimum wage job is not practical. That only makes sense for the well off and the 1% of people who want to become engineers or a small handful of other careers who start with higher education.

Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[Anonymous Coward]

If only I could live in a world where wanting it bad enough would make money appear out of thin air.

Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[tsstahl]

Yea, but the irony in the post extolling the virtue of the author's education deserves _some_ humorous attention. :)

Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[Anonymous Coward]

My dad always said, if you have to borrow to afford something, you can't afford it.

Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[Anonymous Coward]

How were you middle class without any savings?

Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[thinkwaitfast]

I thought it really sucked. It was right on the edge of being too busy to sleep and too boring to do anything except sleep. I did work many times in a friend's parents convenience store covering for them on weekends. That was quite boring too, but all the free cheesewiz and cheap cigars you could handle.

Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[Nonesuch]

How were you middle class without any savings?

Outside of the "upper middle class", middle class Americans on average have minimal liquid savings -- they might have an IRA and some home equity, but almost no "savings".

If you look at how student aid is calculated, the formula expects a 4-year degree program student to spend nearly all student assets on tuition -- Student assets disclosed on FAFSA reduce eligibility for need-based aid by 20 percent of the net worth of the asset, each year. Any savings a student has, and 5.64% of the parent's non-IRA savings, is counted towards the "Expected Family Contribution" (EFC) each year.

I had savings when I first enrolled in college. To pay my first year's EFC, I wiped out my savings account and drew my checking account down to the minimum "no fee" balance.

Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[Anonymous Coward]

As middle class I went to a well respected graduate and received a 50% scholarship. Of course, graduate tuition was double the cost of undergrad for no reason so I was effectively paying full tuition. Tip: Never pay for a graduate degree. Get a company to pay it for you.

Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[Oswald McWeany]

I have first hand experience of this as an adult. My wife recently went back to school. She was still in university when we married, and when she moved to my town she lost half her credits... then got pregnant... and long story short- she's only just going back a decade later.

We were in the exact same boat. I earn enough not to qualify for most financial aid, but not enough to be able to afford to pay her tuition. This is for night school at a small local college.

Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[ranton]

My dad always said, if you have to borrow to afford something, you can't afford it.

What else was your dad wrong about?

Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[MightyYar]

When you say "financial aid", I suspect you are not including loans. I think that is why it seems like we are talking past one another. I don't doubt that you make too much to qualify for certain need-based grants and scholarships. You almost certainly qualify for public loans and tax credits.

Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[MightyYar]

In my parents' case, they had high, solidly middle class or even upper middle class incomes but got into credit card and tax trouble related to doing outside contracting. This all happened right around the same time that I went to college, so it was very bad timing. The IRS fines really add up quickly, and credit card trouble is bad news, and was even worse in the late 80s with high interest rates.

Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[Solandri]

Harvard has a $37.6 billion endowment. Even with the abysmal 1.38% return in the S&P 500 in 2015, that would translate into $518.9 million in profit. Across 22,000 students, that's $23,585 per student.

So yeah, Harvard is in the unique position to be able to offer something like this. In a better year like 2016 (11.74% return), their endowment would've raked in over $200,000 per student.

Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[Anonymous Coward]

These headlines are carefully worded too. Top 1% seems to be a popular reference point to start with. Then calculate the bottom X% that are smaller and report that headline whether it's 50 %, 60%, 70%, etc. Then completely ignore the 60.0001% - 99% group completely.

Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly my point. How is Harvard any more affordable for a family 100k a year than 10k?

At Harvard, a family that makes $100K/year will only pay at most $10K/year (Harvard caps tuition at 10% for income under $150k). Generally it makes it cheaper than a public university.

This is exactly right. This is how my son and daughter attended Columbia and Princeton. Except that Princeton is all grant, no loans. Small amount of loans for CU.

Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[coolsnowmen]

Renting is cheaper than owning in the long run - since of-course you'd have to take out a loan to buy a house,

Re:Self-fulfilling Prophecy

[Anonymous Coward]

If your income is low enough, most schools will waive the application fee.

As a second generation Cornell grad...

[Anonymous Coward]

we try to keep the riffraff out.

Re:As a second generation Cornell grad...

[Anonymous Coward]

"you dropped a hundred and fifty grand on a fuckin’ education you coulda' got for a dollar fifty in late charges at the Public Library."

Re:As a second generation Cornell grad...

[Anonymous Coward]

An aristocracy has formed in this country. And when I see so many companies that recruit exclusively from top schools (BS MIT? Come right in! BS CS State, uh, housekeeping is looking for people.), it gets real discouraging. And aggravating.

I heard complaints from recruiters about how hard it is and the bidding wars for new CS grads. I was incredulous at this "shortage" so I asked what was so hard?

They and many other firms in the area ONLY recruit from GA Tech. If you to state - even if you do really well - you're SOL.

Kind of sucks for that poor white male kid who doesn't want the debt and can't live on campus for the costs decides to commute to say, Kennesaw State U from his parents northern GA home, busts his ass, does really well, only to be discounted because he went to the "wrong" school.

What those top schools have going for them is that they only accept the top students and legacies; which then enhances the reputation of the school even more.

 

Re:As a second generation Cornell grad...

[Nidi62]

An aristocracy has formed in this country. And when I see so many companies that recruit exclusively from top schools (BS MIT? Come right in! BS CS State, uh, housekeeping is looking for people.), it gets real discouraging. And aggravating.

I heard complaints from recruiters about how hard it is and the bidding wars for new CS grads. I was incredulous at this "shortage" so I asked what was so hard?

They and many other firms in the area ONLY recruit from GA Tech. If you to state - even if you do really well - you're SOL.

Kind of sucks for that poor white male kid who doesn't want the debt and can't live on campus for the costs decides to commute to say, Kennesaw State U from his parents northern GA home, busts his ass, does really well, only to be discounted because he went to the "wrong" school.

What those top schools have going for them is that they only accept the top students and legacies; which then enhances the reputation of the school even more.

Well, to be fair State doesn't really have the rep Tech does, and it's facilities are horrible. I'm glad I only went there for my Master's degree and went out of state for my undergrad. As for north metro, well, up until recently if you wanted to do tech but stay local you went to Southern Poly, but I guess that's changed now when KSU bought them out. But KSU is starting to get a bit of a pretty good rep around here too from what I can tell. Since I live in Woodstock I am considering doing KSU's project management course. Not wasting money on an MBA when I'm still paying off loans for my MA in IR from Ga State. Of course, if I had decided to go do my undergrad at Tech I would be in a different field and probably making double what I am now....I really should have picked that biomed engineering internship at Tech over the one with the Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History my senior year of high school, but once a history nerd always a history nerd.

Re:As a second generation Cornell grad...

[Notabadguy]

Cornell is where we send the dreadlock-wearing hippie riffraff. FYI.

Not an academic space.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not about creating an intellectual space. It is not. It's about making a home here. This is a home. Do you understand that? This is our home!

Re:Not an academic space.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Safe space"

Endowments

[bill_mcgonigle]

If the Endowment is large enough they can give every student free tuition. If there is no endowment, everybody pays. In the middle, they need enough people paying full-boat to subsidize the kids who need a full ride. Look at the economics before you assume ill intent. There is no magic money and locking kids into thirty years of debt is no magnanimous gesture.

Re:Endowments

[Falos]

Magnanimous? I would be wrong if I wrote the sentence "Student loans are for-profit." because they're predatory. When the peasants want to send their most earnest youth to aspire, they are prey.

Re:Endowments

[Anonymous Coward]

As of 2015, Harvard had an endowment of over 36 billion dollars (source: wikipedia). There were 22,000 students (source: google). So... Harvard could spend a hundred thousand dollars per student on paying their tuition and living expenses, costing them 2.2 billion dollars, or about 6% of their endowment. At that rate, even if the investments make no money and nobody gives Harvard a gift, the endowment could keep paying out 100k per student each year for the next sixteen years; the standard quote for the rate of return on diversified investments in the stock market is 7%, so if the endowment is making that much, it could pay out that 100k per student per year forever, because it will still be slightly growing, and if Harvard keeps getting gifts that go into the endowment, it will still even be growing at a reasonable rate.

So... yeah, I looked at the economics for Harvard. They don't need to charge tuition to be able to pay their teachers and keep the lights on. Ergo, they have some reason other than needing the money to charge tuition, and the most obvious reason is "Harvard is for rich people, and we don't want our students to have to mix with poor people".

Harvard does have an unusually large endowment, but at a lot of schools could afford to have students pay no tuition without killing their endowment.

Re:Endowments

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't Harvards endowment something like ~$35 Billion ?

Even IF you get accepted to an Ivy League school, if you're not part of the 1% clique, you're going to be ostracized. You can have a 200 IQ and a 4.0 GPA, but the rest of the student body is going to make your life miserable while you're there because you're a peasant in their eyes. They're certainly going to make sure you know it as well.

I don't know why, but I looked up the costs of going to Harvard a few days ago. I think it came out to something like ~$90k / year.
Which is more than I even make. :|

The ultra-wealthy are so out of touch with reality it's sad.

Re:Endowments

[phantomfive]

the standard quote for the rate of return on diversified investments in the stock market is 7%

Yeah, but it's not true. Note that you will always hear that quote from people who want you to buy things.

The real question you want to ask a fund manager is, "If I give you all my money, and you in return give me a fixed percent every year, how much would you guarantee to give me?" In those cases you'll hear a more honest 1-3%.

Re:Endowments

[slew]

If the Endowment is large enough they can give every student free tuition. If there is no endowment, everybody pays. In the middle, they need enough people paying full-boat to subsidize the kids who need a full ride. Look at the economics before you assume ill intent. There is no magic money and locking kids into thirty years of debt is no magnanimous gesture.

The Endowment at most of these "elite" schools is enough to give every student free tuition. The reason they don't do it is that charging tuition (even if few pay the full amount) sets the "value" of the education in the minds of people. If say the local state university charges say $40K/year (e.g, UC-berkeley out-of state), a nearby university that want people to consider themselves "elite" will of course need to charge more (e.g., $47K/year Stanford), even though the "elite" university gives many people hefty discounts (e.g., Stanford waives 100% of tuition for students if their parents make less than $125K/year). Of course if *nobody* paid the full amount, then the tuition would be false advertising.

Re:Endowments

[Gorobei]

As we used to joke on Wall Street: Harvard is a hedge fund with a small academic charity on the side.

Re:Endowments

[Bryan Ischo]

I don't think you have any idea what the people you are talking about are actually like. I don't either; I didn't go to Harvard. But you're making some serious assumptions about how students would treat each other and I suspect you actually have no clue.

Re:Endowments

[thinkwaitfast]

for the next sixteen years

What happens after 16 years when there's no more money left?

Re:Endowments

[thinkwaitfast]

This is not true.

Re:Endowments

[Anonymous Coward]

This sort of thing came up in my school when people complained about having to pay for Sunday night movie showings. "What am I paying social fees for? You should have plenty to cover the $2 ticket price for everyone!" The catch being that when the movies were free, nobody showed up. Charge $2 and they fill the place. Perceived value based on cost is a powerful thing.

Re: Endowments

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahhhh, but it isn't just me who thinks this way I'm afraid:

http://publicservice.fas.harvard.edu/news/what-it-be-poor-ivy-league-school

Re:Endowments

[Anonymous Coward]

Endowments are never spent.

Re:Endowments

[Anonymous Coward]

Student loans were "reformed" as part of the health care act. It was really a budget trick to help balance health care cost. I wonder how many students know they lost out.

the 1 percent is mostly people who aren't tycoons

[Anonymous Coward]

Big difference between the 1% and the .01%.

The 1% has a lot of doctors/dentists, lawyers, accountants, engineers, educated people who are going to push their kids to get educated.

http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/newsgraphics/2012/0115-one-percent-occupations/

not news but ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't find these stats shocking or even disturbing. There's a larger conversation, what around here would be called "flame war", to be had about whether it is in the common good, the "general welfare" if you will, to have the public sphere involved in providing higher education as a "right" as opposed to a "privilege".

As a low income parent of a by definition low income student I'm very tired of "low income" being used as an excuse, either by the parents assuming that they can drop junior off at elementary school every day and by the end of the year junior will be performing at grade level, or by upper middle class - yes there still is an upper middle class just not as many as in previous eras - academic types lecturing me about "class privilege and language". If I'm poorer than the parent whose kid never got around to times tables should I still be "examining my privilege"? [ this has been a test at how many hot button issues fit in a /. post - staying AC because then it won't hurt my feelings when post is modded about by the various culture war factions ]

Sounds appaling, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

These finding sound appalling, but there are so many factors at play here that I wonder if there is a real story here. Some things off the top of my head are:

1) More affluent families are more likely to send kids to college. ("My pa was a mechanic, and if it's good enough for him it's good enough for me.")
2) Even if "only" a third of the students are from the bottom 60%, assuming everybody in college is equally likely to succeed then that's still a lot of people being raised from the lower and middle class.
3) Colleges can't do everything. If a poor student in a failing school doesn't know algebra or basic writing, it doesn't matter if you drop them into the best university. The could potentially succeed, but are really being set up for failure.
4) Education can be expensive, and doubly-so at "elite" schools. In related news, there are more owners of BMWs in the top 1% than in the bottom 60%.
5) As another commentator in this thread noted, there is some self-fulfilling prophesy here. A substantial number of students from poorer families would think, "there is no way I could get in, why bother." When you consider the number of people living hand-to-mouth for whom the application fee alone is a week's paycheck, it's just not worth the cost.

There could be a story here. I don't know. But off-hand it sounds like the classic, "half of the hospitals in the nation provide below-average healthcare!"

So?

[sunking2]

What's the point of making it to the 1% if you can't send your kids to schools that others can't.

Re:So?

[Freischutz]

What's the point of making it to the 1% if you can't send your kids to schools that others can't.

The joy of using, abusing and generally shitting all over the 99%?

Re:So?

[Oswald McWeany]

More money? Better healthcare? Having everything you want? A butler named Jeeves.

Re:So?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't be pedantic. It's name isn't actually Jeeves, we just call it that to resist personification of the help.

Re:So?

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the point of making it to the 1% if you can't send your kids to schools that others can't.

Does the noun Ferrari mean anything to you?

Work hard, earn reward

[Anonymous Coward]

Folks like John Friedman are so disconnected from reality it makes my soul bleed.

He's literally just done a study that conclusively proves having more money doesn't change your end outcome, and actually quotes that in his study but dismisses the actual value to push this class warfare BS.

Rich or Poor, attending (and graduating) a college that makes you work harder, means you do well financially later. Not because you went to a "good" college, but because the people who focus, and work harder? graduate. and the folks that focus and work harder? are more likely to do well applying for, and getting, good jobs later.

Re:Work hard, earn reward

[Anonymous Coward]

He's literally just done a study that conclusively proves having more money doesn't change your end outcome

In the end we're all dead, so he's probably right. At least until immortality treatments become a thing.

You can't change human nature.

[Anonymous Coward]

The more people can get to colleges, the less useful those colleges become for upward social mobility. This is a matter of logical necessity.

In order to move up, people must be differentiated from those they are leaving behind. If everyone moves up, then the 'up' they moved to is just the new bottom.

So, no matter what laws we pass, donations we give out, or mental gymnastics we exercise....somehow those with greater economic power will differentiate themselves from those with less. Anything we do to 'level the playing field' will only serve to move the slope somewhere else.

This isn't a fixable problem. This is how humans operate.

Re: You can't change human nature.

[Anonymous Coward]

The European model seems infinitely better. University is free or near-free, but it is also more strict and rigorous. You get in based on academic merit, and even then, you flunk a few classes and you are out. In the US, as long as you keep giving the school money, you can fail as many classes as you want. European universities also generally do not have sports teams, they are purely academic institutions, as they should be.

As for those who do not get into university or do not want to go, they are still given plenty of alternatives by the state to make something of themselves if they wish. There are trade schools and apprenticeships for almost any career, and they are also free.

In the US, everyone is encouraged to go university, and it is pounded into children's heads as early as middle school. In fact, middle school and high school curriculums are designed in such a way so as to simply serve precursors to college. This only puts undue stress on kids who are not fit for college, and who would be the ones going to trade schools in places such as Europe.

All this is because in America, colleges and universities are for-profit businesses. Naturally, they are doing everything possible to get as many people to attend their school, but in turn, this only diminishes the value of university education.

Re: You can't change human nature.

[Bryan Ischo]

What you say is not universally true. Good U.S. universities do fail students out. And why not? There are plenty of qualified applicants to replace them, it's not like the university is going to miss any income.

I've also never head that European universities were "more strict and rigorous". All that I've ever heard about that system is that students tend to stay in it for a long time since it's so easy to sort of float through with a minimal courseload year after year. It doesn't cost anything so why not just keep going as long as you're young and it's still fun to hang around with other college kids?

Re: You can't change human nature.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you would have attended a European University, you would have been taught how much better they are. In US universities, we don't give a crap how good they think they are.

Wrong kind of diversity

[plague911]

These school pride themselves on "diversity" or at least the "right kind" of diversity. They spend all their effort focusing on ethnic and gender diversity with almost no effort for economic or cultural diversity. This is what happens when the recruiters are generally nice, but low functioning collage graduates who could not find careers in their original field. They have their definition of diversity and do not expend any critical thinking skills trying to find where their ideas fall short of the stated goal of creating environment with diversity of thought. You end up with schools where people all look different but think the same.

Re:Wrong kind of diversity

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree 100%. I'm in the grad school application process right now, and this is the reason exactly why I did not apply to UC Davis. They have a great program in my field, but while they just go on and on ad nauseum about how 'diverse' they are, their application fee is $105 dollars, far more than any other state school I applied to. For that price, I could almost send out two applications at other places. You don't get to claim diversity (far more than any other place I looked at anyway) then charge so much just for a shot at getting in.

Re:Wrong kind of diversity

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, they do their best to get ethnic kids from poor inner cities. Though, I am unaware of an program to target and get the brightest from poor rural American probably because poor rural Americans tends to be white and thus "privileged." Now most Collages have more women than men enrolled, I think the exceptions are the more STEM oriented out fits like MIT. Regardless top students from high schools that are failing their students don't tend to do well in Top Collages. Which shouldn't come as a surprise. The biggest problem is that the Collages fail to act on this information and provide those scholarship students with the additional support they need. Instead, many of those students wind up failing out of top collage. Where as had they gone to a less demanding collages they would have probably succeeded if not excelled. Instead of fixing the problem they try to give this poor students a grade boost based on having not received adequate preparation for a demanding collage. Which is yet another school failing to educate them properly.

IMHO, There are two things that could be done to properly address this problem. One a special intake could be setup where this students arrive early possible a year early and are brought up to speed if they fail to achieve during this time, their scholarship should diverted to a less demanding collage. The other solution is to setup extra help for this students coming from weaker schools at least during the first semester or two.

Re:Wrong kind of diversity

[Uberbah]

They spend all their effort focusing on ethnic and gender diversity with almost no effort for economic or cultural diversity.

Sounds like capitalist feminists - the problem with Wal-Mart for them isn't that they pay so little that their employees qualify for state aid, it's that the top positions at the company aren't filled by women.

The more relevant study.

[geekmux]

The far more relevant study would be to determine the earning potential after humans piss away four years and Ferrari money on an investment that isn't paying out these days.

Of course, the Education Mafia selling college degrees wouldn't ever allow that kind of study to happen...

Re:The more relevant study.

[Anonymous Coward]

But rejecting all these poor kids and accepting many of the rich children helps perpetuate the myth!

Think about it, the top 1% kids who go to Yale are going to be successful when they graduate.

Re:The more relevant study.

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean like this?

http://www.bankrate.com/finance/college-finance/roi-college-degree.aspx

Seriously, it's the first hit when you Google "degree roi".

Re:The more relevant study.

[thegarbz]

The far more relevant study would be to determine the earning potential after humans piss away four years and Ferrari money on an investment that isn't paying out these days.

If you're going to do that study you also need to check the other scenario. What's the earning potential of those without college degrees. Oh you want to flip burgers for a living? You'll need at least a Bachelor degree for that nowadays.

Re:The more relevant study.

[Anonymous Coward]

Did the poor kids get rejected by the colleges (which implies that they applied in the first place), or did they fail to apply for some reason or other (i.e. self-rejection)?

Re:The more relevant study.

[Anonymous Coward]

That study was already done. It still pays out. $25,000 more a year is nothing to sneeze at. As well as it becoming a de facto requirement for many jobs.

Re:The more relevant study.

[radl33t]

University has a fairly good ROI, elite institutions especially. I'm open to data that suggest otherwise.

Re:The more relevant study.

[slew]

But rejecting all these poor kids and accepting many of the rich children helps perpetuate the myth!

Think about it, the top 1% kids who go to Yale are going to be successful when they graduate.

You have to remember, that Yale (and all the other 'elite' schools) simply wants to only admit people that will be successful (since successful alumni donate money to the school). Sadly, one of the best a-priori indicators of a student's success today is how successful their parents are. Believe me, if they found a better criteria to predict success, you can bet they would use it in a heartbeat.

Re:The more relevant study.

[geekmux]

You mean like this?

http://www.bankrate.com/finance/college-finance/roi-college-degree.aspx

Seriously, it's the first hit when you Google "degree roi".

Three-year old pay statistics are hardly a measure of a capability to find a job today.

And asking a fucking lending institution to accurately gauge the value of a product that requires loans in almost every case is dubious at best.

Re:The more relevant study.

[geekmux]

That study was already done. It still pays out. $25,000 more a year is nothing to sneeze at.

Neither is living with a decade or two of debt hanging over your head, during a critical time in your life when you would like to be affording shit like a house and a family.

As well as it becoming a de facto requirement for many jobs.

Assuming you can land a job. That seems to be the larger issue today. The school loan default rate will speak volumes in coming years, and we don't seem to be creating jobs at the same rate that we're creating graduates due to overselling of their product. When every applicant has a bachelors degree turning four years of colleges into nothing more than a fucking high school diploma, schools will start selling the masters degree as the "one" to have, resulting in even more crippling debt for the job seeker. Not to mention stress on families as twentysomethings turn into perpetual students, living with their parents as societal education demands beyond high school start to consume the larger part of a decade.

In the meantime, automation and AI are the future of employment, which will work to remove even more jobs. We have a growing problem alright. It's called a growing population that a job market cannot sustain no matter what fancy debt receipts you hanging on your wall.

Not surprised....look where people start

[Dthief]

the top 1% can afford to send their kids to good private child care, elementary school, high school. This funnels them into top schools. I'd be interested to see how many of the 60% who are at elite private schools come from high schools with >80% "1%'ers". Is it largely the very gifted few who can despite poor circumstances get slots at private schools through programs like prep-for-prep that are going on to these colleges. Dan-el Padilla (princeton prof) is a great example of this. Is he the exception or the rule (within the 60% group)

hardly surprising

[ooloorie]

Kids from families with high incomes have significantly higher test scores; highly competitive universities will therefore overwhelmingly select from high-income families even if they exclusively select based on test scores. So, there is nothing particularly surprising about this result, nor does it demonstrate any kind of discrimination of selective colleges against low income kids.

You can now debate about whether high income causes kids to have high test scores, i.e., if you only gave kids from poor families more money, they'd be doing just as well. That is true to some very limited degree: kids who lack essentials (food, clean water, etc.) are held back by that, but fixing those problems can't increase their intelligence beyond their potential.

Most of the correlation is likely primarily caused by the fact that smart parents tend to have smart kids (through a combination of nature and nurture), and that high test scores and high incomes simply result from that.

Re:hardly surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

"You can now debate about whether high income causes kids to have high test scores"

No debate needed. I guarantee one of the reasons I didn't score better on my college entrance exams is lack of preparation. My parents were very involved in my education, but they didn't realize that a standardized test isn't just a measure of raw intelligence, but a measure of how well you can game the test. Well-off parents are more likely to be able to afford the thousands of dollars in SAT prep courses, and involved parents are more likely to drag their teenagers to them, basically saying "take this class because it's the difference between Harvard and pumping gas for a living." I self-prepared and did OK, but not well enough to get any scholarships or elite university admissions offers.

Re:hardly surprising

[Nethemas the Great]

The work ethic and the value of education held by the parents is probably the largest determining factor.

Re:hardly surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

What it does show is that not all schools are on equal footing, nor can they afford to be.

What sort of educational future would Richie Rich have if he had been forced to go to your typical public school vs the elite private one that only the ultra-rich can afford ?

All this means is the poor will stay poor, and the rich will continue to get richer because the opportunities for the next generations aren't even remotely the same.

Re:hardly surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

The work ethic and the value of education held by the parents is probably the largest determining factor.

True that. My wife and I are immigrant engineers and my son has been offered admission to Harvard - sole on the basis of his academics , including STEM extra curricular activities.
There is a lot of hardwork involved in mastering subjects and parental guidance is crucial from a very young age.

Re:hardly surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

College is BS, just another thing designed to keep the middle class broke.

Get into a trade, you're qualified by your mid-20's no debts (unless you're stupid), before you get too many commitments (wife kids, houses etc) go work in some far flung places involved in mining, oil or gas, rake in some big bucks, by the time you're 30 you generally have enough experience run your own small business. If you were half smart with money you'd just about be-able to buy your first house outright, and probably retire at 45/50.

Re:hardly surprising

[Uberbah]

That's secondary to how much money the parents have.

Re:hardly surprising

[Nethemas the Great]

Possessing money is a symptom of a certain generation within a family possessing a strong work ethic and high-value for education. Kim for instance had Robert Kardashian.

Re:hardly surprising

[Uberbah]

Possessing money is a symptom of a certain generation within a family exploiting people or resources

Fixed that up a bit. If hard work == riches, family farmers and public school teachers would be the millionaires, while investment bankers would be living in modest apartments while paying off their student loan debts.

Re:hardly surprising

[Nethemas the Great]

You conveniently forgot the education bit. A stupid woodcutter can work himself into an early grave, a smart one will go sharpen his ax to produce the same with half the effort.

Re:hardly surprising

[Uberbah]

You conveniently forgot the education bit.

Red herring. You know every teacher has had education, yes? And through continuing education, will have far more throughout her or his lifetime than an investment banker.

A stupid woodcutter can work himself into an early grave, a smart one will go sharpen his ax to produce the same with half the effort.

Non sequitur. And elitist bootstrap bullshit.

Re:hardly surprising

[Nethemas the Great]

That would only apply if teachers produced investment bankers. Teachers produce the foundation, the student the building.

If a person learns how to produce a widget with fewer resources, then that person has left over resources with which to produce other widgets. The more widgets, the more value produced by that person. If a burger flipper busts his butt to flip 20% more burgers than his peers he hasn't accomplished much. But, if he gets an education that affords him the ability to create a robot that replaces all his peers for a fraction of the cost he's truly produced something more valuable than his present station; he will realize the increase. It is perfectly logical.

Of course bootstrapping exists. Who said anything about an individual climbing the ladder all by themselves? I apply myself so that my children can start from a higher position. That is the noble goal of all good parents. My father was a timber faller, my mother a homemaker. I took the position they gave me on the ladder and ran with it. Today I am the chief engineer of a medical software company. Children can squander the opportunity given, absolutely. But their progeny will suffer a loss of station.

Agreed & I went thru it... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject: Even w/ good grades in highschool (national junior honor society) & athletics (I played for what became a great national power in Div II in Lacrosse & got some aid for it too) I still couldn't afford say, a Johns Hopkins school (much less more expensive ones) - & I would've liked to go there (many others like them accepted me).

HOWEVER:

I had a younger brother coming up behind me & though my parents promised me "If you get good grades we will payoff the remainder debt for you regarding anything NOT covered" - well, along came my brother (whom I asked for) & they told me "We have to save for him now so no dice"... fine. My brother got a FULL RIDE to Syracuse University (good student too) anyway!

I understood where my parents were coming from - they're not wealthy (in fact, working-class 'poor' really - we're not even middle-class).

* Imo @ least, it doesn't matter WHERE YOU GO TO COLLEGE - math is always math even in the Ivy League & facts are facts (just because you learned them in costly schools doesn't mean it changes if you went to community college) & WHAT MATTERS IS WHAT YOU DO WITH THAT EDUCATION (on your own, NOT via "rich connections" etc.)

In the end: College's today cost way, Way, WAY TOO MUCH - imo, a parent should send a kid to community college or state level 1st to see if they can "cut it" period... then, their grades will get them to these 'prestigious' institutions anyhow on transfers.

APK

P.S.=> I have arguments with family members who could afford such institutions & they try "toss it @ me" I didn't go to some MASSIVELY "prestigious" school (even though my alma-mater is just shy of "ivy league" in an esteemed Jesuit institution) - did the math &/or sciences they learned (none, bs degrees they got) change because of it? No... apk

Re:Agreed & I went thru it... apk

[thinkwaitfast]

math is always math even in the Ivy League & facts are facts

This is what one of my physics professors would always say (and she was a graduate of and former professor at MIT). The only difference is the competition between students, but the opportunities are the same. It's up to the students to take advantage of them.

Re:Agreed & I went thru it... apk

[Bryan Ischo]

Cool story bro.

Re:Agreed & I went thru it... apk

[computational super]

Imo @ least, it doesn't matter WHERE YOU GO TO COLLEGE

Unfortunately, yours isn't the only opinion that matters - there's a LOT of elitist college snobbery out there, especially among companies that can afford to be picky. Not that you'll be unable to find a job, but there are a lot of doors that will still be closed to you - so it does matter, although going to the university of bubba doesn't necessarily mean that you'll be living in a refrigerator box.

Even the elite are poor for financial aid...

[__aaclcg7560]

I read one story when applicants for the Harvard Law School buy expensive cars to make themselves look "poor" to qualify for financial aid. If you're attending the Harvard Law School and don't have an expensive car, you're doing it wrong. No wonder the U.S. is screwed up.

Re:Even the elite are poor for financial aid...

[Dthief]

what does that even mean? can you share this story you read?

Re:Even the elite are poor for financial aid...

[Anonymous Coward]

This must be for internal scholarships. Federal student aid looks back a few years at your net worth, and at least for undergrad considers your parents' assets as well. The point is that need-based student aid is mainly for people who actually need it. Most upper middle class families don't qualify for anything other than loans and are basically on their own -- anyone who's a parent and not saving for their kids' education is going to be in for a surprise later on. Even 25 years ago when I went, it was almost impossible to qualify for need-based aid if you had 2 parents working regular jobs.

Re:Even the elite are poor for financial aid...

[__aaclcg7560]

what does that even mean? can you share this story you read?

If you have $30,000+ in savings, it will count against you for financial aid because you have money in the bank. If you spend that $30,000+ on an expensive car and then applied for financial aid, you will qualify for financial aid because you have nothing in the bank. Financial aid officers don't take the value of a car into consideration. I think I read that story in "One L: The Turbulent True Story of a First Year at Harvard Law School" by Scott Turow.

Re:Even the elite are poor for financial aid...

[__aaclcg7560]

Even 25 years ago when I went, it was almost impossible to qualify for need-based aid if you had 2 parents working regular jobs.

I couldn't qualify for need-based aid because I lived with my parents and they contributed nothing to my college education in the 1990's. I spent my first year in college picking up bottles and cans to pay for classes and books. Later on I got a job at the bookstore warehouse and worked 30 hours a week to pay for my schooling and move into a frat house with 12 other guys.

Re:Even the elite are poor for financial aid...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not at all true. I started college with 30k in savings (in my late twenties). There is nowhere on any relevant form asking how much money you have. However, if you made decent money the previous year, then you aren't going to get a cent.

Re:Even the elite are poor for financial aid...

[__aaclcg7560]

I started college with 30k in savings (in my late twenties).

If you're 25 or older, you're viewed as an adult student for financial aid purposes. The link below explains why parents and students shouldconvert cash into assets that won't count against financial aid for a non-adult student.

http://www.scholarshiphunter.com/getmorefinancialaid.html

Not just tuition, you have to fit in

[Anonymous Coward]

When my daughter was looking at colleges we went to Pepperdine, on the beach at Malibu. Gorgeous campus, great location. But as we were leaving my daughter said "even if I get a scholarship I won't fit in here. Those were all $800 backpacks they were carrying." So even with good grades and financial assistance if you can't fit in you will not be happy there.

Re:Not just tuition, you have to fit in

[thinkwaitfast]

I was a poor kid who got into (and attended) a wealthy school. I didn't care. None of the other students did either (AFAIK, I'm usually oblivious to those things. Your daughter shouldn't care either, maybe you didn't raise her right). I remember sitting at the bus stop one day when I was a freshman watching one of the seniors getting picked up in a Countach. I just thought that was the coolest thing ever. I also saw an LM2 but didn't believe what I saw, That was back in the days before google and there was no way to verify.

Re:Not just tuition, you have to fit in

[Anonymous Coward]

I was in the same situation. Poor kid who went to college with a bunch of phenomenally rich kids. Meeting kids who showed up with brand new cars that were their HS graduation presents was an educational experience in and of itself. :-0

It took me a couple of years, but I noticed that the poor(er) kids tended to gravitate toward one another. I don't think it had anything to do with how our parents raised us, it was about having common life experiences. We weren't ostracized, but the children of factory workers, college professors, FedEx employees, etc. just didn't form tight bonds with kids who were flying home for Christmas on their uncle's private jet.

Re:Not just tuition, you have to fit in

[Notabadguy]

Jesus, the comments on this story are killing me.

1. We don't need a country full of college graduates. You don't need a college degree for most things.

2. Ignore all the "We need STEM graduates" for a minute. This country does have a shortage, and it's TRADESMEN. Somewhere along the line, going to vocational school wasn't cool anymore, working with your hands wasn't cool anymore, learning a trade wasn't cool anymore - because everyone wants to go to college and learn something mostly useless for the promise of a cushy job. Plumbers, eletricians, welding shops, mechanics and an entire slew of trade shops are closing up because they can't get apprentices, and eventually the craftsmen retire. No one wants to start off making minimum wage and learning how to do something useful - go do an apprenticeship, become a journeyman, earn their way to a useful skill because everyone is convinced that they need to go to college - if for NO OTHER REASON than to get a degree in basketweaving, simply to check a box that they have a degree.

Hell, my wife works at GE - where you need a box checked for "college degree" for anything beyond the lowest of positions - regardless of experience. Ridiculous.

3. I'd like to remind all the SJWs that equal opportunity does not result in equal results. Don't ask for the former when you're asking for the latter.

4. Fitting in is ridiculous. "My daughter won't go to Pepperdine because she can't afford an $800 backpack." That is the most ridiculous thing I've read on the internet today, and I don't sympathize. You don't go to school to fit in; you go to advance your education. Friends are nice, but secondary.

5. The military still exists. And all the branches pay for school. You get PAID to go to school. And if you're particularly ambitious, there are service academies. I went to one of them - and that's as Ivy league as it gets, as selective as it gets, with academic rigors that make Harvard look like community college.

I didn't come from a rich family, or a poor family - I came from no family as an orphan; a ward of the state, foster homes, group homes, juvenile detention - and I excelled at school because school was SAFE. Teachers didn't beat me or molest me, and I was too young to understand the intricacies of what was happening to me or why it was wrong, I absorbed school from the beginning - I wanted to be there as long as I could be. It hurt my feelings that I didn't "belong" because other kids has packed lunch or school lunch, and I picked through the trash for food and kids called me "garbage picker" and laughed at me. But school was safe.

6. To whomever said it, colleges are not the same. "Oh, you went to City Central community college and got a degree in administrative management?" doesn't have the same ring as "You have an engineering degree from West Point (or fill in prestigious academic school of your choice). Colleges aren't about fitting in, or even about what you study, which is - at the end of the day - mostly pointless throughout the rest of your life - with the notable exception that college provides a sounding board to whether:
a. You can get through it and stick with it (which prospective employers care about).
b. Whether you challenge yourself (which prospective employers care about).
c. Whether you've learned academic rigor, or how to ask questions, or how to study (which prospective employers care about).

Some institutions are more well known for their academic rigor than others, which is why ranking systems exist for different fields of study for those institutions. An engineering degree from MIT is more meaningful than an engineering degree from CityCenter Degrees R Us.

And finally...

Rich kids get ahead. Fuck 'em. We'll never be them, but you don't have to be to be successful. You don't have to be rich, or entitled, or endowed to go to a great school or succeed in life. But you have to work hard. Ric

Re:Not just tuition, you have to fit in

[thinkwaitfast]

It was a very difficult school. I think the only gravitation's we had were the smart kids and the really smart kids, so kinda academic cliches, but not really strong. Some of my closest today friends come from very wealthy families and school was almost 30 years ago.

They come to my house, I go to their houses, we invite each other to social functions. Maybe it had something to do with surviving school together. I don't know. Since HS we've all made and lost lots of money, a few times. I can't say any has made as much as their parents, but in most if not all cases, that would be difficult

Re:Not just tuition, you have to fit in

[Anonymous Coward]

Hell, my wife works at GE - where you need a box checked for "college degree" for anything beyond the lowest of positions - regardless of experience. Ridiculous.

It's like that in the higher levels of government work as well. I know people who are amazing at what they do and should be at much higher levels but can't advance because of the lack of a degree. Decades of experience and piles of awards don't mean jack without the right piece of paper.

And if they didn't absorb what school had to offer, or if they weren't naturally driven to challenge themselves or do any of the myriad of things that identify potential winners....we need plumbers. Desperately. Everywhere.

Incidentally, the latest issue of SI has a story about the 2016 MLB AL Rookie of the Year working as a plumber's assistant in the offseason. But that largely came about because minor leaguers get paid squat and even big signing bonuses only go so far. The reason he keeps doing it though is because he's naturally driven to challenge himself.

Not a surprise

[ErichTheRed]

If you're among the 1-percenters' offspring whose parents either went to these elite institutions or can afford to donate something substantial to get you in, why is it surprising that elite schools have more well-off students? There will always be efforts by the institutions in the form of scholarships and flexible admissions practices to diversify the student body, but the top colleges are definitely a pay-to-play operation.

There's basically 4 factors that determine where you end up in life -- how smart or successful your parents are, how wealthy they are, how much raw potential you have, and usually a whole lot of dumb luck. Smart or successful parents can afford to live in a good school district and provide a stable environment for their kids. Really rich parents can buy their way into the elite prep school track. Really smart students can often succeed enough to overcome a bad environment. Anyone can get lucky and just have things sort of work out for them. In my case, it was a combination of a good home life and a lot of right place/right time luck. I wasn't a good enough student to be in the scholarship bucket, and my parents weren't rich, but I did go to a decent K-12 school system and had involved parents who kicked my butt enough to do reasonably well. My dumb luck was getting a part time job doing tech support for the state university I went to, eventually doing it just short of full time, and using that to get my foot in the door at my first IT job.

The reason the elite schools will always have the lock on the 1% crowd is that once you're in, regardless of how you got there, you don't have to rely on luck. It starts with non-religious elite private schools. If your family can afford college level tuition for a K-12 education, there's a tacit agreement that one of the elite universities will have a spot for you. (Seriously, one school near us charges almost $40K for grade school tuition, but it's in the top 15 or so among elite boarding schools.) If you can get into and graduate from a Harvard, Yale, Princeton or similar, the school and its alumni network will not let you fail. White-shoe management consulting firms exclusively hire from the elite universities, and that's probably one of the most lucrative jobs a new graduate can have. The same goes for investment banking -- going from being a broke college student to making $250K a year is a big change. People who work for investment banks, management consulting firms and other similar employees mysteriously tend to wind up in very lucrative positions at their clients eventually, and the old boys'/old girls' network perpetuates.

This is why I feel states need to invest in public universities. It's basically the only lever the non-elite among us have to get ourselves to a better situation. If you're not smart enough or have a unique enough situation to get a full scholarship to a private university, your best bet in most states is to go to a big public college and milk your time there for all it's worth. I'm socking away money for my kids' college education, but unless they turn out to be absolute geniuses this is going to be the advice I give them too. Life may be a matter of who you know or dumb luck sometimes, but it never hurts to increase your chances. If you work hard and have a good run of luck, it is still possible to at least be comfortable. We'll see what the future holds though.

Re:Not a surprise

[PPH]

White-shoe management consulting firms exclusively hire from the elite universities, .... going from being a broke college student to making $250K a year is a big change.

What is this 'broke college student' you speak of? The elites are a bunch of drunken frat boys with daddy's American Express Centurion credit card.

It comes down to value for the hiring organization once you get out of school. Consultancies and investment banks value the networking connections that elite college graduates bring with them. Because these businesses add very little actual value to their product, other than the stamp of approval of their name on otherwise obvious advice. Businesses that are more value added tend not to hire from elite colleges as much. Because the cost of these graduates doesn't make up for the small (if any) increase in their productivity.

Re:Not a surprise

[Bob the Super Hamste]

It starts with non-religious elite private schools. If your family can afford college level tuition for a K-12 education, there's a tacit agreement that one of the elite universities will have a spot for you. (Seriously, one school near us charges almost $40K for grade school tuition, but it's in the top 15 or so among elite boarding schools.) If you can get into and graduate from a Harvard, Yale, Princeton or similar, the school and its alumni network will not let you fail.

I've noticed something along this line as well having gotten to know one of my son's friends and his family over the last year or so. From outwards appearances he fits the stereotype of the black kid who is destine to fail. His mom, baby sister, himself, and a couple of cousins live at grandma's house, little sister has a different father than him, and neither dad is around. In actuality he is a really smart kid but hasn't been afforded many opportunities to learn anything other than what is taught at public school. Even comparing him to my kids there was a huge difference as mine have things like music lessons and have a bunch of people who can teach them all sorts of things and take them all sorts of places even if we are not the private tutors and elite school type my kids had a lot more opportunities than he did.

I first met him when his grandmother came over because I was taking a class with her and she wanted me to help her with her class project and he came along. To keep him busy for a while I handed him a planetary gear system similar to that in a car's automatic transmission I built out of legos to show my kids how one works and told my oldest to help him figure out how it works if he gets stuck figuring that it would keep him occupied for a while. That only lasted about 10 minutes before he had a good idea of what was going on and wanted something else so I went and found a lego mechanical clock I had made as well to show my kids how things work for him to figure out. It isn't that mom or grandma didn't want him to not learn things it was just they lacked the knowledge of even how to expose him to things.

Fast forward about a year now and he has gotten involved in cub scouts which exposes him to a bunch of new stuff, likes to come over to be with my oldest and do things he otherwise wouldn't that really are sneaky ways to educate them, and has someone who he can ask about math and science. He is doing better in school and has been placed in the advanced group or regular group instead of the low or regular one and has found that he has an interest in mechanical things. Even last nigh when he was over finishing his pinewood derby car he got to learn something when we went to test it, find piece of masonite to lean up against a wall in the basement for it to roll down and then across the floor, and I pushed some wheels into block of wood that I quickly hollowed out and raced them as we made changes to the block of wood. Now I could show him how putting different amount of weight in the car affected how fast it would reach the other side of the basement. Showed him that putting the weight in a different spot affects it and how aerodynamics also affects it. Stealth learning at its best and seems to work well with boys.

Re:Not a surprise

[bluegutang]

If you can get into and graduate from a Harvard, Yale, Princeton or similar, the school and its alumni network will not let you fail.

What are you talking about? There are plenty of people from these institutions who fail.

Perhaps everyone who is hired by a "white-shoe" (is that a term?) company went to an elite university. But not everyone who went to an elite university is hired by such a company.

These companies choose people who have the same cultural background as them. But not everyone with that background is chosen.

Re:Not a surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

To keep him busy for a while I handed him a planetary gear system similar to that in a car's automatic transmission I built out of legos to show my kids how one works and told my oldest to help him figure out how it works if he gets stuck figuring that it would keep him occupied for a while. That only lasted about 10 minutes before he had a good idea of what was going on and wanted something else so I went and found a lego mechanical clock I had made as well to show my kids how things work for him to figure out.

Kudo's, mate! Way to inspire a young mind. You likely set his, along with his family, on a path to success.

It isn't that mom or grandma didn't want him to not learn things it was just they lacked the knowledge of even how to expose him to things.

This.

Economics plays a role in acceptance

[Anonymous Coward]

An admissions office from a smaller private school told me once they check zip codes for matches with prior students then see how much they give after graduation. The more others give the better your chance of being admitted.

Re:Economics plays a role in acceptance

[Oswald McWeany]

I have given a grand total of $0 to my University since graduating. I had to work a full time job and gave almost every penny I earned to tuition or lodging for four years. I sure as heck am not going to pay them now! Especially when about 20 years ago when I was there their sports program LOST $6million a year (for a small university with under 3000 students that works out at about $2700 per student... I hate to think how much they lose now). They also wasted things like $20k to put in a small sign at the front of the university (how do you justify $20k in 1990's dollars, on a tiny sign?)

They wasted the money I got when I went there. I'm not giving them any more now I'm no longer attending.

or Common Sense and expected?

[s.petry]

The top 1% own more mansions than the bottom 99% combined. The top 1% own more Ferrari cars than the bottom 99% combined. The top 1% go to the most expensive schools. Did you also know that the bottom 99% get more grants for education than the top 1% by 100%? How about the amount of "free" tuition from scholarships going to mostly the lower 90%? More assistance programs exist for the bottom 30% than the top 70%.

There is no equality of opportunity at any level when discussing higher education. I don't want rich people to have "free" college any more than I want lower income people strapped with decades of debt for useless degrees. There is plenty of rational dialogue on making sure there is no discrimination and that College is actually useful and not just brainwashing. Those issues are not being discussed. Discrimination is simply assumed all the time regardless of any facts by way too many people.

Re:or Common Sense and expected?

[omnichad]

Did you also know that the bottom 99% get more grants for education than the top 1% by 100%?

Does that mean that the top 1% get 1/3 of all grants for education? Or did you do your math wrong?

Re:or Common Sense and expected?

[s.petry]

My comments on "Grants" are fact based, but perhaps a tiny bit of hyperbole. Tuition grants almost exclusively go to the bottom 99%. I could not find a case of a tuition grant going to someone someone wealthy. I mentioned the "tiny bit of hyperbole" here specifically because exceptions are quite possible. Me not being able to find a grant going to a wealthy kid indicates that they are rare, but not necessarily impossible.

My first post referenced Scholarships separately because those cover everything from athletics to academically gifted. The wealthy can, and do, receive scholarships. Their chances of obtaining a scholarship is reduced because most scholarship programs look at a persons means to pay their own way when considering applicants.

The only way you could end up at the 1/3rd number is by looking at something other than "Grants", which is probably why you failed to provide a source for your argument.

Re:or Common Sense and expected?

[omnichad]

I was going off what you said.

99% get more grants for education than the top 1% by 100%

x = 99% grants for education
y = 1% grants
t = total of all grants

x is 100% more than y.

t = x + y
OR
t = 2y + y

t = 3y
y = 1/3t

Re:or Common Sense and expected?

[Zak3056]

You missed his sarcasm, he was joking about your incorrect use of percentages (i.e. 2/3rds is 100% more than 1/3rd).

In other news...

[crgrace]

In other shocking news, it was reported that the top 1% own more Ferraris than the entire bottom 99% combined! How unfair!

Re:In other news...

[Oswald McWeany]

Top 1% must spend more time with their car in the shop then. Never understood why anyone would buy a car that is notorious for breaking down every few hundred miles.

It's not the education

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not the education they are getting it's the networking connections they are making. Networking at that level is expensive, these are the people who will be greasing each other's palms for the next 50 or so years, getting richer and stepping on the people who do the actual fucking work and totally fucking us over, and over and over again.

Re:So the fuck what?

[Oswald McWeany]

I think we fought a war in the 1940's against people with the ideology that their people were superior and so deserved better chances

The Myth of American Meritocracy

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.unz.com/runz/the-myth-of-american-meritocracy/

captcha: sonata

Everyone can't be winners.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not everyone wins a trophy.

Re:What I learned in college

[Anonymous Coward]

Lemme guess...you went to Arkansas

How is this news?

[argStyopa]

News flash: NOT EVERYONE DESERVES OR IS ENTITLED TO COLLEGE.

What's next, reporting that "Mercedes drivers are more likely to be from the 1% than the lowest 60%"

Re:How is this news?

[Oswald McWeany]

I don't think anyone is saying everyone should go to college. What they're saying is, who your parents are, and how much money they have, should not decide whether you have the right to a quality education or not.

Re:How is this news?

[Anonymous Coward]

You can get a quality education in institutions other than Ivy League School.

Re:How is this news?

[thegarbz]

News flash: NOT EVERYONE DESERVES OR IS ENTITLED TO COLLEGE.

I hear what you're saying, but for all the wrong reasons. These days people entitled to college are those with money, not those with intelligence.

Re:How is this news?

[Anonymous Coward]

How about high school? Does everyone deserve to go to primary school?

If the world population was 100 people, only 7 would have college degrees. [1]

Would it be a good thing if more people could go to college and solve the world's problems?
Maybe some of those educated people can help build the next generation of space ships, or cure some type of cancer, or educate some ignorant people?

[1] http://www.100people.org/statistics_100stats.php?section=statistics

Re:How is this news?

[Anonymous Coward]

In the dystopian movie The Thinning students take a standardized test taken from first grade to twelfth grade. Those who pass continue to the next grade while those who fail are executed.

Re:How is this news?

[Anonymous Coward]

I highly doubt even you believe that many of the 1% got there on merit.

Re:How is this news?

[Anonymous Coward]

What they're saying is, who your parents are, and how much money they have, should not decide whether you have the right to a quality education or not.

This also means that you should not have any effect on the ability of your children to get a higher quality education. All your work for that is for nothing. While it makes me Feel Bad that not everyone can get an award for participation, I do want every chance I can get to help my children succeed in what I expect to be their future.

Re:How is this news?

[Uberbah]

This also means that you should not have any effect on the ability of your children to get a higher quality education.

Straw man alert. Even if private colleges were banned and the rich were forced to go to public schools, the Trump's and Romney's can always higher private tutors to give their kids a leg up over others.

Re:How is this news?

[Anonymous Coward]

News flash: NOT EVERYONE DESERVES OR IS ENTITLED TO COLLEGE.

What's next, reporting that "Mercedes drivers are more likely to be from the 1% than the lowest 60%"

The world needs ditch-diggers too.

wha???

[Anonymous Coward]

Newsflash, everyone deserves an education but not everyone can afford it. There's a huge difference.

And also...

[Anonymous Coward]

Who wants to hang out with a bunch of poor people?

They can't afford to go out and do anything fun. So, they make terrible friends.

Re:the 1 percent is mostly people who aren't tycoo

[lgw]

Big difference between the 1% and the .01%.

The 1% has a lot of doctors/dentists, lawyers, accountants, engineers, educated people who are going to push their kids to get educated.

http://www.nytimes.com/package...

To put it a different way, the 1% value education because for the most part it's why they're the 1%. The values you pass to your kids matter far more than the money.

Collective "duh"

[Anonymous Coward]

I had the grades to get into the best schools, but solely because I could not afford them, I ended up going to a cheaper shit college that I got a free ride from. It sucked. At least I tested out of loads of classes and graduated years early.

New flash - Bugattis owned by rich not poor

[Anonymous Coward]

Most Bugatti Veyrons are owned by people in the top 1% and none are owned by the bottom 80%.
DUH: an Ivy league education is way over priced and only suitable for people in the 1% who want to make connections with others in the 1%.
A scholar from the hood, does not take out the HUGE loans to go there.
They get better value somewhere else.

Re:New flash - Bugattis owned by rich not poor

[hey!]

Except some poor and middle class kids get into Harvard -- in fact they get their expenses paid. That's not the case for Bugattis.

And it's for a good (or at least shrewd) reason: Letting the intellectual elite into your exclusive school lends the prestige of their academic accomplishments to the financial elite who attend.

Look at our president-elect, who likes to point to his attendance at Penn as proof that he has a very good brain. Well, I'm not one of those people who think he's actually stupid but he got into Penn because he was rich and had family connections in the admissions office. He's not in the same league as the kids who get into Penn on a scholarship.

Tragedy

[frovingslosh]

What a tragedy. We need more of the urban youths in these schools. So what if the squandered their public school education and came out illiterate ("I gonna play sportsball anyway"), we still need their diversity in our leading universities. Otherwise the students who do graduate will come out as bleeding heart liberals and think that the world needs to appease the urbanites every time they come up with an excuse to riot and loot. Exposure to these people in your classroom when you are trying to learn is good for society.

Re:Tragedy

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually public colleges are already full of equal opportunity students. I should know because I just finished a degree at one. Unfortunately that teaches you to be racist because the EO students are in over their heads and are the poorest students in every class. The unfortunate effect is that you learn really quickly to try and avoid getting a black student in your group project because they they won't be able to pull their weight.

Conclusion of study not about rich applicants

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

The study basically concluded that the name of the university on your diploma matters a lot and an argument can be made that if desperately poor people can get into expensive top schools and run up mountains of debt, the odds are in their favor that they'll earn more than people who went to cheaper universities. This whole debate about the disadvantages poor applicants have is beside the point.

What's the performance gap?

[dyslexicbunny]

No one is surprised that kids from wealthier means do better in school. This is well documented. What's the performance gap between the bottom 60% and the top 1% kids? If the gap is sizable, let's look towards correcting that. If the gap in performance is negligible, then I'm going to get more interested in these findings.

Re:So the fuck what?

[Anonymous Coward]

oh shut the fuck up

Well with the "elite" schools it is often not that

[Sycraft-fu]

For a regular school, particularly state school, then yes it gets stacked a lot by test scores and other academic indicators. The better you do academically, the more they are interested in you and the more money they'll try to give you to get you to attend.

However the "elite" schools have a whole bunch of good old boy shit going on. If you look at admissions in to places like Harvard you find that there are some legitimately top performers who come in, but a whole lot who are not and are instead connected some way. They are kids of alums, politically connected, rich, whatever. They are the "right kind of people" and so get the invite.

That's also the reason why parents want kids to go there is the connections. You don't get a better education at Harvard overall. Any university with a good program will do at least as well, and in plenty of disciplines there are schools ranked far better. However it further gets you in to the old boys club and gets you connections to people that gets your opportunities that would not otherwise be available later in life.

Time AND MONEY

[XXongo]

The application alone is sometimes a barrier for kids who haven't been prepared for the demands of some top schools...

FWIW, college applications are much more straightforward.... Today, it is easier than ever to apply to as many schools as you have the time and patience to do.

Time, patience, and money. Colleges have application fees. A student with, say, a ten percent chance of acceptance into an elite school who applies to ten will have good odds to make it in. If you're from a well-to-do family, paying ten seventy-five dollar application fees are the least important part of this. If you're not so well to do, however, you might apply to one elite school, but after that, your back-up application will be to the local State school. http://www.usnews.com/educatio...

Also, things like SAT tests cost money, too. Not to mention SAT prep classes, which the rich will buy as a matter of course and the poor have no access to.

Re:Time AND MONEY

[slew]

The application alone is sometimes a barrier for kids who haven't been prepared for the demands of some top schools...

FWIW, college applications are much more straightforward.... Today, it is easier than ever to apply to as many schools as you have the time and patience to do.

Time, patience, and money. Colleges have application fees. A student with, say, a ten percent chance of acceptance into an elite school who applies to ten will have good odds to make it in. If you're from a well-to-do family, paying ten seventy-five dollar application fees are the least important part of this. If you're not so well to do, however, you might apply to one elite school, but after that, your back-up application will be to the local State school.

http://www.usnews.com/educatio...

Also, things like SAT tests cost money, too. Not to mention SAT prep classes, which the rich will buy as a matter of course and the poor have no access to.

If your family is poor, they can always apply for an NACAC application fee waiver (which most elite colleges accept). Columbia has already dropped the SAT requirement. I suspect most 'elite' schools are on the verge of dropping the SAT as requirements. Statistically, the schools have known that the SAT sucks as a predictor of anything, and the College Board has been frantically redesigning it for years in order to make it relevant again before more schools drop it and they lose their cash cow.

The myth that many parents have bought is that epsilon higher SATs correlate with delta higher chance of acceptance in some sort of fancy numerical weighting system, which couldn't be farther from the truth (at these so-called 'elite' schools). The SAT (and similar testing) is generally only used as a soft measure to pre-sort the mountain of applications a school gets. Elite schools often presort applications (because thoroughly considering 10 applications for every slot is better than slogging through 20). If you scores/grades/etc are near or above the threshold they use to pre-sort, it basically makes no difference to your acceptance (except as potentially a weird impression it might give in later evaluations it is unusually low and everything else great about an applicant).

For example, by some estimates, it is likely that Harvard will soft-cut off an SAT somewhere around 1400/1600 (which is of course pretty high, but this is Harvard and most people going into SAT-prep with designs on Harvard are already scoring that without any help). If you are scoring around 1200, it'll take quite a bit of prep to get it above this level (esp with the new rules that don't penalize guessing anymore and focus on reading comprehension). If are scoring around 1400 and the goal is to actually get into Harvard, I can guarantee you that hour-for-hour, it will be better to spend running a non-profit charity and getting a killer recommendation than toiling that hour in anonymity in an SAT prep class.

Re: Time AND MONEY

[Anonymous Coward]

It's very important to you for you to believe everyone has an equal chance, isn't it?

Well, they don't. Get over it. The deck is stacked against the poor.

Re: Time AND MONEY

[slew]

It's very important to you for you to believe everyone has an equal chance, isn't it?

Well, they don't. Get over it. The deck is stacked against the poor.

No it is not important to me at all that people have an equal chance, and it is of course immediately obvious that they don't because the deck is totally stacked against the poor.

However, I just hate to see people who *could* have attended college to improve their lives give up and not do so reasons based on misinformation that is all. There are plenty of good reasons that poor folks can't attend college which often have to do with nearly impossible to solve core issues (e.g., need to support family with job, no support networks in far away places, peer pressure, parental/sibling jealousy, etc), there is absolutely no reason to heap on a bunch of really bad reasons like: can't afford application cost, can't take SAT prep classes, etc which are easily overcome.

Re: Time AND MONEY

[Anonymous Coward]

Part of that is generational, if your grandparents didn't value your parents' education then you'll be worse off.

How you jump to blaming society entirety is beyond me, at some point you have to take control of your life and provide better options for yourself and your children.

The system isn't rigged, it just takes more time and effort than the instant gratification generation can muster.

But universities are defintely not

[Anonymous Coward]

a cult or driven by money or exist merely to create social networks among the wealthy. Universities are all about learning to learn, which is impossible to achieve at home.

It's not about tuition, it's about connection

[SuperKendall]

If the Endowment is large enough they can give every student free tuition.

Don't think you understand how the top universities work. Tuition doesn't matter at all; all that matters is f you are connected enough to get in. They are "diverse" in ways that do not matter, but shun true diversity such as economic or political diversity.

Re:the 1 percent is mostly people who aren't tycoo

[Anonymous Coward]

> to put it a different way, the 1% value education because for the most part it's why they're the 1%.

Yes, nicely said.

> The values you pass to your kids matter far more than the money.

At some point (Paris Hilton etc.) that breaks down but yeah you could squander a couple million in only a few years.

1%

[Anonymous Coward]

It's no surprise that a student from the top 1% is going to a nice school, instead of the local community college, a trade school, or going directly into the work force. Also note that there's many more rich people than their used to be. (But, also more poor people, thanks Obama and Bush).

Re:1%

[GameboyRMH]

You should really be thanking Reagan and Bush Sr for kickstarting the trend. Bush Jr. and Obama merely did nothing to halt it.

Re:1%

[AutodidactLabrat]

... note that there's many more rich people than their used to be. (But, also more poor people, thanks Obama and Bush).

Wrong. It started with Nixon and accelerated under Reagan.
Prior to Reagan, the median income was 28% of the median of the top 1%
After Reagan, it was 18%
thanks to his two recessions (82-83 and 87) the number of poor, defined as 1/3 or less of the median, doubled
And wages, stagnated or fell in every Republican administration since.
Wages under Obama ARE rising.
Who is prepared to bet that will end?

Re:1%

[Uberbah]

Wrong

Says the person playing games with medians rather than looking at numbers of people.

Re:1%

[AutodidactLabrat]

So, i see you can't do Present Value to account for the compound growth. You lose.

Re:1%

[Uberbah]

So you're one of those wankers who starts babbling on about something heard in the first year stats class he had to drop out of, when Bill Gates walks into a room.

Re:1%

[AutodidactLabrat]

Says the H.S. dropout who has no idea what a Median is!

Re:1%

[Uberbah]

You wish. Either you're utterly incompetent, or you're a "liars figure" sophist. I'll leave you to your bubble now.

As I attended college I was told this

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject: "In this major there will only be so many A, B, C, D grades - rest of you will fail. Reasoning being like the real world? This major is COMPETITIVE..." right from my profs.

* It's a fight for a slice of the pie no matter where you go from my experience (lots of luck & help you get from others too).

If someone like me call pull it off (130-135 IQ) working while going to school part-time much of the time & doing classes + lettering @ NCAA sports (1st string much of the time too)? ANYONE CAN!

(How BAD do you want it?)

Your prof has it MOSTLY right in agreement w/ me though - makes sense - it's truth/fact.

APK

P.S.=> In the end? It's a GOOD system imo & preps you for the REAL world "how it really is" out there... apk

Obamacare

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty much all, over 90%, of US student loans are from the Federal Government. They are part of the ACA (Obamacare) because the interest paid on those loans are used to offset the costs of the ACA and was how the DNC was able to pass the bill the way they did.

If you think student loans are unfair and predatory, why is it you think poor people shouldn't be given affordable healthcare? Are you so greedy that you can't pay interest on your student loans in order to give the poor subsidies for Obamacare?

I wish I was making this up, but its actually all true.

Re:Obamacare

[Captain Damnit]

Not exactly...

http://www.politifact.com/ohio/statements/2012/may/14/rob-portman/rob-portman-says-student-loan-money-was-used-cover/

Short version: during an unexpected spasm of fiscal sanity in 2010, the government cut $58B in wasteful fees that were being paid to banks. Of that savings, around $9B was used to shore up the ACA funding. Nearly $10B went to shore up Pell grants. While it's true that more of those cost savings could (and probably should) have been passed onto students drowning in debt, it's not like there's a line item on your Navient statement that reads "ACA Surcharge".

Looked into your background... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject: I see you're a 13 yr. dev allegedly (my junior but still there) - I would've expected MORE from the likes of you (allegedly).

* What's your problem man? What did I do to YOU that you're trolling me w/ a known "troll slogan" in 'Cool story bro' bs!

(I only sounded off on topic to damn_registrars on my experience which was much like his own...)

APK

P.S.=> Grow up Bryan Ischo - you're making developers (allegedly in yourself) look BAD... apk

Re:Looked into your background... apk

[Bryan Ischo]

I just thought your post was kind of a rant, hard to read, and pretty much in the line of "I want to tell people my story" kind of post. I thought it was funny to post my response. But whatever, it's the internet, people post dumb shit all the time, you and me included.

I merely told my experience, not opinion

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject: It's MY experience that is fact (vs. mere opinion) which is like damn_registrars' was (he's thread starter & to whom I replied to) & your point? Same as mine if you read my post the entire way thru... I agree w/ you on 'snobbery' & why it doesn't matter (math is math you learn, facts are facts, no matter where you studied them).

* It's how it is - but "bitching" doesn't fix it, results do.

I also never said one ends up in a fridge box either! E.G. - I'm pleased w/ how my life worked out - after all: For the past 10++ yrs. now I haven't HAD to work for ANYONE if I don't want & my monies actually DO work fo me keeping me alive...

(Which, when you come right down to it? Is ALL that matters (bills paid, food on table, heat on in winter, shelter etc.)).

APK

P.S.=> If you're GOOD @ what you do? It'll show (especially in any hard-sciences or engineering fields, be it electrical or software etc.) on TECH INTERVIEWS (& what I saw was that about the time I was 2 jobs professionally into being a programmer-analyst/software-engineer, they no longer really cared WHERE you went to collegiate academia - it was could you pass the tech interview portions along w/ your past professional record on the job) - In fact, let's use SPORTS as an example also - Walter Payton (one of my jock heroes in life) came from Jackson State (Nebraska wanted him too though iirc) - he became THE best running-back & ALL-AROUND 'threat' offensively there was ever (others may have passed some of his records by now but he rocked)... apk

Not true.

[Anonymous Coward]

We're solidly upper middle class and both my kids got quite a bit of financial aid. One 90k the other more than 50k.

Smart != Money

[Anonymous Coward]

I know lots of smart people who don't earn THAT much money.

However, I do agree with the other parts of your theory.

Actually, I'd theorize that "smart people" don't actually make more money - being smart is not necessary to make lots of money.

Having lots of income does NOT make you smart or happy or successful. After about $100K/yr for most of the USA (location matters), it just doesn't. $100K in middle Florida or Texas is different from $100K in SF or NYC, obviously.

Re:Well with the "elite" schools it is often not t

[Anonymous Coward]

... the "elite" schools have a whole bunch of good old boy shit going on. If you look at admissions in to places like Harvard you find that there are some legitimately top performers who come in, but a whole lot who are not and are instead connected some way. They are kids of alums, politically connected, rich, whatever. They are the "right kind of people" and so get the invite.

Before you dismiss this, I note that the applications for some of these schools asked for the names of family members (and in one case, acquaintances) who had attended the school. Despite his academic chops (National Merit Scholar) he did not get an "invite." Just an anonymous middle-class white kid, I guess.

And a holier-than-thou attitude to match

[RogueWarrior65]

Of the leftist persuasion. Can you say "cognitive dissonance"?

What does surprise have to do with it?

[Uberbah]

If you're among the 1-percenters' offspring whose parents either went to these elite institutions or can afford to donate something substantial to get you in, why is it surprising that elite schools have more well-off students?

No more than it is "surprising" that the wealthy live much longer than the poor, another statistic that is in need of dramatic adjustment. Bring back 91% marginal tax brackets while providing universal health care and education.

There's basically 4 factors that determine where you end up in life -- how smart or successful your parents are, how wealthy they are, how much raw potential you have, and usually a whole lot of dumb luck.

The "dumb luck" is to be born to a rich set of parents. The poster children for this example is George W. and Neil Bush. The one kept getting handed multimillion dollar businesses to run into the ground, and the other "just happened" to have a couple of women knock his his hotel room door, looking to have sex with him.

Poor kids who do everything right dont do better than rich kids who do everything wrong

The no-win situation for the poor.

[Uberbah]

Want to be more than a burger flipper - you best embark on a self-improvement project, years before you can walk into an R movie, to get educated. Get a degree in a field that pays a real wage, or get comfortable flipping burgers.

Unless that field collapses, or gets offshored, or there's a glut of other grads, or you discover you just cannot do linear algebra no matter how hard you try - well then you're an idiot for taking out student loans you couldn't afford.

Re:The no-win situation for the poor.

[geekmux]

Want to be more than a burger flipper - you best embark on a self-improvement project, years before you can walk into an R movie, to get educated. Get a degree in a field that pays a real wage, or get comfortable flipping burgers.

Unless that field collapses, or gets offshored, or there's a glut of other grads, or you discover you just cannot do linear algebra no matter how hard you try - well then you're an idiot for taking out student loans you couldn't afford.

Automation and AI will prove within the next half century that employment is a no-win situation for humans.

At that point, it won't matter what pedigree of degree you have hanging on your wall, or what level of education (and subsequent debt) you've attained. You will be obsolete. Future generations won't even see a point in educating a human; to go off and do what exactly?

Burger flippers will simply be the first victims. Too bad the elitists pushing automation and who will own AI don't understand that flipping burgers is often the financial stepping stone to affording a higher education. No point in talking about the "ladder" of success when the bottom rungs are removed, preventing anyone from actually climbing it.

And as you've succinctly pointed out, not everyone is capable of learning at a higher degree no matter how hard they try, so telling every burger flipper and ditch digger to "go get a degree" is an unrealistic option too, as their jobs are replaced by automation.

How to lower the cost of education

[myid]

To lower the cost of education:

1) Colleges should let students earn certificates in their field of study. (This is in contrast to a BS degree, which requires both the major field classes, and also "General Education (GE)" classes.) Let the certificate students take only the classes related to their major, if that's what they prefer. That would save the students the time and money of the GE classes, and it would free up the GE classes for other students.

2) Employers should be open to the idea of students learning in a non-traditional setting. Here's one way to ensure that the job applicant has learned what they need to know: Companies can form a "Testing Group". In this group of companies, managers and heads of departments can send in test questions. These are questions on subjects that they care about, not necessarily standard textbook questions. Build up collections of these questions. Then when I apply for a job, I take a test of these questions. The software running the test can choose a random question on the subject of scope, and a random question on the subject of security, etc.

3) Find out how the schools are spending their money. Trump should hire three people to write questions about the finances of colleges and universities. The people should be: an expert on the subject of college finances, a CPA, and a lawyer. First clearly define terms (what is a "part-time student"?). Then ask 20 or 30 questions about school operations and finances. How many students, how many teachers, how many dollars, etc. Make the schools answer these questions for each of the last 25 years, so that we can see trends in spending. The answers to the questions must be signed by the school president, and by the school's chief financial officer.

Let the school write a verbal explanation of its numbers, if they want to, but I want to see those numbers.

After the US government gets the answers from a school, it puts the answers on the Internet. The government should set up the web page so that you can compare one school to another. Also it puts the answers into files that you can download, so that you can do your own analysis. (Put the numbers into CSV, SQL INSERT INTO statements, and JavaScript statements that set the numbers into variables.)

After posting the information for a particular school, the federal government can't authorize any aid for that school for 30 days. During the 30 days, the government, public, and newspapers can read the numbers ("They're spending that much on the bureaucracy?!?"). The government might demand that the school change its spending, before the government gives it any more aid.

Also have a similar set of questions for the statewide bureaucracy (state regents, chancellors, trustees, etc.), including the salaries, perks such as free housing, and retirement pay of these people.

Re:How to lower the cost of education

[david_thornley]

1. Good colleges and universities are unlikely to want to give people what they see as a substandard education, and it isn't clear to me that it would save much money in STEM fields. My son's classes were mostly STEM.

2. Employers are likely to have their own criteria. Unfortunately, when the company gets big enough that it attracts too many applications to handle, it's real easy to take large categories of less promising applications and throw them out. If the employer thinks a college degree is likely to have some slight help, round-filing the applications without degrees is awful tempting. Remember, employers have no obligation to be fair to applicants (except in certain specific ways - no discrimination on grounds of race, religion, etc.), their obligations are to their own efficient operations.

3. I so want someone to come along and find out how colleges and universities are spending their money and why. Inflation-adjusted, my son's college degree was about four times as expensive as mine, and it didn't take four times the resources. I really want to know where the money is going. I know there's reduced state aid, but that comes nowhere near explaining it. I strongly suspect my local university is spending a lot of money that students and faculty get no benefit from.

Misses point of original article

[jowifi]

The NYT article spends a lot of time focusing on the 1% vs 60%, but that wasn't the focus of the original study by the Equality of Opportunity Project. Their conclusion was that graduates of an elite school had approximately the same chance to get into the top 20% income bracket regardless of their economic background.

Way to go captain obvious!

[Anonymous Coward]

Did someone seriously waste time and money investigating this?

always more BS

[Anonymous Coward]

Poorer people in my experience value money now over education and money later, so they prefer going to cheaper schools. I know people who got into top schools but chose to go to crappy ones to save money, even though they could afford it.

Next, it's well-known that relative wealth correlates with relative achievement. So, expect elite schools to have wealthier students even if admission is 100% based on merit.

What this statistic is really about is the religious belief that poorer people should be admitted to elite schools because they are poorer, not based on their actual academic merit. The point is then to show that these schools are not carrying out their religious service correctly.

When I went to MIT decades ago, there were lots of really dirt-poor people who got in based on merit, and MIT made sure they got properly subsidized. There were also literally Arab princes. They also got in based on merit, but they paid their full way.

Thank You Captain Obvious

[Anonymous Coward]

Elites send their children to elite schools.

Also, water is wet.

That is all.