The Disadvantages of an Elite Education (2008)

> When parents explain why they work so hard to give their children the best possible education, they invariably say it is because of the opportunities it opens up. But what of the opportunities it shuts down? An elite education gives you the chance to be rich—which is, after all, what we’re talking about—but it takes away the chance not to be. Yet the opportunity not to be rich is one of the greatest opportunities with which young Americans have been blessed.

> Yet it is precisely that opportunity that an elite education takes away. How can I be a schoolteacher—wouldn’t that be a waste of my expensive education?

What a line!

OP doesn't know what it's like to be "smart" but not attend one of these schools.

Attending a low-tier school doesn't teach someone to be comfortable with mediocrity. The feeling of despair at not reaching one's potential occurs regardless of how one got there.

The difference is whether one can escape.

Even though this is a now 18 year old article, you still see the same type of elitism in the various metropolitan areas, where these people gather to work in finance/consulting/tech/law.

I've heard people be completely open about only wanting to mingle and network with "peers", where they'll immediately ditch people at networking events / parties / etc. if they're not up to the snuff. They'll ask what school you went to, or where you work(ed), and bow out if its not a target school or top-tier firm.

But people like that are a minority in my experience. I went to a good business school, and many people there had the same background stories - especially the type of undergrad schools they went to.

(With that said, I'm pushing 40, and every now and then I do meet new people that within 2 mins will ask or probe what school I went to. Always feels a bit weird to me to bring up alma mater when it's almost half a lifetime ago...especially if those asking are even older than me.)

> There he was, a short, beefy guy with a goatee and a Red Sox cap and a thick Boston accent, and I suddenly learned that I didn’t have the slightest idea what to say to someone like him. So alien was his experience to me, so unguessable his values, so mysterious his very language, that I couldn’t succeed in engaging him in a few minutes of small talk before he got down to work.

I'm a self-taught software developer with no university education and I too am socially awkward in front of tradespeople in my house. I don't think this is about Ivy League degrees, just being a nerdy intellectual who's bad at small talk and doesn't have any topics in common with a blue collar worker.

> My education taught me to believe that people who didn’t go to an Ivy League or equivalent school weren’t worth talking to, regardless of their class. I was given the unmistakable message that such people were beneath me.

That's not an elite education, that's a bad education.

Once upon a time I worked at a famous BB bank in an electronic trading shop. I had joined from a 10 year military career as technology specialist. I had a chummy colleague introduce me in the elevator to a peer in a different but related functional. Upon the introduction, I made eye contact, stated 'Hello it is great to meet you and I am excited to collaborate with you' and extended my hand for a handshake.

He gave me a look, scanned me down-and-up, and then looked forwarded at the elevator door. That concluded the social interaction. He had attended Dartmouth. I had attended a nonIvy.

Reading OPs first paragraph with that experience in my mind, it conjures the question 'has this Ivy grad (multiple times over) possessed the curiosity to know about other lifestyles? If not, why? Did he think himself above? Is it possible to navigate one's entire life without knowing how to empathize with a man who is a tradey? Was he not a Red Sox fan? Did he not celebrate the same rapid fire successive championships that Boston had acquired in the 2010s across football, baseball, and hockey?' And then I posed myself the question 'Why am I reading this random elite author? Why am I not reading about the Plumber? What is the motivation of the author to portray his privilege as a detriment and disadvantage?'

Ultimately, this kind of writing, at least for me, is a reminder to keep grounded and be blind to class to see people for who they are.

you dont need to have a conversation with your plumber. be polite, say something inane about the weather, listen to their advice on plumbing, that's it. no tradesperson is aching to have a conversation with the resident nuclear physicist or whatever. leave them alone to their work, pay promptly, thank them for their time.

this is just neuroticism, and isn't really related to the ivys. it's a very common human dynamic, just follow etiquette when crossing class boundaries. the fact that the author makes it into the particular plight of the ivy grad (oh if only they had kept us humble, woe me!) speaks more to his own insecurities than to anything relating to the nature of elite education.

Man, I didn't know that elites face such struggles. I do not wish on anybody the experience of not being able to strike conversation with lowly peasants such as us.

> You learn to think, at least in certain ways

I remember getting a C on my economics exam. I asked an upperclassman to look at my answers, and what was wrong with them. He laughed, and said my mistake was not regurgitating the prof's leftist ideas. (At one point in class the prof stated that he believed in the equal distribution of all income.)

I never bothered taking any subjective liberal arts classes after that. After all, I was paying the tuition bill.

I think we're in a different world from twenty years ago. The upper-middle class kids I know understand that you can get your hands dirty and that a degree isn't a meal ticket to class security anymore. If you want to be a manager you have to understand the jobs of people you manage.

> Fourteen years of higher education and a handful of Ivy League degrees, and there I was, stiff and stupid, struck dumb by my own dumbness. “Ivy retardation,” a friend of mine calls this. I could carry on conversations with people from other countries, in other languages, but I couldn’t talk to the man who was standing in my own house.

The ability to make small talk effortlessly with anyone is a hallmark of good breeding, education, and manners. Maybe this guy is just bad at being an elite.

Ah yes, the disadvantages of being elite. Just as I am similarly disadvantaged for being too intelligent and good looking. When will we realize as a society these things aren't really an advantage at all?

This is a failure of curiosity.

I can talk to plumbers. I can talk to electricians, hvac, construction guys, anyone in the trades. Because what they work on are essentially systems and systems are interesting to me.

Trust me, these guys don't really mind talking shop. And they appreciate someone acknowledging that they do have knowledge and skill not everyone has.

I'm reminded of the prescient 2005 commentary of George Carlin: "it's a big club and you ain't in it" [1].

Hollywood, in particular, is almost completely nepo baby captured. This is an oft-repeated trend where an industry goes into decline and the children of those who originally succeeded end up dominating it. I think there's a lot of this in politics too, particularly because government jobs (including staffers on campaigns and for representatives) don't pay a lot so you really have to come from an affluent background to afford to live.

It used to be that if you wanted to be a cast member on SNL you had to go to Harvard because of the Harvard Lampoon.

I've seen this issue with the doctor pipeline too. Various analyses show that coming from a high socioeconomic background is a massive advantage, even with med schools trying to provide more opportunities to candidates from a lower socioeconomic background. A few med schools now because of endowments have gone tuition-free but even here it seems (it's early days) like wealthier candidates get more of these opportunities. As a wealthier person you don't need to "waste" time on a job. You can do resume-packing activities (research, volunteering).

So circling back, elite education's role (IMHO) is to be exclusionary. It's to maintain this structure. "Social proof" is extremely important because a lot of opportunities in life aren't about talent or skill but connections and social factors. You go to Stanford and do CS and you get time in front of VCs. You get to know people who will start future unicorns through all their opportunities and connections. You will be one of these people or be an early employee.

If you're an academic, I once heard a friend in academia tell me "you'll never be unemployed in academic with a Harvard undergrad degree". Faculties like to boast about things like this. There's some hyperbole here but again, there's also some truth and it's social proof.

Look at the median age of a US homebuyer, currently 59 [2]. The only young people buying houses are in the upper percentiles of income, come from a wealthy background or their parents are otherwise paying for it because they bought a house in the 1980s and sat on it.

So back to Carlin, a lot of people end up intentionally or unintentionally defending this system through wanting the best for their children but in doing so, society is unravelling. Also, most of the people who prop up the current system just aren't in the club despite what they think.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nyvxt1svxso

[2]: https://www.apolloacademy.com/median-age-of-all-us-homebuyer...

> You learn to think, at least in certain ways, and you make the contacts needed to launch yourself into a life rich in all of society’s most cherished rewards. To consider that while some opportunities are being created, others are being cancelled and that while some abilities are being developed, others are being crippled is, within this context, not only outrageous, but inconceivable.

He's really overselling the "learning how to think" aspect here.

People select these schools with the pure intent of getting into a social network that gives them more resources than they would otherwise have.

Let's look at three facts here:

1) Access to the limited slots for students at these institutions is controlled by how "intelligent" you seem to be as measured by their entrance exams

2) To a large degree, you can feign "intelligence" as defined by these tests given a large amount of resources

3) Under most conditions, humans who have social networks for accessing resources will keep those social networks active over time and even generations of humans

These three things combined mean that there's a good chance that any "elite" institution will eventually rot from those who use it to climb or maintain their social rank.

Sure, there are some great programs at these institutions, but that's starting to be overshadowed by the damage caused by the above.

> Witness the last two Democratic presidential nominees, Al Gore and John Kerry: one each from Harvard and Yale, both earnest, decent, intelligent men, both utterly incapable of communicating with the larger electorate.

This article: William Deresiewicz Complains That Getting Elected (i.e. Being a Good Leader) Is Ridiculously Hard and Not Taught In Schools Nor Achieved By Being Rich.

This was gross.