Remains to be shown. We have a system that uses elites in a certain way. It will not function well if you just drop a random person in there, or replace them all with engineers, etc
What is the better system you want to evolve towards that has no elites? Does it really not have elites or did you just call them something else?
Just to be clear, the framing of "elites" and "signaling" is something that was brought up by commentators not me. I don't find it particularly helpful and certainly never suggested any other system that would have "no elites".
I'm interested in weighted sortition - ALDC (Athletic, Legacy, Dean's interest list, Children of staff) get more entries in the lottery, but they're still in the lottery. Athletics and Dean's list can choose to "spend" their lottery tickets however they want; Legacy and Staff just get what they get.
This isn't really an argument for or against the thesis, but I just want to point out that one reason you might have missed for why elites love to go to Harvard and why making it less competitive would defeat the point is that "it's the best possible time to have", and they want their kids to go because they want their kids to have a great time. This would be a definition of a "good time" that's for people who specifically feel their best when they feel superior to everyone else.
Like perhaps going to the best research institutions in the world doesn't exactly make you the best at research in a way that has measurable consequences that show up in statistics, but it does make you one of the most "elite" researchers there is, so you get to feel better than everyone else, and maybe get to do more esoteric and especially-elite research than others, even if that doesn't matter to anything besides your ego and the admiration of a few like-minded colleagues. Oh and to your parent because they get to feel good that you're so special and because they get to feel superior to their friends too.
In economics lingo, I guess this theory would be that going to Harvard is more of a consumption good than an investment? It's like buying a Rolex, rather than stocks?
I definitely agree that research institutions have their own status/prestige ladder somewhat decoupled from the rest of society. (For better or for worse!)
In my experience there's very little difference in prestige or acceptance rate between NZ universities. Most people choose primarily on location or a particular program a university offers (e.g. Auckland or Otago for med school). There's a fairly easy to achieve standard for admission (https://www.nzqa.govt.nz/qualifications-standards/awards/university-entrance), and even that isn't a hard requirement. As long as you meet that, your chances of getting into any university you want are very good. I didn't even bother applying to more than one. Nobody really cares what university you went to, a degree is a degree.
Caveat: I graduated a while ago and grew up in a fairly low-competitiveness environment. I have no idea what people at e.g. fancy private high schools think.
Re: meritocracy — In the Napoleonic Wars the French officers were chosen based on merit but the English officers, most notably Wellington and Nelson, purchased their commissions, or so I have been led to believe. If so, perhaps it’s instructive that the French ultimately lost. I think about this frequently anyways.
I don't think this really affects your point, but as AFAIK commissions in the navy were not purchased at that time and Nelson didn't purchase his. But officers were expected to be "gentlemen" and the navy was deeply connected to the aristocracy, so you can still argue that the French army was more meritocratic.
I guess the big advantage England had on water was hundreds of years of accumulated culture? It is interesting to think about in what circumstances "rapid churning meritocracy" will win versus a slower culture that might allow more accumulated cultural knowledge. Maybe, in business, new industries are more like the former and long-established industries more like the latter?
It's worth checking out Olin college as an example of reform. It's a newish (1997) small (400 students) engineering focused college that has quickly achieved a low acceptance rate and locally prestigious reputation. I think its example holds promise for other potential challengers of elite schools.
- By focusing on engineering it tied itself to a growing field where it's easier to achieve good outcomes. It's a lot easier to get engineers jobs than pre-law students acceptance to top law schools.
- Had a novel educational strategy (project-based) that attracted high-achieving students less focused on prestige.
- By focusing it has high status in certain fields while having little name recognition outside those fields. This means fewer people are trying to "game" admission like they are the Ivy League.
Same same China, except that legacies and influentials are rare and the cutoff IQ is the same as for a national government job: 140.
The C9 League, an alliance of nine universities, was initiated by the Government to promote the development and reputation of higher education in China in 2009.
Collectively, universities in the C9 League account for 3% of the country's researchers, but receive 10% of national research expenditures.
They produce 20% of the nation's academic publications and 30% of total citations.
People's Daily, an official newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party, refers to the C9 League as China's Ivy League.
In the UK, as well as Oxbridge, we also have the concept of "Russell Group" universities, which are the next tier down; basically a subset of the ancient and red-brick universities, who now need to to be distinguishable from the old polytechnics which are now also called universities. In my adopted town of Glasgow, for instance, there's Glasgow University (founded 1451, Russell Group), Strathclyde University (much newer, looked down upon) and ex-Glasgow Poly, now Glasgow Caledonian University (*much* looked down upon). I'm not aware of significant transfers between Universities of any kind *during a degree*, but if you do a postgraduate degree there's no guarantee you'll do it at the same institution you got your undergrad from.
I came to Scotland because I didn't want to face the French education system any more, which is highly competitive and stratified. The universities in France are arguably the bottom of the academic higher education system; people prefer to go to Grandes Ecoles, sometimes many of them. My vague recollection is that you go to a classe préparatoire or grande école for only a year or two, then decide where to go next, and the various qualifications are more-or-less equivalent (people talk about a sheepskin based on how many years after the Baccalauréat it corresponds to).
Whereas politicians in the UK went to Oxbridge and did a PPE (Politics, Philosophy and Economics) degree, politicians in France have typically gone to Sciences Po and then the ENA, a ridiculously elitist civil servant school which was first moved to Strasbourg to show that the French meant it about Europe, and then abolished by Macron because ENA graduates were just a bit *too* clubby and elitist.
Why Harvard doesn’t expand its student body is fairly obvious. There is not enough space in the City or Cambridge for it to do so. But many of its existing buildings are protected, historical buildings. So it can’t grow up and it can’t grow out. There are notorious stories of how hard it is to get the city of Cambridge to allow for more building. It has been expanding to Allston across the river. But nobody wants to stick the undergrads there because it’s so far away they would feel super disconnected. This would also require expanding the faculty, grad students, grad student housing, and more lecture facilities. In other words, it’s not unfathomable that they could spend $500m+ to get an extra 1000 students. It’s not obvious why they would want to do that when most undergrads are on financial aid. Not only that - there has to be someone who would actually want to oversee this project.
The way Harvard has expanded is by offering certificates and through the Extension School. The last I heard the Extension School is the only school that is profitable. Some alumni are of the opinion that the extension school dilutes the brand.
Organizationally what you are describing would be very challenging. I don’t think it’s an explicit priority for the parties involved. It’s just an implicit bias against supremely challenging tasks with unclear ROI. No one wants to get caught $1 bil over budget across multiple plans that may or may not be feasible and that have a 1000 ways to run aground. The grad student union protests being sent across the river and so on. The city of Cambridge is still angry about Mather Tower so they restrict your planned skyscraper dorm to 6 stories instead of the 12 you genuinely need. Now you’ve triggered protests in by the residents of Allston who don’t want more Harvard buildings. I would not want to be the leader to take on such a risky project.
And to top it off - for every extra student you admit, you are most likely losing money. Because the university itself isn’t profitable and it sustains itself on income from its endowment. So you’ve spent the endowment to get more students space and now you need MORE endowment to actually fund their education.
In general, Harvard’s board has opted to take the excess and provide more generous financial aid to those students who get in.
Harvard already approved a more than $1bil project to renovate many of the existing houses, including providing more rooms. This was absolutely necessary as many of the houses were in a pretty bad state. But I think there are very practical reasons that Harvard won’t go much farther than these modest measures.
Interesting. I found it more persuasive than you, but I live in the UK and am happy to admit I have no first hand experience and am therefore likely misunderstanding the system as it exists in reality.
I think Canada provides an example of unintended consequences of the "no high stake admissions" system. Some of the best Canadian students end of at UofT, but plenty of them end up at MIT (and Stanford and Harvard and...), and then go on to work in the US. As long as _someone_ (even in a different country*) operates a super selective school that's awesome to get into, you lose top students from not operating one yourself.
*Also visible in other places - lots of IMO participants at MIT from all around the world
> As long as _someone_ (even in a different country*) operates a super selective school that's awesome to get into, you lose top students from not operating one yourself.
Love it. In this model, creating hyper-prestigious universities is a defection against neighboring countries!
as a Canadian: uoft is definitely competitive, especially for engineering
Waterloo is (for cs) somehow even more competitive, but that tracks with the university and everyone in it being very embarrassed they weren't born american
UMich *law school* might have some good data, simply because it's a T14 (eg, https://www.lawschooltransparency.com/schools/michigan/jobs).
> if elite signaling is bad
Remains to be shown. We have a system that uses elites in a certain way. It will not function well if you just drop a random person in there, or replace them all with engineers, etc
What is the better system you want to evolve towards that has no elites? Does it really not have elites or did you just call them something else?
Just to be clear, the framing of "elites" and "signaling" is something that was brought up by commentators not me. I don't find it particularly helpful and certainly never suggested any other system that would have "no elites".
I'm interested in weighted sortition - ALDC (Athletic, Legacy, Dean's interest list, Children of staff) get more entries in the lottery, but they're still in the lottery. Athletics and Dean's list can choose to "spend" their lottery tickets however they want; Legacy and Staff just get what they get.
> Cambrford
ummmmm . . . surely you mean Oxbridge?
No, no, I'm pretty sure "Cambrford" is the accepted portmanteau. Cambrford.
Of course, I remember now. I have no idea whence I got that silly "oxbridge" word
This isn't really an argument for or against the thesis, but I just want to point out that one reason you might have missed for why elites love to go to Harvard and why making it less competitive would defeat the point is that "it's the best possible time to have", and they want their kids to go because they want their kids to have a great time. This would be a definition of a "good time" that's for people who specifically feel their best when they feel superior to everyone else.
Like perhaps going to the best research institutions in the world doesn't exactly make you the best at research in a way that has measurable consequences that show up in statistics, but it does make you one of the most "elite" researchers there is, so you get to feel better than everyone else, and maybe get to do more esoteric and especially-elite research than others, even if that doesn't matter to anything besides your ego and the admiration of a few like-minded colleagues. Oh and to your parent because they get to feel good that you're so special and because they get to feel superior to their friends too.
In economics lingo, I guess this theory would be that going to Harvard is more of a consumption good than an investment? It's like buying a Rolex, rather than stocks?
I definitely agree that research institutions have their own status/prestige ladder somewhat decoupled from the rest of society. (For better or for worse!)
I didn't really think about it that way but yeah, exactly that. I think it's an often-ignored part of the discussion.
Since you asked:
In my experience there's very little difference in prestige or acceptance rate between NZ universities. Most people choose primarily on location or a particular program a university offers (e.g. Auckland or Otago for med school). There's a fairly easy to achieve standard for admission (https://www.nzqa.govt.nz/qualifications-standards/awards/university-entrance), and even that isn't a hard requirement. As long as you meet that, your chances of getting into any university you want are very good. I didn't even bother applying to more than one. Nobody really cares what university you went to, a degree is a degree.
Caveat: I graduated a while ago and grew up in a fairly low-competitiveness environment. I have no idea what people at e.g. fancy private high schools think.
Re: meritocracy — In the Napoleonic Wars the French officers were chosen based on merit but the English officers, most notably Wellington and Nelson, purchased their commissions, or so I have been led to believe. If so, perhaps it’s instructive that the French ultimately lost. I think about this frequently anyways.
I don't think this really affects your point, but as AFAIK commissions in the navy were not purchased at that time and Nelson didn't purchase his. But officers were expected to be "gentlemen" and the navy was deeply connected to the aristocracy, so you can still argue that the French army was more meritocratic.
I guess the big advantage England had on water was hundreds of years of accumulated culture? It is interesting to think about in what circumstances "rapid churning meritocracy" will win versus a slower culture that might allow more accumulated cultural knowledge. Maybe, in business, new industries are more like the former and long-established industries more like the latter?
It's worth checking out Olin college as an example of reform. It's a newish (1997) small (400 students) engineering focused college that has quickly achieved a low acceptance rate and locally prestigious reputation. I think its example holds promise for other potential challengers of elite schools.
- By focusing on engineering it tied itself to a growing field where it's easier to achieve good outcomes. It's a lot easier to get engineers jobs than pre-law students acceptance to top law schools.
- Had a novel educational strategy (project-based) that attracted high-achieving students less focused on prestige.
- By focusing it has high status in certain fields while having little name recognition outside those fields. This means fewer people are trying to "game" admission like they are the Ivy League.
Same same China, except that legacies and influentials are rare and the cutoff IQ is the same as for a national government job: 140.
The C9 League, an alliance of nine universities, was initiated by the Government to promote the development and reputation of higher education in China in 2009.
Collectively, universities in the C9 League account for 3% of the country's researchers, but receive 10% of national research expenditures.
They produce 20% of the nation's academic publications and 30% of total citations.
People's Daily, an official newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party, refers to the C9 League as China's Ivy League.
In the UK, as well as Oxbridge, we also have the concept of "Russell Group" universities, which are the next tier down; basically a subset of the ancient and red-brick universities, who now need to to be distinguishable from the old polytechnics which are now also called universities. In my adopted town of Glasgow, for instance, there's Glasgow University (founded 1451, Russell Group), Strathclyde University (much newer, looked down upon) and ex-Glasgow Poly, now Glasgow Caledonian University (*much* looked down upon). I'm not aware of significant transfers between Universities of any kind *during a degree*, but if you do a postgraduate degree there's no guarantee you'll do it at the same institution you got your undergrad from.
I came to Scotland because I didn't want to face the French education system any more, which is highly competitive and stratified. The universities in France are arguably the bottom of the academic higher education system; people prefer to go to Grandes Ecoles, sometimes many of them. My vague recollection is that you go to a classe préparatoire or grande école for only a year or two, then decide where to go next, and the various qualifications are more-or-less equivalent (people talk about a sheepskin based on how many years after the Baccalauréat it corresponds to).
Whereas politicians in the UK went to Oxbridge and did a PPE (Politics, Philosophy and Economics) degree, politicians in France have typically gone to Sciences Po and then the ENA, a ridiculously elitist civil servant school which was first moved to Strasbourg to show that the French meant it about Europe, and then abolished by Macron because ENA graduates were just a bit *too* clubby and elitist.
Interesting, thanks! Just to make sure I understand, you're suggesting the French university system is more elitist/hierarchical than the UK system?
Absolutely. I mean, François Hollande went to HEC, Sciences Po *and* ENA (and then ran/governed as "Mr Normal" because irony). Consider https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grande_école#Facts_and_influence_in_French_culture
Have you read Caplan's "the case against education"?
I have, or at least much of it! I think it makes some good points, though I think it overstates the case a bit so I don't find it fully convincing.
Why Harvard doesn’t expand its student body is fairly obvious. There is not enough space in the City or Cambridge for it to do so. But many of its existing buildings are protected, historical buildings. So it can’t grow up and it can’t grow out. There are notorious stories of how hard it is to get the city of Cambridge to allow for more building. It has been expanding to Allston across the river. But nobody wants to stick the undergrads there because it’s so far away they would feel super disconnected. This would also require expanding the faculty, grad students, grad student housing, and more lecture facilities. In other words, it’s not unfathomable that they could spend $500m+ to get an extra 1000 students. It’s not obvious why they would want to do that when most undergrads are on financial aid. Not only that - there has to be someone who would actually want to oversee this project.
The way Harvard has expanded is by offering certificates and through the Extension School. The last I heard the Extension School is the only school that is profitable. Some alumni are of the opinion that the extension school dilutes the brand.
I accept that it's hard/expensive. But it's still hard not to see this as a pretty clear display of revealed priorities.
Organizationally what you are describing would be very challenging. I don’t think it’s an explicit priority for the parties involved. It’s just an implicit bias against supremely challenging tasks with unclear ROI. No one wants to get caught $1 bil over budget across multiple plans that may or may not be feasible and that have a 1000 ways to run aground. The grad student union protests being sent across the river and so on. The city of Cambridge is still angry about Mather Tower so they restrict your planned skyscraper dorm to 6 stories instead of the 12 you genuinely need. Now you’ve triggered protests in by the residents of Allston who don’t want more Harvard buildings. I would not want to be the leader to take on such a risky project.
And to top it off - for every extra student you admit, you are most likely losing money. Because the university itself isn’t profitable and it sustains itself on income from its endowment. So you’ve spent the endowment to get more students space and now you need MORE endowment to actually fund their education.
In general, Harvard’s board has opted to take the excess and provide more generous financial aid to those students who get in.
Harvard already approved a more than $1bil project to renovate many of the existing houses, including providing more rooms. This was absolutely necessary as many of the houses were in a pretty bad state. But I think there are very practical reasons that Harvard won’t go much farther than these modest measures.
Have you read Bryan Caplan’s “The Case Against Education”.
I see a lot of similarity in thinking. I love that book.
I have, or at least much of it! I think it makes some good points, though I think it overstates the case a bit so I don't find it fully convincing.
Interesting. I found it more persuasive than you, but I live in the UK and am happy to admit I have no first hand experience and am therefore likely misunderstanding the system as it exists in reality.
I think Canada provides an example of unintended consequences of the "no high stake admissions" system. Some of the best Canadian students end of at UofT, but plenty of them end up at MIT (and Stanford and Harvard and...), and then go on to work in the US. As long as _someone_ (even in a different country*) operates a super selective school that's awesome to get into, you lose top students from not operating one yourself.
*Also visible in other places - lots of IMO participants at MIT from all around the world
> As long as _someone_ (even in a different country*) operates a super selective school that's awesome to get into, you lose top students from not operating one yourself.
Love it. In this model, creating hyper-prestigious universities is a defection against neighboring countries!
as a Canadian: uoft is definitely competitive, especially for engineering
Waterloo is (for cs) somehow even more competitive, but that tracks with the university and everyone in it being very embarrassed they weren't born american