The Disadvantages of an Elite Education (2008)

<i>Graduates of elite schools are not more valuable than stupid people, or talentless people, or even lazy people.</i><p>That's a common enough platitude, but I'm not convinced that it's true.<p>Or rather, it's the sort of thing we like to pretend is true for the sake of a functioning society (since nobody likes to discuss exactly <i>who</i> is worth more than whom) and everybody goes along with it. We'll admit extreme cases (like Beethoven is worth more than some bum on a street corner) but shy away from discussing it in any further detail lest we wind up obliged to cut that bum up to give his organs to someone else.<p>I don't have a problem with this as a thing we all pretend is true, but I do have a problem with the assertion that it's genuinely true.<p>(Unfortunately in order to even have this discussion I have to put on my Nietzsche moustache and step outside the boundaries of polite society.)

A childhood friend who had gone to Harvard invited me to hang out with some Harvard grads in SF two weeks ago. It was strange--as an outsider--to listen to their college stories; they would talk about how they'd drive down to Yale and scream "Harvard, Harvard!" and it was then, I realized, how little I had in common with these grads.<p>I tried to talk to one of the Harvard grads, and asked him what he was doing. Apparently he's working at the Sierra Club, and from his job description, his role amounted to essentially a receptionist. And from talking to him, he seemed disillusioned that his degree <i>didn't</i> offer him all the benefits that he believed he was entitled.<p>The Harvard elitism that come out a bit, if not intentionally. My friend was trying to help out the bloke who couldn't understand why he couldn't get a decent paying job as a <i>Harvard grad</i>, and was telling him to do lucrative tutoring jobs. He coached, "You're a <i>Harvard</i> grad! Parents will fork a lot of money to have a Harvard grad tutor their kids, hoping that their kids can also attend Harvard!"<p>Maybe I'm oversensitive as an outsider, but I didn't feel much warmth or feel that these Harvard educated fellows were very interested in talking to me. And maybe they're blessed to have such camaraderie. After all, I am just one who went to Arizona State/AFROTC with a vocational degree in CSE instead of a liberal arts education.<p>It's not difficult for me to talk to grads of schools from "regular" institutions, such as UCLA, Berkeley, USC, UC Irvine, et al, even with a liberal arts education. But when trying to talk to grads of an "elite education," I have found it considerably more awkward, and struggle to level common ground. Usually it ends up in a lack of interest by both parties to talk to each other, or smalltalk, waiting for the first opportunity to escape from discomfort such as a convenient phone call or errand to run.<p>It's possible that this is just a typical case of in-group vs. out-group happening, but I've never found myself so lost at words that I pretty much conversed smalltalk the entire time.

I read this article a while ago, and I had a reaction that I think has gelled a little more since then. I think I take issue with the notion that elite = ivy league (or similar institutions). It's true that ivies dominate the top spots of the us news and world report undergraduate college rankings (where no public university cracks the top 20) and tend to do well on rankings of top professional school programs (especially mba and law), but interestingly, they don't dominate the list of top graduate schools to the same extent (where public universities do quite well), and they show up even less often on rankings of top engineering schools.<p>In short, I think it's time we redefined what an elite college really is. The question the writer poses is a very interesting one: are students at elite colleges out of touch with the rest of society? But I'd like to see the same question asked about the graduates of UC Berkeley, UCLA, Texas, Michigan, Illinois, CMU, MIT, Stanford, Caltech, and other universities with top engineering schools.<p>It's an open question, I'll admit. There probably is a reasonable case to be made that the large public research institutions that have such excellent engineering programs just aren't elite by the standards of the US (this isn't China or France, after all). And I suppose you could also say that graduates of these schools are every bit as out of touch (and as snobby as the author implies) as grads of the top ivies...

What a great article. While I certainly don't agree with everything Deresiewicz tries to say, I will echo one bit I found to be true at least in my time at MIT (which is, incidentally, the only experience I have with an 'elite' university): there were far too many students with a myopic view of where they were and what they wanted to accomplish.<p>Many of the students (and friends) with whom I interacted saw MIT as their "final step" in a long life of achievements and accomplishments. After this, they were "set for life." They just had to get through it. Then came the high-paying consulting jobs, the fun research, the exciting leadership opportunities, etc. It was all right there for them. Until it wasn't, because the economy sank.<p>Many of those same people now took "less important" jobs just to get through the economic slump. So few people thought about venturing out on their own, it actually kind of disheartened me.<p>Don't get me wrong, there were still a ton of people trying to start their own projects, think on their own, and whom looked at MIT as but a stepping stone to propel them to be able to affect the world. Unfortunately, a lot of the students also seemed to only care about making their money and living comfortably.<p>On the other hand, I think this is a problem with our educational system in general; not just the elite schools. I consider myself almost lucky to have come from a fairly non-affluent family, since I grew up around one "class" of people (mostly not-well-off immigrants) and got to experience interacting with another at school.<p>MIT is probably not the worst offender in terms of not having any sort of socioeconomic diversity, since admissions are all done need-blind and there really are a lot of immigrants and no legacy or sports admissions, but the issue still exists. I can only imagine that at schools where that is not the case, this problem manifests itself in a much worse way.

This is a wealthy guy who spends all of his time with other wealthy people. He shouldn't blame the college he went to for him being unable to communicate with working class people. He wouldn't be any more skilled at this if he'd gone to a middle-tier school; most Americans don't go to college.<p>(- Ivy alum)

The author got a lot of things right, but I'm suspect of his main thesis - that you can't relate to the lower class if you go to a private school. There are few to no downsides to going to an elite school, other than cost.<p>That said, the benefits of top private schools are overstated.<p>The main benefit goes to those of average intelligence who would get annihilated at a large state school - what the author refers to as an "endless string of second chances."<p>You also make a lot more connections with people who will ultimately end up in power positions, which makes life easier as you rise up the ranks.<p>If you're smart enough to be a top student at an Ivy League school, it really doesn't matter much where you go.

I've felt for years that school was run by those who were, when young, good at school. Its inbred and to a certain degree, pointless.<p>There was nowhere in my life more bounded by ceremony and tradition. And now that I'm out of it, and know for a certainty that precious little of it did me the slightest good, I recommend to all young people who will listen: "You are paying for schooling. Get out of it exactly what you find valuable, ignore the rest. An ounce of passion is worth oceans of rote work"

Ironically it took my many years of schooling simply to digest that very long winded article. Knowing what bits to skip, to skim, to read carefully, to remember etc.

As a student in MIT, I agree with the author that all the "accomplishments" (such as SAT scores, A's) people at top-rated achieve make it harder to not think of oneself as somebody better than the others. Because of the environment and the admiration of many outside people I often times feel intellectually superior to other people, even though I know very well I am not.<p>I've observed many times that my friends who do not study in top universities might react better in many real-life scenarios than me and many of my MIT classmates.<p>Also, in one semester off from MIT I learned more things about life than in 4 years at college (where I learned about pressing buttons on a keyboard in order to change what appears on the monitor).<p>My question to HN is: How "not to take myself so seriously"? I want to be able to enjoy simple things in life without feeling that I am wasting my education.

It's true that the 'Ivy League' graduates many smart individuals, but does the Ivy League actually make them smart. It's the inverse of "garbage in garbage out". A top graduate at an Ivy league school would be just as smart if they went to a small state school. The difference, and where most rankings come from are the connections. Graduates from any Ivy League school generally receive the best job offers (most money) even though there are a thousand other graduates that are just as smart, but didn't go to a name brand school. The Ivy League can only admit so many students. I graduated from a small public university, but that doesn't mean I wasn't challenged during school. I worked extremely hard both in the classroom and at my jobs. The author of this article doesn't have a problem communicating with 'the working class', the author chooses to have a problem.

In addition to talking about the good and bad of elite educations, Deresiewicz's piece also strongly praises the traditional liberal arts degree. He seems to think it far more valuable than <i>more practical</i> degrees. But, I'm not convinced.<p>First, shying away from <i>practical</i> studies reminds me of exactly the fallacy that drove me to leave philosophy after I finished in undergrad. My experience was very similar to what pg writes about in <a href="http://paulgraham.com/philosophy.html" rel="nofollow">http://paulgraham.com/philosophy.html</a>. Asking the 'big questions' devolved into quibbling over split hairs and avoiding useful, testable hypotheses that could really make the world a better place (not that 'big questions' are bad, but we should try solving them in useful ways, not randomly)<p>Also, the author seems to think that a <i>glorified form of vocational training</i> is a bad thing. But, could it be possible to create an educational system where vocational training creates the thinking man Deresiewicz wants? That is, could an interest in say, programming, motivate studying history by examining the development of mathematics and computing machines over time? Could it lead to a study of economics through questions about the Pareto Principle or the right way to offer our programs to the public (free, product, service, and so on)? Could it lead to philosophy and psychology by asking if man is potentially programmable and why certain types of programs can't be written with our current model of computation?<p>In short, could vocational training take a singular interest and use it to create the sort of individuals Deresiewicz decries elite schools for failing to produce?

The author mentioned Yale university. I took a look at the web traffic graph:<p><a href="http://www.quantcast.com/yale.edu" rel="nofollow">http://www.quantcast.com/yale.edu</a><p>4 times drop in four years.<p>Could anyone explain why it happened?

This article has popped up a few times (I think it's been on HN before) and I've read it each time with increasing disgust. There's a pervasive attitude amoung attendees of elite universities of feigned modesty, mostly it's fairly innocuous and that's fine. In many cases it's genuine. But this is truly a new level of feigned. The "hole" in the writer's education an educational topic, it's a character trait. And this is a flaw he's developed by spending his whole life assuaging his own insecurities by convincing himself it's true. Now there's no doubt that elite universities are breading grounds for this type of thought and students first encountering them must choose whether or not to imbibe in the kool aid. Most do. It takes a very strong 17 year old to walk into this type of society and call bullshit, but it does happen and when it does we got authors who can write genuinely on this topic.<p>A wonderful example of such a work is J.R. Moerhinger's Tender Bar.

This has popped up a few times on HN already, I wonder if there is an upper bound to when you're allowed to repost an old article?<p><a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=224861" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=224861</a>

1. Isn't this a repost?<p>2. Maybe the plumber didn't feel like chatting while he worked.

It must be this year's phrasing, but every time I hear the phrase "I can't / we failed to communicate", it really means I don't think the person so far under my station would understand.

I think American students should study, work and live in Chindia for at-least 2 years

Great article. I think he puts downs, "The kid who’s loading up on AP courses junior year or editing three campus publications while double-majoring" a bit too much though. People who are very busy with various projects tend to also be more introspective, in my experience. Good grades can just be indicative of good time management and brightness, which are important in anyone who wants to change the world.