The NYT recently published an article pointing out that only about 6% of undergraduates attend a university with an acceptance rate of less than 25%. Affirmative action only applies to a handful of elite universities because many colleges accept almost everyone who applies.
In a prior conversation with Charles Murray, economist Glenn Loury alluded to the outsized prestige accorded to the right tail of the distribution. Our national fixation with prestige truly astounds. As Wai Wah Chin points out, only about 5% of students who attend a public high school in NYC end up attending one of the 8 elite schools that require testing. We’re perfectly happy obsessing over the top 5% of students while ignoring the far more numerous bottom 95%.
Sadly the entire debate around elite universities misses the point. Roland Fryer wrote an op-ed recently suggesting that the Ivies and other elite universities spend billions to fund feeder schools that would essentially build up the pipeline of human talent among under-represented communities. What would benefit society far more is if we shifted our focus instead towards promoting vocational training and other policies that would contribute to the uplift of a much broader portion of society.
I'm skeptical that letting in a handful more Black students into the top schools each year would make much of a difference in the grand scheme of things, though I do believe that effecting broad and foundational changes among the African American community might make a dent towards reducing the dysfunction that's become ever more prevalent among segments of the Black population in this country. As detractors of race based affirmative action like Thomas Sowell have often pointed out, such policies typically benefit the most well off members of the targeted groups. Likewise, Robert Cherry points out that while immigrants make up only around 10% of the total Black American population, they constitute roughly 40% of the Black undergraduate student body at the Ivy League.
Charles Murray argues in Real Education that already far too many people are going to college because of our national fixation with prestige or what might be described as the Yale or jail mindset. By all means get rid of legacy admissions, but ultimately let’s stop obsessing over the Harvards and the Stuyvesants and focus instead on reinvigorating the broader foundation of our population.
I agree that the Ivies would do more for minority education by supporting vocational schools, but also too by supporting more feeder schools. (And maybe Harvard can sponsor rowing clubs in the inner cities too!) Their graduates may not end up at the Ivies, but they will be better prepared for any future. And I think affirmative action has lingered on so long because it absolves K-12 education of its role in this. Poor preparation leads to low Black and Latino college success, not some inherent racist bias in universities or lack of ability of Blacks/ Latinos. (Black students from outside the US do well in elite colleges, for instance.) And also the colleges can say, well, we've done our duty, but as Thomas Sowell opined, they are just renting bodies. School choice should also be the law of the land.
I was in higher ed and I totally agree that the focus is off. Age 18 is too late to ameliorate the damage done by poor K-12 education.
Many big cities spend a lot per student K-12, have ongoing teacher training and get extra funding. I think we have to look at the social and emotional reasons, the microcosm of environment as to why some students don’t succeed in addition to addressing the financial reasons.
They do, I know, but it's not working to prepare the students. And of course we have to look at root causes. But now we have to make a move to solve them, IMO anyway. Like teach basic reading and math, and exposure to the larger world outside their circumstances.
If you started with the incorrect assumption that what you learned in college was at all relevant, I would agree with you. But the evidence is compelling that what employers are actually paying for is the right tail of the bell curve, intermediated in a socially acceptable way. That's just a fact. The elite college dropout schtick is a schtick because those playing it have already demonstrated the value of a Harvard degree by getting admitted to Harvard. It's not entirely clear to me why we haven't moved directly to employer recruiting based on SAT or IQ, but it's a great way for the elite colleges to siphon money from the intermediation.
Employers are not permitted to ask what a prospective employee’s SAT scores are. In Griggs Vs. Duke Power Co., 1971, the US Supreme Court said employers may not consider “arbitrary tests” including SATs when considering applicants. The unfortunate result of this ruling is that brilliant kids who scored very high on their SATs but might not be able to afford college (or just have a desire to begin their career) aren’t permitted to present their full aptitude to perspective employers. On Wall Street it used to be common for bright kids to start careers right out of high school. Until a few years ago those same bright kids would instead attend a highly selective school to show they had top SATs (you could major in history at Harvard but with a wink wink every employer would have known you had top standardized test scores, even though your major was not relevant to the field). Now with merit being largely disposed of at elite colleges in favor of intersectionality (and with the Griggs ruling still in place) I’m not exactly certain how our brightest minds will show their aptitude.
Can prospective employees list their high SAT/ACT scores on their resumes or is this illegal too? I read the study Harvard conducted and recently published (noted by a piece in the NYTs) on legacy at top 12 universities. The best predictor of success after graduation was academic rating. If I was looking for a job, I would broadcast my scores, GPA and any academic accolades loud a clear.
At our local community college, local companies have actually partnered with the school to create vocational feeder programs to teach students the skills needed to become the kind of employees that the companies specifically want to hire. It seems to me that this is a much more effective kind of preparation for employment, knowing that a company is waiting to hire you when you complete the program.
I think that a return to the concept of apprenticeships would serve both students and businesses a lot better than throwing kids into the university sausage-making machine and hoping they will be employable when they come out.
Some form of Euro-style trade school/apprenticeship program (and I have an open mind about the different forms) is clearly the right answer for the bottom half or so of college students. Students of non-selective schools make less money than skilled workers even 10 years after graduation. It is ridiculous that we have to import bricklayers, carpenters, electricians and plumbers while every secretary I've ever had has a 4 year college degree (and not all of them from low-cost CUNY-type schools).
I have believed for decades that the European approach to education is far more sensible than ours: tracking students into the type of education path where they have the best opportunity of thriving.
The brightest kids attend high school with other college-bound kids. Kids who dislike book-learning but have the chops to succeed in a more hands-on profession go to vocational high schools, where they don't have to wait to learn useful skills until after graduating from a one-size-fits-all school that tried to turn them into a college student.
Kids who can't be bothered to make anything of themselves go to the sort of high schools we had before college became the norm--places to churn out young adults that have some hope of being decent members of society in retail and service jobs.
But Americans can't seem to bear the thought that a child might be tracked away from college because they don't do well on exams. Despite the fact that doing poorly on exams is proof that the kids won't do well in an educational environment that is FULL of exams.
Sorry but attaching trade schools to community colleges is the wrong approach. They should be run by the trades! As someone who graduated from a trade school, the CIA, and taught culinary at a community college after 20 years of being a chef the attitudes and priorities of a community college run by PhD’s Is totally different then a trade school. For 20 years I was fortunate to be able to bring my graduates to France and Spain visiting the best culinary schools in those countries. Two things stood out. They were run by the trades and they had three levels of learning verification. One by the school, one by the apprentice employer and third by a certification exam. And the students were younger than college age. We have our system set up for the education/ degree granting industry- not the students.
I fear you're right, but there are too few actual trade schools these days to meet the demand. Also, in the U.S., the trades tend to be either heavily union-dominated or not sufficiently organized to supervise schools. Then there's the problem here of a long history of "trade schools" that are just for-profit ventures that don't actually provide a useful education.
As you said, it's all set up for the institutions, not for the students' benefit.
Big fan of this. I have worked several office jobs where college grads had to be taught what to do just like the non-college grads. So many jobs just need some one mentally capable of doing the job and then teaching them to do it, which is so specific that College couldn't really prepare you for it.
On top of that, we need more people doing trade jobs. Heck, those are the jobs AI will likely be coming for last as they require hands on work that doesn't involve a computer.
I have been in IT for over 20 years and never met someone with an IT degree that didn't admit that school taught them nothing about how to actually do IT.
What any person needs to do is ask what they want from a career and THEN decide the path to get there. Going to college to THEN figure out what you want to do seems like an expensive way to go about it.
It’s not like a bunch of kids from the south side of Chicago are getting into these elite schools. It’s mostly middle class kids and children of immigrants, kids that really aren’t facing any more challenges than any other middle class kids. If they actually cared about disadvantaged minorities, spend a fraction of your endowments helping disadvantaged students.
They can't be helped. You are talking about a culture that is so damaged, so fractured, and now so coddled despite their total failure, that they are dismissing the entirety of Western civilization as something created by "old white men" that is of little value or relevance.
Boston, a very liberal city that recently has become majority-minority, is desperately trying to "diversify" its famous exam schools such as Boston Latin. But the population that they really want to insert into these schools know nothing about abstract concepts like "right triangle" and historical facts. They come from dysfunctional families in violent neighborhoods, and they're lucky if they will survive childhood intact.
Putting them into these schools would require dumbing down or simply eliminating the exams altogether, something liberals really want to do, but so far have been unable to achieve.
My kid just graduated from a suburban high school that hosted a contingent of inner city kids in a program called METCO, the Massachusetts government's attempt to bring "diversity" to the metro west towns and expose some of these hopeless juveniles to a quality education. They were wretched students, dangerous, and prone to dealing drugs in the bathroom. They were every one of them black, even though Dorchester & other parts of Boston have quite a few non-blacks, many of whom are quite low income, Asians, Afghanis, South Americans etc. But for some reason, only dark skin color qualifies someone for the program.
The primary accomplishment of METCO was to persuade the students and many of us parents who heard their stories that the children in Dorchester and surrounding Boston districts are hopelessly backward and unable to function in a civilized, higher standards environment.
Dare I say that blacks have to break the cycle themselves? Because all the "pro racial equity" liberals would never openly discuss the real problems and all they really care about is showing how righteous they are. And if any conservatives tell it like it is, they're crucified as being "hateful" and "racist". So blacks are left to hang dry and they're on their own. But their so-called leaders don't do squat for them. Al Sharpton is the perpetual hypocrite. The Beyonce, Jay-Z, and Rihanna make millions but only care about themselves. The Obamas are busy hanging out with the Hollywood crowd at the Hamptons. Everyone falls over themselves praising Michelle Obama. To me she's nothing but a big hypocrite who wants to be the second coming of Jackie O. As the first black US first lady, she could've made education of inner city black kids her cause. Instead she took up the bullshit and useless "Let's Move" campaign messing around with school lunches trying to get kids to eat hipster food. All the while she had to know Monsanto and the bad food industrial farming lobbies had her husband in their bags. Yet the black community laps them up. Why I truly don't know. In all honesty, they deserve better after all the support they give these haughty, selfish assholes.
Michelle Obama has written a couple of books mostly about herself, and on every page she brings up racism. Every. Page. Go to Amazon and click on "Look Inside" and read a few pages.
Trump may have been a jerk, but he got a few things right: he encouraged black entrepreneurialism. When he was potus, I watched a YT video where he attended a black entrepreneurial conference in the South, Atlanta I think. It was just inspiring; these business people got up and told of their hard work and success, and thanked Trump for creating a supportive business environment. They didn't beg for help. One guy got in front of the mic, looked at Trump, and said "We're in the same business. I'm in construction. I started in my basement, me and my wife. After a year we moved up in the world... to the living room! [everyone laughs] Now I have 30 employees. [etc.]" Trump didn't comment; he just stood there, smiling approvingly.
Trump worked with Sen. Tim Scott to put Opportunity Zones into the 2017 tax act. If you google it, you'll find all kinds of nasty articles about it, like PBS and factcheck.org -- "they didn't work". The liberals hate the idea. Low tax, low regulation, foster business activity -- the horror! But it's a brilliant idea, in my opinion. Too bad it wasn't given a chance.
Yes, amazing isn't it -- Trump's 2020 Republican convention was a tour de force of diversity and can-do spirit. The most uplifting messaging on what it means to be an American.
Now we have RFK Jr.'s AMERICAN message. And look what they're doing to him. The misrepresentations, the smearing...the Dems are the most disgusting, hateful, nasty....can't believe I have to re-register for that party in order to vote for RFK in the primary. Talk about holding your nose.
Michelle obama in an interview said she was worried that when her daughters went out, they could be shot by a cop. First of all, the odds are that a secret service agent would take the bullet. Second, the odds are much much higher they would be shot by another black
Exactly. Even if black people are right that their situation is largely the result of slavery and oppression (and maybe they are!), being right doesn’t fix your life. YOU are the only person who can fix your life. Policies won’t fix it. Free money won’t fix it. UBI isn’t going to suddenly make black teens stop having babies. It’s not going to put books on shelves in their homes. It’s not going to make black parents care more about their kids doing well in school than being a basketball star. Policies don’t change people. People have to change themselves. And the black community has a lot of cultural problems that only THEY can change.
I agree, black people need to come up with a grassroots solution. Scott Adams calls our problem "the last mile" problem. No one knows what do in the last mile of a societal problem.
On the obamas, can you imagine if they spent time leading an organization in Chicago made up of their leadership and local leaders. It would be focused on the social problems in the community. It could be a framework for a national program. Similar to what carter did for habitat for humanity. They have done great on building their net worth but have done nothing to lead where they could make a significant difference.
The Obamas are grifters to the black community, just like Al Sharpton. I do feel bad for the black community. They're so want leaders on a national level but so few rose to take the helm they'd take anyone they got who would just give them false promises and a modicum of pride. And let's not even get started on the BLM grift. That's their own people grifting on them.
And as if even the news is inadvertently pointing to Michelle Obama's hypocrisy, the tragic death of their personal chef--in the Hamptons no less--exposes they have personal chefs coming for them. Yeah well if we all have personal chefs making delicious cuisines made with the freshest, healthiest food, we wouldn't have to deal with obesity problems either. How about they not hire a personal chef and use the money to offer free weekend lunches to poor black kids in Chicago instead? I'm sure they can get some black churches or community centers in Chicago to do that.
You can't just parachute some kid into a top high school or college. You need to work with them from elementary school on, preferably at schools that their parents choose: Free choice. Then we can deal with the rest of government schools.
Yup. I say some version of this comment every time this topic comes up. I’ve seen the who cares, white people bad mentality up close. Until the lower class black community wants to fix themselves, there’s really nothing the rest of us can do.
Great comment, thank you. I often voice concern over our high school graduates who are not interested in attending college, what opportunities exist for them? For example, years of manufacturing work being replaced by robots or other technology, and wages not keeping up if these jobs were available. The third generation auto plant worker or steel mill worker or family farmer that provided a decent middle income living is becoming or has already become a thing of the past. What’s left? Target? Walmart? I am hopeful that putting more dollars into the infrastructure upgrades that so desperately needs to get done, or other new similar ventures perhaps in other industries, creates opportunities for young people to apprentice or get jobs doing the welding, plumbing, electrical work, construction, etc. that needs to be done, and will always need to get done by people, not machines.
Check out Los Angeles. You will find hundred of thousands of enterprising people in the skilled trades and in small business ownership. They are largely Hispanic and they are shifting right. What’s the difference? Mindset. When asked if they know how to do something, first they say “yes”, and then they figure it out. Immigrants. They get the job done!
Shifting to the right. They are largely traditional, family people, who are not embracing the left and woke politics. Their children are now filling the University of California system, with 8 acclaimed universities. As you said, their work is often artisan level. They have revitalized Southern California in every way, including providing hope, and a great example. I admire them enormously.
Steve, It seems like most of these trade jobs are better suited for men than women (on average, yeah yeah I know girls can be anything they want). What trade jobs are available for young women (other than beauty industry). Some may become homemakers but not all can or want to.
Understood. Much is written today about men being lost, etc. and I thought through that lens (my apologies, not intended). If not college material, if not military material, where did those 18 year old young men go years ago — the steel mills, the auto plants, manufacturing, etc. Many dads who were plumbers, electricians, etc. wanted their kids (sons, especially) to go to college and not have a job where you showered after work, not before. These were good paying jobs for the times, and allowed women who wanted to be homemakers to do so. Now, most young people who are married need two salaries to buy a home or pay the rent, unfortunately not all college degrees guarantee good paying jobs. There are real needs out there, for men or women, pulling it all together is the hard part.
P.S. was visiting my daughter in Texas where a large highway project is under way. Must admit, surprised how many women were under those hard hats, especially running the heavy equipment…..
Thanks, Steve. No apologies needed, I am just seriously wondering what college alternatives are available for young women, with everyone talking about how college is a waste of time and money. I am glad that women are accepted in those highway project jobs but realistically, I think fewer women can handle them. I am pretty sure that I (or my daughter) would not last a week.
Lots of healthcare jobs. They pay well. There is an extreme shortage of healthcare workers nationally. I see many young women gravitating toward that field.
The whole time I was listening to the podcast, I kept thinking what evidence is there that elite universities do a better job at educating folks than a state public university? (There isn't any that I am aware of) And then I remembered the various charts for Ivy's demonstrating how top heavy in socio-economic rank the students there are. And finally, I wondered why 30-40% of Ivy graduates are going into high finance? What is being taught there that causes such a high percentage to head into a basically non-productive role (moving wealthy people's capital around to capture slightly higher ROIs)?
So I have friends whose children were academic overachievers. One went to Vanderbilt and one went to Dartmouth. One went in as a mechanical engineering student and the other was interested in doing medical science. The one that wanted to be a medical scientist just graduated and got a job at a private equity firm (now billing itself as a Global Investment Manager). The other, who entered college as a mechanical engineering major is doing an internship in Chicago with a mergers and acquisitions firm.
What happened to them to encourage them into high finance at those institutions?
I think the world would have been better off if those two stayed with their original thoughts on career. But maybe that is just me............
1. Money, which social media, and all our other social cues has been made our master. It is seen as a measure of our status and accomplishment.
2. They’ve watched corporate America toss their employees out, without benefits and pensions of prayer decades. So they are driven to get their money as they can, and while they were young. They cannot buy a house and start a family on one salary.
3. Our brilliant minds are not turn into politics or public service, due to agency capture, our gerontocracy, and their disgust at the literal swamp that is Washington DC.
I tend to be less cynical. All those issues existed before they matriculated. So what changed while at these universities????? Status.........well maybe there is some of that...........when we tell those that matriculate to these universities you are better than everyone else. Maybe it is just as simple as fear of not living up to your parents standards????? (since most come from top 5% socio-economically) Or maybe hanging out with the world's wealthy makes you want to emulate????? The cynical part of me sees It as part of the elite separating themselves from the rest of us and not caring that the world is burning.
I have struggled with that for almost 40 years now. MIT class of 1980. Materials science major. Shifted to trading options in Chicago and then a small private hedge fund. Saw dozens of fraternity brothers follow the same path over the years. I often wondered who is around to cure cancer? Having said that, if they are making the financial markets more efficient then that is a social good. If however, the financial industry is a beneficiary of repeated bailout subsidies then it is not. I lean heavily toward the latter. But that is a political problem, not an educational system problem.
$$$$$$$ I know of one, PhD from Penn in something science related working in a lab, not making much, and got gobbled up by Wall Street because he was able to apply the models he used for his experiments to economic probabilities (former roommate at Penn asked his help). His models became so valuable that he was able to retire in his forties. Not easy to turn down the money….
Yes, but your buddy got there because of his cognitive ability and inventing something that was valuable. I have an acquaintance who was a mechanical engineer who graduated Dartmouth and started a firm that now manufacturers a world leading product. Same deal, he created a world class product that the world went on to buy. He has told me it never occurred to him to do anything else, like go to Wall Street. But, the problem is these kids are skipping the part about inventing something that is useful to others and going right to high finance. Having brain power siphoned off into high finance for immediate $$$$ out of college is problematic to me.
Don’t disagree…. Recall reading articles back in 90’s about our brain flight to Wall Street. Could one of these science oriented people have found the cure for cancer? Make the next power source? With you with your concern, that’s why always hopeful when I read those stories about the high school science “nerds” already thinking the deep thoughts about creating/inventing/finding that “thing” that nobody has thought of….. and winning science fairs with it.
If you think finance is a “non-productive role,” you don’t know how the global economy works. These kids go into it because they realize there’s lots of money and lots of influence in it. Who could blame them?
Also, I don’t think anybody seriously claims that the Ivies provide a better education. But they do provide better networking and internship opportunities, because of their status. And that’s very valuable. We don’t go to college solely for the education. Most people go for career preparation as well.
But yeah, if you just want a solid education, go to a state school. There’s no shame in that. If you want to be competitive in a competitive field, you’ve got to go to a selective university.
Without affirmative action, all Democrats have to do to get the same result is just let Black students cheat on the entrance exam.
This would be easy to do since the vast majority of Black students live in areas controlled by Democrats. Letting kids use their phones during a test to make up for slavery isn’t nearly as unethical and perverted as stealing my money to make up for slavery.
Now, personally, I prefer the approach where we tell people who want to make up for slavery to blow themselves because, at this point, that’s a totally psychotic idea; but I’m not in charge and everyone is a scumbag, so the test cheating idea is probably our best option.
Agreed. Focusing on early childhood education and basic literacy and numeracy would do more to create a pipeline of successful kids from disadvantaged backgrounds than any college policy could. Harvard is a crimson herring. I wish people would stop obsessing about it. Nothing more than status anxiety.
I'm a little wary of the "vocational schooling" mantra. Yes, the trades could use more apprentices. But the impression I get is that they also rigorously control who gets to enter the trades. At least in the Midwestern state where I live, admission to these professions are controlled by unions, professional associations, and entrance exams. The last thing the vocational professionals want is too many licensed tradesmen driving down their prices.
So, yes, stress vocational training, but at a certain point, you're going to run out of places to put those kids, too. I like Roland Fryer's idea, because, while only a small percentage of kids will get into the "elite" schools, it should raise the performance of a large body of kids to where they can function better in society and have far more options than they otherwise would have.
Every time Biden opens his flapper about "good union jobs" he is proving your point, A.J. Unions today are nothing more than tradesmen protection rackets, even less nuanced than the medieval guilds which were established to both set standards of production, but more importantly to reduce competition and keep compensation (of all sorts) high.
How on earth more people point don't point this out every time Biden appears in some tiny union hall with hand-picked union reps, and basically tells the American people they can shove it, is beyond me. "Look! I've got a shitload of government money and I'm going to give it to my friends, the steelworkers, or the electrical workers, or pipefitters, and the rest of you can just suck eggs."
It's true that 50% or so of American higher education is effectively open access. But just to make sure we are all on the same page, AA almost entirely determines whether any African Americans attend Harvard and heavily influences how many African Americans attend Penn State main campus. You can agree or disagree whether this is good or important or not, but we should all operate with the same indisputable facts.
Good comments, Yan. Plans to invest in feeder schools ignores the elephant in the room. The Black students in the USA are held back by dysfunctional families, community chaos, and crime. There are few role models and no real plan to rehabilitate the Black family. Giving billions from Ivy League endowments to buildings and programs in Bed-Stuy, Harlem, Roxbury, and Northeast Washington DC will do very little.
Thanks for the book recommendation from Murray. I hadn't read that one. Scholars as diverse as Peter Turchin and Noah Webster have said the same thing, that elite production is the source of much of our problems today.
I must have missed something in this interview. I thought it was awful. With all due respect he really sounds like a blowhard who lives under an ivy-coated rock. How about a roundtable or debate between him and someone like Glenn Loury, John McWhorter, Shelby Steele, or anyone else who isn’t scared to say that eliminating race-based admissions is a good thing?
Agree completely - this is perhaps the only interview of Bari's where I quickly became entirely unsympathetic with the guest. He sounds very out of touch and equivocated when asked about what he could have or would have done differently. Additionally, they didn't talk at all about the role universities play in skyrocketing tuition and why they have no skin in the game for the college loan pyramid scheme. I see the value in higher education and am an absolute proponent of meritocracy, although it is rational to consider lived experience. What we don't have at universities (and I have and have had kids at Stanford, Yale, University of Texas, Southern Methodist University) is diversity of thought. Really could have used much tougher questioning.
Actually Larry Summers is one of the more rational of the out-of-touch elites. You may remember he predicted this inflation when no one else was listening. He was run out of Harvard for daring to suggest an open dialogue on why women aren't well represented in the sciences. I don't agree fencing and crew should be eliminated. These athletes can't make the basketball or football teams. Larry should read "Boys in the Boat" about our 1936 Olympic rowing team.
Terrific book! Now that I think about it, crew members are predominantly white & European, while fencers are predominantly Asian - so perhaps that is another race whistle. Higher education is quite the mess.
He's was the only leftwing economist who was raiding concerns about inflation. Recall there were several on the right who predicted it when the bills were being debated.
Ugh. “These people” (i.e., the Woke elite) all pay fealty to the dogma via specific vocabulary. It’s so pretentious, and exposes their biases, even when they’re trying to be “balanced” and “fair”.
Re: a summer job in archeology, he says: “Is that a really interesting, valuable experience our class wants to include, or is that a particular bauble that their parents’ good fortune enabled them to obtain?” What an assumption! As if people without major money don’t have the initiative to find unique opportunities like working abroad. Maybe they financed the trip by working as a server?
“ And I’m not aware of any real concern that our admissions process has become a victimhood Olympics.” Hmmmm, any REAL concern…apparently, he needs to get out more, because the across-the-board lowering of standards (see CA’s new math, for example) is 100% about the victimhood olympics!
I don’t find it presumptuous. It’s the truth. It may not be in the future, but it is right now. There is no equity for summer jobs overseas in archaeology. I believe in speaking truth, rather than joining the equity train, and ignoring what is right before my eyes. So call me presumptuous, but I would bet on it.
It's the chicken and the egg. Why do kids do these experiences and participate in clubs, etc., develop a robotic arm ... ? Because those are the types of students who are being accepted at the universities. They say they want to see leadership and service, so students strive for that because students who do those types of things are getting into elite schools. Schools should stop asking for those types of things if they find it suspect. They've been part of creating the system he now finds suspect.
I missed it to, he sounded like a privilege punk who had been gifted an elite education, and then has the chutzpah to come and tell TFP and us who subscribe, how we should go about admitting students to these elite universities
Concur. His rambling defense of the policies that put Harvard and North Carolina in the hot seat with the Supreme Court was poor at best. While I do agree that "private" institutions should be able to set their own policies, I'm not sure that Harvard or any of the elite universities fit that definition anymore. There is a lot of public monies that pour into them, and there should be just as much oversight of them as any "public" institiution.
I suffered through it in the spirit of hearing more opinions. He's out of touch for sure, after all, isn't he the guy pushed for Biden's "inflation reduction act?"
I couldn’t get past his catastrophizing about the end of race-based admissions. Shelby Steele changed my mind on that - there’s nothing more smug or elitist than saying “whites got you into this mess, and only whites can get you out of it”.
The entire conversation presupposes that minorities can’t get into elite universities or find success of their own accord; affirmative action means that they’ll only find success when whites are good and ready to give it them. It’s incredibly insulting, and it’s pure racism.
Very much agree. Frankly, he sounded a lot like Anthony Fauci, equivocating on every question. As with Janet Yellen, I used to have a high regard for Larry Summers, but this was not an impressive interview for him.
Also, the elite universities were quick to decry the Supreme Court’s decision on “affirmative action” claiming it would damage diversity. Yet those same schools seem very focused on destroying diversity of both thought and speech — diversities that universities should value most highly.
I agree. He was completely disingenuous. At one point I think he said he thought the data on the discrimination against Asians in the case was overstated, but he had no control on admissions anyways. Bari tried to press him, but he took no responsibility for his role.
Fantastic interview, Bari. Would love to see more articles about the attendees and topics at Sun Valley. "A move towards subjectivity will end up being a move towards mediocrity" is worth framing.
A few follow up questions for Larry Summers:
1) What does he think of new universities like UATX that are focused on meritocracy and the pursuit of truth, which Harvard and other Ivy League schools abandoned?
2) Now that there are more administrators at Harvard than undergrad students, does he think they have become to powerful relative to the faculty, students, and presidents like him?
3) Given that Larry was fired for wrongthink and the Harvard faculty is 90%+ lefty, what does he think is the best way to restore open inquiry, intellectual diversity, and free speech on campus?
4) Harvard just appointed a new president, Claudine Gay. Does he think she was appointed by merit or DIE? Should she be more carefully scrutinized, given her involvement with several major scandals including Roland Fryer? (details here https://www.karlstack.com/p/the-curious-case-of-claudine-gay)
5) Why should we still revere Harvard when just in the past year their morgue manager was arrested for selling body parts, a leading HBS professor who studies ethics resigned due to fraud, and it hired laughingstocks like Bill De Blasio, Lori Lightfoot, and Brian Stelter? (details here: https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/how-to-get-into-harvard-part-3)
6) Larry bragged that Xi Jinping's daughter attended Harvard. Several years ago, the head of Harvard's chemistry department Charles Lieber was found guilty of lying about his work with the CCP. What measures should American universities take to protect IP from foreign adversaries like the CCP's Thousand Talents program?
After reading these suggested questions it seems like Bari missed a golden opportunity to push a bit harder with Mr Summers. I too wondered about the recent appt of their President.
The weight of the name, the weight of the access, and the weight of their hubris and elitism, in spite of the tokens. I will be honest… the Harvard name still impresses. Phenomenal branding!
Agreed. Now everyone's going to come up with the saddest disadvantaged stories they can think of. Not sure why people want to be defined by this. Frankly, not sure why anyone still wants to go to an Ivy League.
That is the million dollar question. These "Elite" institutions are not the best anymore. The public needs to stop buying into an idea of what they once were.
It’s all about the contacts you are going to get there. Networking - to be good at it is making the difference. But it totally depends on one’s personality - to profit from being member of a club one has to be clubbable in the first place.
Einstein was quite sociable and no hermit. And he hadn’t to be clubbable of course. He was a fricking genius.
Anyway. The scientist and the IT nerd are less dependent on schmoozing and back-scratching than the poor schmuck who want to make their way in the humanities or succeed in law or financial services.
I have experience teaching at universities considered “common public schools” and a couple of east coast elites and this comment is spot on. I was going to write a long comment saying so - but @Chris sums it up perfectly. Go find a good affordable school that will allow you to be challenged and learn - stay away from schools full of people who are full of themselves.
I was really puzzled by this. Hasn’t it always been a victimhood Olympics? Or at least for the last thirty years? I remember essays in the late nineties were always about how you “overcame adversity”. My son is applying now and nothing has changed.
What is it with these stupid essays anyway ? Anyone can make any old story ?
I am so grateful that we don’t have this nonsense in Australia. You need the grades to get into university, and nobody takes any notice of where you went to high school.
Unless you are indigenous (3%population) in which case you’ll get a scholarship, but probable flunk out because your weren’t actually prepared.
Yeah. I think the best essays are about how easy someone has had it. It's really important to forget where one has come from and to dismiss any adversity/challenges that have been overcome. Builds character.
Summers manages to dodge most of the hard questions in this interview with "that's a question we should be asking." So much of the conversation around elite schools focuses on the top and the bottom but completely ignores the middle class who are sacrificing time, money, and emotional resources to provide opportunities like that archeological dig or an SAT prep class or to live in a tiny home but send their kids to an excellent school or to have a parent stay home with children for much of their youth.
God help the middle class kid with married parents who work in mid level jobs. Woe betide kids who just worked their butt off in a public school to achieve straight As in AP classes, high SAT test scores, leadership in extra curriculars, service, etc. That's a kid who has shown they know how to hustle, how to manage time, and how to achieve what teachers ask of them across the board. I'm not sure why their lack of a dead sibling, a parent with cancer, a tragic divorce, or living in poverty makes them less qualified to attend an elite school and less worthy of financial support if they manage to get in.
But let us be sure to keep football and soccer programs, because that's how we show educational equity!
Mary, they don’t want your kids. All the hurdles they set up are just post facto obstacles to make it harder for your kids to get in. We figured that out a long time ago and when enough of our kids set their sights on other schools, these “elite” schools will be known for their toxic culture. Either way, employers are giving kids veiled IQ tests because they don’t trust the product as Summers alludes. He knows what’s up. He’s just a coward and can’t talk about the elephants in the room.
I’ve talked to a lot of employers across multiple disciplines who now WON’T hire from elite schools because the graduates are entitled grievance mongers who don’t know how to do actual work. They look for smart, motivated kids from so-called second tier schools.
I'm reaching the end of my working career, but for a few decades I was involved in recruiting for our firm. I avoided students from colleges such as Stanford like the plague. The kids were just looking for a resume start and would be gone in two years before they even learned how to be competent (let alone useful or profitable). We called them dilettante, because of their profound belief that they were destined for bigger and better things.
Higher Ed is all about telling kids that they are leaders and will change the world. Forget about competence in your field which in totality is a far greater good for society. We are selecting for selfish traits and the Harvards of the world must be called out for it.
Remember: in the world, the highest self-esteem is found in younger male Blacks. The lowest in younger female Asians. Fighting for the place that merit commands is harder under that circumstance.
I went to Amherst and it’s spelled “dilettantes”. Hmph. 😆
I agree 100% though - building a resume instead of growing up and learning how to build oneself within an organization just screams narcissistic un-seriousness of purpose and speaks to the big problem, here: “what-can-you-do-for-me”, instead of “I’ll prove to you and myself what I can do and be an asset to society”.
Sorry - trying to be funny - more importantly though, your comment was, I thought, spot on.
I still don’t get how private education institutions get to amass a ridiculously huge fortune, tax-free, and then not be required to share that wealth in a way that benefits their local communities, the states they’re in, and America. I mean, in terms of cold, hard, CASH!
Mary, I had similar thoughts. The college “game” is very frustrating. My kids are the kind of kids and we are the kind of family you reference. All of the rhetoric on this focuses on two particular groups and leaves out the large swath of families and students who are too busy working their rears off to be a part of the conversation.
The elite schools are admitting the most kids in the top 0.1% (25% plus) and secondly, in the bottom 40%. Kids of parents in the 90-95% income band, the wealthy, but not the super rich, are punished the most. Kids who are admitted in the top 90% go. It’s the middle class who actually can’t attend because it is economically the most difficult. This data was all recently published by Harvard. I’m sharing the link below.
My husband went to an ivy and he was rather poor growing up. (He was not a legacy).
He says not all legacy admissions are just buying your way in. A lot of children of legacys come from smart parents who can get in on their own merits but don't have Rockefeller money to donate a wing.
Banning legacy's is going to prevent a lot of worthy students from getting an elite education.
It will not stop uber wealthy family's from making a giant donation and getting their child in that way.
Also when are people going to wake up and realize the world isn't fair? Some people are just smarter, richer, better looking and good at rowing boats.
I don’t get your argument here. If some legacy students are worthy enough that they can get in without preferences, great! They would still be admitted if colleges eliminated legacy preferences.
I don't think we can totally regulate who is admitted, like legacy admits or sports admits, but race is a special problem that must be solved. Admitting a poorly prepared Latino student is just as wrong as denying qualified Asians, or in my parents' day, qualified Jews and Irish. It's a zero sum game at Harvard, unlike a state uni. Each person admitted means someone else didn't get it. If that's based on race, it isn't fair.
I agree. Life isn’t fair. Everyone on this forum has immense privilege compared to basically half the world. However, this should not be an argument against meritocracy. Your husband should not have been admitted if he had lower scores. And he may be more capable in the workforce than all those who graduated ahead of him. That competency should be sorted out after graduation in the workforce.
The problem is that progressive and identity-consumed culture on elite campuses does lead to a victim/oppression Olympics. Leftists use self-reported marginalized identities for self-advancement. It's a status game. For example, huge numbers of students now pretend to be LGBTQ, either to increase their admission odds or to gain social status as an oppressed person. A whopping 28.9% of Gen Z students at Harvard claims to be LGBTQ. At Brown it's even worse: 38%.
It pays to be part of a marginalized group and a member of the perpetually aggrieved. This creates the competitive urge to be positioned advantageously in a victimhood hierarchy. The Oppression Olympics is the arena wherein this competition of victimhood takes place, using identity politics and intersectionality to establish the “winners” of this grotesque theatre of the absurd.
And it is so incredibly privileged to have the luxury of spending time, energy and money competing for victim status! People who are actually starving in the street or who have no medical care are not going to show up for a "privilege walk."
The parental and student obsession with getting into an "elite" university is one of the biggest wastes of time and resources out there. I have 2 degrees from average universities and 1 from a more elite one. The status of the university meant and still means nothing in my 30 year career, and I am sure I am not the only one. Stop the madness.
A question I believe relevant is how does Harvard justify a $50 billion endowment. Helping students with under $60k household income is a pittance. They probably pay their investment advisors a couple hundred million. Redistribute the wealth, or is that just nonsensical talk?
And their tax exempt status means that we taxpayers helped them make that endowment. They could well use some of that money to sponsor K-12 feeder schools. Sure, teachers' unions would fight it, but so what. Or sponsor sports clubs in inner cities. Lots of things could be done. So why don't they? I guess the way it is now is just easier.
What about after school enrichment programs? A diversity of programs that nourish children’s interest and self esteem along with allowing other methods of teaching math or reading to support academic success. After school, because of the “witching hours” between 3 -6 where children are often unsupervised. Russian math classes, Kumon style English programs, or other paid tutoring programs available to the middle and upper class can provide equal opportunities and hopefully provide the data to suggest improvement in the curriculum rather than the dumbing down. (Prod the dragons of education’s political forces with effective facts.)
I agree. I thought it was adorable how he kept hanging his hat on that. A bit like letting someone dying, of dehydration, finish the snow cone you don’t want to finish. How heroic.
With two kids in college and having gone through the process twice over the last 4 years, I can tell you there is no such thing as legacy admissions unless you are uber wealthy. You have to donate tens of millions dollars. We know several families who have donated to and raised money for their elite alma maters for years — to the tune of millions of dollars — whose highly qualified kids were rejected. These universities are missing out on a lot of great kids, and killing their fundraising in the process.
Not only that, but schools are disincentivizing regular alumni to donate as well. Why would I give money to a school with a massive endowment knowing my kid won’t get in anyway? And many of the students they are admitting now will have no loyalty or connection to the school. They will complain they were marginalized or mistreated during their time there, and never fundraise or donate a nickel. It’s already happening and will only get worse. I guess they don’t care.
Mine reportedly has one of the biggest armies of DEI officers of any university. I'll bet they are paid up to $300K apiece, depending on their org chart level. No more donations to them!
Sounds like these elite schools absolutely do not need another dollar in donations or from fundraising...ever. Are people engaging in fundraisers for the purpose of getting their kids admitted ?
I agree that Larry Summers sounds misguided in this interview.
His response about sports, “Look, I think the difference between some sports and others is that in some sports, the vast majority of Americans can play, and can be trained to play and to develop their talent. There are just vastly more American high schools that have basketball teams than have squash teams.”
Is so absurd. Because some kids have the opportunity to play squash or row they shouldn’t be able to use that as a skill to get into an elite college? Then eliminate the rowing team at Harvard. What a stupid thing to say from an actual former president of the most prestigious school in the US.
It’s like middle schools eliminating algebra to level the playing field. I genuinely think we might be living in the Second Dark Ages. Not joking.
I was surprised at the surface level interrogation of his own ideas and beliefs. According to him he is ok with Harvard violating Title 6 derived from equal protection clause of 14th amendment as long as it targets a specific group in the interest of “fairness.”
Plus, they comment regarding eliminating crew and fencing is complete nonsense. A solution in search of a problem. I have a friend from college who grew up in the Bronx in a working class home who became the coxswain on the crew team in college. So Larry will punish her but says nothing about the kids of politicians, etc.
I'm surprised Larry Summers did not comment on the layers and layers of administrators prevalent in higher education. Students and their families are now paying more for poorly educated bureaucrats to tell them what to think than for qualified faculty to teach them how to think.
Yeah, if all they are doing is indoctrinating students then they only need one set of radicals to do it. Faculty and DEI both is duplication of services.
"Stanford University has more administrative staff and faculty than it does students. Specifically, there were 15,750 administrators, 2,288 faculty members, and 16,937 students. The paid help of 18,038 (administrators plus faculty) outnumbered the customers (students) by 1,101. That gave me an idea for a stunning administrative reorganization: give each student a paid concierge—an academic butler, if you will—to help navigate the pain of collegiate living in Palo Alto."
This interview is a huge fail for Bari and The FP. You had a one-on-one with one of the most powerful men in American education and you allowed him to punt on every question of consequence. To paraphrase the great American film Billy Madison: everyone is now dumber for having listened to this exchange.
I disagree. I think she pushed him on the victimhood olympics and asked the exact question I was thinking - why didn't he do these things when he was president of Harvard? If his answers were inadequate or pathetically self-serving, which they were, there isn't much more for Bari to do other than maybe yell out "GOTCHA!"
The NYT recently published an article pointing out that only about 6% of undergraduates attend a university with an acceptance rate of less than 25%. Affirmative action only applies to a handful of elite universities because many colleges accept almost everyone who applies.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/07/03/opinion/for-most-college-students-affirmative-action-was-not-enough.html
In a prior conversation with Charles Murray, economist Glenn Loury alluded to the outsized prestige accorded to the right tail of the distribution. Our national fixation with prestige truly astounds. As Wai Wah Chin points out, only about 5% of students who attend a public high school in NYC end up attending one of the 8 elite schools that require testing. We’re perfectly happy obsessing over the top 5% of students while ignoring the far more numerous bottom 95%.
Sadly the entire debate around elite universities misses the point. Roland Fryer wrote an op-ed recently suggesting that the Ivies and other elite universities spend billions to fund feeder schools that would essentially build up the pipeline of human talent among under-represented communities. What would benefit society far more is if we shifted our focus instead towards promoting vocational training and other policies that would contribute to the uplift of a much broader portion of society.
I'm skeptical that letting in a handful more Black students into the top schools each year would make much of a difference in the grand scheme of things, though I do believe that effecting broad and foundational changes among the African American community might make a dent towards reducing the dysfunction that's become ever more prevalent among segments of the Black population in this country. As detractors of race based affirmative action like Thomas Sowell have often pointed out, such policies typically benefit the most well off members of the targeted groups. Likewise, Robert Cherry points out that while immigrants make up only around 10% of the total Black American population, they constitute roughly 40% of the Black undergraduate student body at the Ivy League.
Charles Murray argues in Real Education that already far too many people are going to college because of our national fixation with prestige or what might be described as the Yale or jail mindset. By all means get rid of legacy admissions, but ultimately let’s stop obsessing over the Harvards and the Stuyvesants and focus instead on reinvigorating the broader foundation of our population.
I agree that the Ivies would do more for minority education by supporting vocational schools, but also too by supporting more feeder schools. (And maybe Harvard can sponsor rowing clubs in the inner cities too!) Their graduates may not end up at the Ivies, but they will be better prepared for any future. And I think affirmative action has lingered on so long because it absolves K-12 education of its role in this. Poor preparation leads to low Black and Latino college success, not some inherent racist bias in universities or lack of ability of Blacks/ Latinos. (Black students from outside the US do well in elite colleges, for instance.) And also the colleges can say, well, we've done our duty, but as Thomas Sowell opined, they are just renting bodies. School choice should also be the law of the land.
I was in higher ed and I totally agree that the focus is off. Age 18 is too late to ameliorate the damage done by poor K-12 education.
Many big cities spend a lot per student K-12, have ongoing teacher training and get extra funding. I think we have to look at the social and emotional reasons, the microcosm of environment as to why some students don’t succeed in addition to addressing the financial reasons.
They do, I know, but it's not working to prepare the students. And of course we have to look at root causes. But now we have to make a move to solve them, IMO anyway. Like teach basic reading and math, and exposure to the larger world outside their circumstances.
Amen to that.
I say, Death to Higher Education.
College for me has been 95% a waste of time. If I didn’t have the GI Bill paying for it, I never would have gone.
Plus, with the internet and books, I’d argue that the entire scholastic institution is an outdated model that needs to evolve with the technology.
If you started with the incorrect assumption that what you learned in college was at all relevant, I would agree with you. But the evidence is compelling that what employers are actually paying for is the right tail of the bell curve, intermediated in a socially acceptable way. That's just a fact. The elite college dropout schtick is a schtick because those playing it have already demonstrated the value of a Harvard degree by getting admitted to Harvard. It's not entirely clear to me why we haven't moved directly to employer recruiting based on SAT or IQ, but it's a great way for the elite colleges to siphon money from the intermediation.
Employers are not permitted to ask what a prospective employee’s SAT scores are. In Griggs Vs. Duke Power Co., 1971, the US Supreme Court said employers may not consider “arbitrary tests” including SATs when considering applicants. The unfortunate result of this ruling is that brilliant kids who scored very high on their SATs but might not be able to afford college (or just have a desire to begin their career) aren’t permitted to present their full aptitude to perspective employers. On Wall Street it used to be common for bright kids to start careers right out of high school. Until a few years ago those same bright kids would instead attend a highly selective school to show they had top SATs (you could major in history at Harvard but with a wink wink every employer would have known you had top standardized test scores, even though your major was not relevant to the field). Now with merit being largely disposed of at elite colleges in favor of intersectionality (and with the Griggs ruling still in place) I’m not exactly certain how our brightest minds will show their aptitude.
Can companies basically replicate the SAT and have applicants take the test?
Can prospective employees list their high SAT/ACT scores on their resumes or is this illegal too? I read the study Harvard conducted and recently published (noted by a piece in the NYTs) on legacy at top 12 universities. The best predictor of success after graduation was academic rating. If I was looking for a job, I would broadcast my scores, GPA and any academic accolades loud a clear.
At our local community college, local companies have actually partnered with the school to create vocational feeder programs to teach students the skills needed to become the kind of employees that the companies specifically want to hire. It seems to me that this is a much more effective kind of preparation for employment, knowing that a company is waiting to hire you when you complete the program.
I think that a return to the concept of apprenticeships would serve both students and businesses a lot better than throwing kids into the university sausage-making machine and hoping they will be employable when they come out.
Some form of Euro-style trade school/apprenticeship program (and I have an open mind about the different forms) is clearly the right answer for the bottom half or so of college students. Students of non-selective schools make less money than skilled workers even 10 years after graduation. It is ridiculous that we have to import bricklayers, carpenters, electricians and plumbers while every secretary I've ever had has a 4 year college degree (and not all of them from low-cost CUNY-type schools).
I have believed for decades that the European approach to education is far more sensible than ours: tracking students into the type of education path where they have the best opportunity of thriving.
The brightest kids attend high school with other college-bound kids. Kids who dislike book-learning but have the chops to succeed in a more hands-on profession go to vocational high schools, where they don't have to wait to learn useful skills until after graduating from a one-size-fits-all school that tried to turn them into a college student.
Kids who can't be bothered to make anything of themselves go to the sort of high schools we had before college became the norm--places to churn out young adults that have some hope of being decent members of society in retail and service jobs.
But Americans can't seem to bear the thought that a child might be tracked away from college because they don't do well on exams. Despite the fact that doing poorly on exams is proof that the kids won't do well in an educational environment that is FULL of exams.
Sorry but attaching trade schools to community colleges is the wrong approach. They should be run by the trades! As someone who graduated from a trade school, the CIA, and taught culinary at a community college after 20 years of being a chef the attitudes and priorities of a community college run by PhD’s Is totally different then a trade school. For 20 years I was fortunate to be able to bring my graduates to France and Spain visiting the best culinary schools in those countries. Two things stood out. They were run by the trades and they had three levels of learning verification. One by the school, one by the apprentice employer and third by a certification exam. And the students were younger than college age. We have our system set up for the education/ degree granting industry- not the students.
I fear you're right, but there are too few actual trade schools these days to meet the demand. Also, in the U.S., the trades tend to be either heavily union-dominated or not sufficiently organized to supervise schools. Then there's the problem here of a long history of "trade schools" that are just for-profit ventures that don't actually provide a useful education.
As you said, it's all set up for the institutions, not for the students' benefit.
Big fan of this. I have worked several office jobs where college grads had to be taught what to do just like the non-college grads. So many jobs just need some one mentally capable of doing the job and then teaching them to do it, which is so specific that College couldn't really prepare you for it.
On top of that, we need more people doing trade jobs. Heck, those are the jobs AI will likely be coming for last as they require hands on work that doesn't involve a computer.
I have been in IT for over 20 years and never met someone with an IT degree that didn't admit that school taught them nothing about how to actually do IT.
What any person needs to do is ask what they want from a career and THEN decide the path to get there. Going to college to THEN figure out what you want to do seems like an expensive way to go about it.
Bravo! Especially your last paragraph.
You may have a point.
It’s not like a bunch of kids from the south side of Chicago are getting into these elite schools. It’s mostly middle class kids and children of immigrants, kids that really aren’t facing any more challenges than any other middle class kids. If they actually cared about disadvantaged minorities, spend a fraction of your endowments helping disadvantaged students.
They can't be helped. You are talking about a culture that is so damaged, so fractured, and now so coddled despite their total failure, that they are dismissing the entirety of Western civilization as something created by "old white men" that is of little value or relevance.
Boston, a very liberal city that recently has become majority-minority, is desperately trying to "diversify" its famous exam schools such as Boston Latin. But the population that they really want to insert into these schools know nothing about abstract concepts like "right triangle" and historical facts. They come from dysfunctional families in violent neighborhoods, and they're lucky if they will survive childhood intact.
Putting them into these schools would require dumbing down or simply eliminating the exams altogether, something liberals really want to do, but so far have been unable to achieve.
My kid just graduated from a suburban high school that hosted a contingent of inner city kids in a program called METCO, the Massachusetts government's attempt to bring "diversity" to the metro west towns and expose some of these hopeless juveniles to a quality education. They were wretched students, dangerous, and prone to dealing drugs in the bathroom. They were every one of them black, even though Dorchester & other parts of Boston have quite a few non-blacks, many of whom are quite low income, Asians, Afghanis, South Americans etc. But for some reason, only dark skin color qualifies someone for the program.
The primary accomplishment of METCO was to persuade the students and many of us parents who heard their stories that the children in Dorchester and surrounding Boston districts are hopelessly backward and unable to function in a civilized, higher standards environment.
Dare I say that blacks have to break the cycle themselves? Because all the "pro racial equity" liberals would never openly discuss the real problems and all they really care about is showing how righteous they are. And if any conservatives tell it like it is, they're crucified as being "hateful" and "racist". So blacks are left to hang dry and they're on their own. But their so-called leaders don't do squat for them. Al Sharpton is the perpetual hypocrite. The Beyonce, Jay-Z, and Rihanna make millions but only care about themselves. The Obamas are busy hanging out with the Hollywood crowd at the Hamptons. Everyone falls over themselves praising Michelle Obama. To me she's nothing but a big hypocrite who wants to be the second coming of Jackie O. As the first black US first lady, she could've made education of inner city black kids her cause. Instead she took up the bullshit and useless "Let's Move" campaign messing around with school lunches trying to get kids to eat hipster food. All the while she had to know Monsanto and the bad food industrial farming lobbies had her husband in their bags. Yet the black community laps them up. Why I truly don't know. In all honesty, they deserve better after all the support they give these haughty, selfish assholes.
Michelle Obama has written a couple of books mostly about herself, and on every page she brings up racism. Every. Page. Go to Amazon and click on "Look Inside" and read a few pages.
Trump may have been a jerk, but he got a few things right: he encouraged black entrepreneurialism. When he was potus, I watched a YT video where he attended a black entrepreneurial conference in the South, Atlanta I think. It was just inspiring; these business people got up and told of their hard work and success, and thanked Trump for creating a supportive business environment. They didn't beg for help. One guy got in front of the mic, looked at Trump, and said "We're in the same business. I'm in construction. I started in my basement, me and my wife. After a year we moved up in the world... to the living room! [everyone laughs] Now I have 30 employees. [etc.]" Trump didn't comment; he just stood there, smiling approvingly.
Trump worked with Sen. Tim Scott to put Opportunity Zones into the 2017 tax act. If you google it, you'll find all kinds of nasty articles about it, like PBS and factcheck.org -- "they didn't work". The liberals hate the idea. Low tax, low regulation, foster business activity -- the horror! But it's a brilliant idea, in my opinion. Too bad it wasn't given a chance.
Yes, amazing isn't it -- Trump's 2020 Republican convention was a tour de force of diversity and can-do spirit. The most uplifting messaging on what it means to be an American.
Now we have RFK Jr.'s AMERICAN message. And look what they're doing to him. The misrepresentations, the smearing...the Dems are the most disgusting, hateful, nasty....can't believe I have to re-register for that party in order to vote for RFK in the primary. Talk about holding your nose.
Michelle obama in an interview said she was worried that when her daughters went out, they could be shot by a cop. First of all, the odds are that a secret service agent would take the bullet. Second, the odds are much much higher they would be shot by another black
Exactly. Even if black people are right that their situation is largely the result of slavery and oppression (and maybe they are!), being right doesn’t fix your life. YOU are the only person who can fix your life. Policies won’t fix it. Free money won’t fix it. UBI isn’t going to suddenly make black teens stop having babies. It’s not going to put books on shelves in their homes. It’s not going to make black parents care more about their kids doing well in school than being a basketball star. Policies don’t change people. People have to change themselves. And the black community has a lot of cultural problems that only THEY can change.
I agree, black people need to come up with a grassroots solution. Scott Adams calls our problem "the last mile" problem. No one knows what do in the last mile of a societal problem.
On the obamas, can you imagine if they spent time leading an organization in Chicago made up of their leadership and local leaders. It would be focused on the social problems in the community. It could be a framework for a national program. Similar to what carter did for habitat for humanity. They have done great on building their net worth but have done nothing to lead where they could make a significant difference.
The Obamas are grifters to the black community, just like Al Sharpton. I do feel bad for the black community. They're so want leaders on a national level but so few rose to take the helm they'd take anyone they got who would just give them false promises and a modicum of pride. And let's not even get started on the BLM grift. That's their own people grifting on them.
And as if even the news is inadvertently pointing to Michelle Obama's hypocrisy, the tragic death of their personal chef--in the Hamptons no less--exposes they have personal chefs coming for them. Yeah well if we all have personal chefs making delicious cuisines made with the freshest, healthiest food, we wouldn't have to deal with obesity problems either. How about they not hire a personal chef and use the money to offer free weekend lunches to poor black kids in Chicago instead? I'm sure they can get some black churches or community centers in Chicago to do that.
You can't just parachute some kid into a top high school or college. You need to work with them from elementary school on, preferably at schools that their parents choose: Free choice. Then we can deal with the rest of government schools.
You need to work with the disadvantaged kid's parent(s), too, otherwise, there will be no supervision.
You have to break the cycle somehow. That’s a wickedly hard problem to solve. It’s easier to virtue signal and say the right things.
Yup. I say some version of this comment every time this topic comes up. I’ve seen the who cares, white people bad mentality up close. Until the lower class black community wants to fix themselves, there’s really nothing the rest of us can do.
Good for you for being brave enough to state the obvious.
Great comment, thank you. I often voice concern over our high school graduates who are not interested in attending college, what opportunities exist for them? For example, years of manufacturing work being replaced by robots or other technology, and wages not keeping up if these jobs were available. The third generation auto plant worker or steel mill worker or family farmer that provided a decent middle income living is becoming or has already become a thing of the past. What’s left? Target? Walmart? I am hopeful that putting more dollars into the infrastructure upgrades that so desperately needs to get done, or other new similar ventures perhaps in other industries, creates opportunities for young people to apprentice or get jobs doing the welding, plumbing, electrical work, construction, etc. that needs to be done, and will always need to get done by people, not machines.
Check out Los Angeles. You will find hundred of thousands of enterprising people in the skilled trades and in small business ownership. They are largely Hispanic and they are shifting right. What’s the difference? Mindset. When asked if they know how to do something, first they say “yes”, and then they figure it out. Immigrants. They get the job done!
Agreed. Not sure of their politics, but I greatly appreciate the artisan level work done at my home in the OC over the years.
Shifting to the right. They are largely traditional, family people, who are not embracing the left and woke politics. Their children are now filling the University of California system, with 8 acclaimed universities. As you said, their work is often artisan level. They have revitalized Southern California in every way, including providing hope, and a great example. I admire them enormously.
Steve, It seems like most of these trade jobs are better suited for men than women (on average, yeah yeah I know girls can be anything they want). What trade jobs are available for young women (other than beauty industry). Some may become homemakers but not all can or want to.
Understood. Much is written today about men being lost, etc. and I thought through that lens (my apologies, not intended). If not college material, if not military material, where did those 18 year old young men go years ago — the steel mills, the auto plants, manufacturing, etc. Many dads who were plumbers, electricians, etc. wanted their kids (sons, especially) to go to college and not have a job where you showered after work, not before. These were good paying jobs for the times, and allowed women who wanted to be homemakers to do so. Now, most young people who are married need two salaries to buy a home or pay the rent, unfortunately not all college degrees guarantee good paying jobs. There are real needs out there, for men or women, pulling it all together is the hard part.
P.S. was visiting my daughter in Texas where a large highway project is under way. Must admit, surprised how many women were under those hard hats, especially running the heavy equipment…..
Thanks, Steve. No apologies needed, I am just seriously wondering what college alternatives are available for young women, with everyone talking about how college is a waste of time and money. I am glad that women are accepted in those highway project jobs but realistically, I think fewer women can handle them. I am pretty sure that I (or my daughter) would not last a week.
Lots of healthcare jobs. They pay well. There is an extreme shortage of healthcare workers nationally. I see many young women gravitating toward that field.
The whole time I was listening to the podcast, I kept thinking what evidence is there that elite universities do a better job at educating folks than a state public university? (There isn't any that I am aware of) And then I remembered the various charts for Ivy's demonstrating how top heavy in socio-economic rank the students there are. And finally, I wondered why 30-40% of Ivy graduates are going into high finance? What is being taught there that causes such a high percentage to head into a basically non-productive role (moving wealthy people's capital around to capture slightly higher ROIs)?
So I have friends whose children were academic overachievers. One went to Vanderbilt and one went to Dartmouth. One went in as a mechanical engineering student and the other was interested in doing medical science. The one that wanted to be a medical scientist just graduated and got a job at a private equity firm (now billing itself as a Global Investment Manager). The other, who entered college as a mechanical engineering major is doing an internship in Chicago with a mergers and acquisitions firm.
What happened to them to encourage them into high finance at those institutions?
I think the world would have been better off if those two stayed with their original thoughts on career. But maybe that is just me............
1. Money, which social media, and all our other social cues has been made our master. It is seen as a measure of our status and accomplishment.
2. They’ve watched corporate America toss their employees out, without benefits and pensions of prayer decades. So they are driven to get their money as they can, and while they were young. They cannot buy a house and start a family on one salary.
3. Our brilliant minds are not turn into politics or public service, due to agency capture, our gerontocracy, and their disgust at the literal swamp that is Washington DC.
— Mom of three, 28, 24, and 21
I tend to be less cynical. All those issues existed before they matriculated. So what changed while at these universities????? Status.........well maybe there is some of that...........when we tell those that matriculate to these universities you are better than everyone else. Maybe it is just as simple as fear of not living up to your parents standards????? (since most come from top 5% socio-economically) Or maybe hanging out with the world's wealthy makes you want to emulate????? The cynical part of me sees It as part of the elite separating themselves from the rest of us and not caring that the world is burning.
I have struggled with that for almost 40 years now. MIT class of 1980. Materials science major. Shifted to trading options in Chicago and then a small private hedge fund. Saw dozens of fraternity brothers follow the same path over the years. I often wondered who is around to cure cancer? Having said that, if they are making the financial markets more efficient then that is a social good. If however, the financial industry is a beneficiary of repeated bailout subsidies then it is not. I lean heavily toward the latter. But that is a political problem, not an educational system problem.
$$$$$$$ I know of one, PhD from Penn in something science related working in a lab, not making much, and got gobbled up by Wall Street because he was able to apply the models he used for his experiments to economic probabilities (former roommate at Penn asked his help). His models became so valuable that he was able to retire in his forties. Not easy to turn down the money….
Yes, but your buddy got there because of his cognitive ability and inventing something that was valuable. I have an acquaintance who was a mechanical engineer who graduated Dartmouth and started a firm that now manufacturers a world leading product. Same deal, he created a world class product that the world went on to buy. He has told me it never occurred to him to do anything else, like go to Wall Street. But, the problem is these kids are skipping the part about inventing something that is useful to others and going right to high finance. Having brain power siphoned off into high finance for immediate $$$$ out of college is problematic to me.
Don’t disagree…. Recall reading articles back in 90’s about our brain flight to Wall Street. Could one of these science oriented people have found the cure for cancer? Make the next power source? With you with your concern, that’s why always hopeful when I read those stories about the high school science “nerds” already thinking the deep thoughts about creating/inventing/finding that “thing” that nobody has thought of….. and winning science fairs with it.
If you think finance is a “non-productive role,” you don’t know how the global economy works. These kids go into it because they realize there’s lots of money and lots of influence in it. Who could blame them?
Also, I don’t think anybody seriously claims that the Ivies provide a better education. But they do provide better networking and internship opportunities, because of their status. And that’s very valuable. We don’t go to college solely for the education. Most people go for career preparation as well.
But yeah, if you just want a solid education, go to a state school. There’s no shame in that. If you want to be competitive in a competitive field, you’ve got to go to a selective university.
A couple years ago, a Princeton survey of graduating seniors showed about 40% in finance, management consulting or tech.
That doesn't include the folks who go to law school to represent those three sectors.
And I can't tell you how many folks start out doing something interesting, then later switch to one of the three big sectors
Without affirmative action, all Democrats have to do to get the same result is just let Black students cheat on the entrance exam.
This would be easy to do since the vast majority of Black students live in areas controlled by Democrats. Letting kids use their phones during a test to make up for slavery isn’t nearly as unethical and perverted as stealing my money to make up for slavery.
Now, personally, I prefer the approach where we tell people who want to make up for slavery to blow themselves because, at this point, that’s a totally psychotic idea; but I’m not in charge and everyone is a scumbag, so the test cheating idea is probably our best option.
Agreed. Focusing on early childhood education and basic literacy and numeracy would do more to create a pipeline of successful kids from disadvantaged backgrounds than any college policy could. Harvard is a crimson herring. I wish people would stop obsessing about it. Nothing more than status anxiety.
I'm a little wary of the "vocational schooling" mantra. Yes, the trades could use more apprentices. But the impression I get is that they also rigorously control who gets to enter the trades. At least in the Midwestern state where I live, admission to these professions are controlled by unions, professional associations, and entrance exams. The last thing the vocational professionals want is too many licensed tradesmen driving down their prices.
So, yes, stress vocational training, but at a certain point, you're going to run out of places to put those kids, too. I like Roland Fryer's idea, because, while only a small percentage of kids will get into the "elite" schools, it should raise the performance of a large body of kids to where they can function better in society and have far more options than they otherwise would have.
Every time Biden opens his flapper about "good union jobs" he is proving your point, A.J. Unions today are nothing more than tradesmen protection rackets, even less nuanced than the medieval guilds which were established to both set standards of production, but more importantly to reduce competition and keep compensation (of all sorts) high.
How on earth more people point don't point this out every time Biden appears in some tiny union hall with hand-picked union reps, and basically tells the American people they can shove it, is beyond me. "Look! I've got a shitload of government money and I'm going to give it to my friends, the steelworkers, or the electrical workers, or pipefitters, and the rest of you can just suck eggs."
It's true that 50% or so of American higher education is effectively open access. But just to make sure we are all on the same page, AA almost entirely determines whether any African Americans attend Harvard and heavily influences how many African Americans attend Penn State main campus. You can agree or disagree whether this is good or important or not, but we should all operate with the same indisputable facts.
Good comments, Yan. Plans to invest in feeder schools ignores the elephant in the room. The Black students in the USA are held back by dysfunctional families, community chaos, and crime. There are few role models and no real plan to rehabilitate the Black family. Giving billions from Ivy League endowments to buildings and programs in Bed-Stuy, Harlem, Roxbury, and Northeast Washington DC will do very little.
Thanks for the book recommendation from Murray. I hadn't read that one. Scholars as diverse as Peter Turchin and Noah Webster have said the same thing, that elite production is the source of much of our problems today.
A cogently argued case from all points of view, relevant and informative. Thank you.
I must have missed something in this interview. I thought it was awful. With all due respect he really sounds like a blowhard who lives under an ivy-coated rock. How about a roundtable or debate between him and someone like Glenn Loury, John McWhorter, Shelby Steele, or anyone else who isn’t scared to say that eliminating race-based admissions is a good thing?
Agree completely - this is perhaps the only interview of Bari's where I quickly became entirely unsympathetic with the guest. He sounds very out of touch and equivocated when asked about what he could have or would have done differently. Additionally, they didn't talk at all about the role universities play in skyrocketing tuition and why they have no skin in the game for the college loan pyramid scheme. I see the value in higher education and am an absolute proponent of meritocracy, although it is rational to consider lived experience. What we don't have at universities (and I have and have had kids at Stanford, Yale, University of Texas, Southern Methodist University) is diversity of thought. Really could have used much tougher questioning.
Actually Larry Summers is one of the more rational of the out-of-touch elites. You may remember he predicted this inflation when no one else was listening. He was run out of Harvard for daring to suggest an open dialogue on why women aren't well represented in the sciences. I don't agree fencing and crew should be eliminated. These athletes can't make the basketball or football teams. Larry should read "Boys in the Boat" about our 1936 Olympic rowing team.
Diversity of sport is a good thing. Dumb to cancel some sports because not everyone can do them - noone is cut out for every sport.
Terrific book! Now that I think about it, crew members are predominantly white & European, while fencers are predominantly Asian - so perhaps that is another race whistle. Higher education is quite the mess.
He's was the only leftwing economist who was raiding concerns about inflation. Recall there were several on the right who predicted it when the bills were being debated.
Diversity of thought, oh my!
Why were you expecting honesty from a career diplomat? The former president of Harvard is unlikely to speak out.
Ugh. “These people” (i.e., the Woke elite) all pay fealty to the dogma via specific vocabulary. It’s so pretentious, and exposes their biases, even when they’re trying to be “balanced” and “fair”.
Re: a summer job in archeology, he says: “Is that a really interesting, valuable experience our class wants to include, or is that a particular bauble that their parents’ good fortune enabled them to obtain?” What an assumption! As if people without major money don’t have the initiative to find unique opportunities like working abroad. Maybe they financed the trip by working as a server?
“ And I’m not aware of any real concern that our admissions process has become a victimhood Olympics.” Hmmmm, any REAL concern…apparently, he needs to get out more, because the across-the-board lowering of standards (see CA’s new math, for example) is 100% about the victimhood olympics!
At least he didn’t trash the SATs…
I don’t find it presumptuous. It’s the truth. It may not be in the future, but it is right now. There is no equity for summer jobs overseas in archaeology. I believe in speaking truth, rather than joining the equity train, and ignoring what is right before my eyes. So call me presumptuous, but I would bet on it.
It's the chicken and the egg. Why do kids do these experiences and participate in clubs, etc., develop a robotic arm ... ? Because those are the types of students who are being accepted at the universities. They say they want to see leadership and service, so students strive for that because students who do those types of things are getting into elite schools. Schools should stop asking for those types of things if they find it suspect. They've been part of creating the system he now finds suspect.
That not aware line stood out to me as well.
I missed it to, he sounded like a privilege punk who had been gifted an elite education, and then has the chutzpah to come and tell TFP and us who subscribe, how we should go about admitting students to these elite universities
Concur. His rambling defense of the policies that put Harvard and North Carolina in the hot seat with the Supreme Court was poor at best. While I do agree that "private" institutions should be able to set their own policies, I'm not sure that Harvard or any of the elite universities fit that definition anymore. There is a lot of public monies that pour into them, and there should be just as much oversight of them as any "public" institiution.
I suffered through it in the spirit of hearing more opinions. He's out of touch for sure, after all, isn't he the guy pushed for Biden's "inflation reduction act?"
yes! I forgot that was him! thanks for connecting the dots.
He IS a blowhard living under an Ivy rock. That out of the way, what did you disagree with?
I couldn’t get past his catastrophizing about the end of race-based admissions. Shelby Steele changed my mind on that - there’s nothing more smug or elitist than saying “whites got you into this mess, and only whites can get you out of it”.
The entire conversation presupposes that minorities can’t get into elite universities or find success of their own accord; affirmative action means that they’ll only find success when whites are good and ready to give it them. It’s incredibly insulting, and it’s pure racism.
Very much agree. Frankly, he sounded a lot like Anthony Fauci, equivocating on every question. As with Janet Yellen, I used to have a high regard for Larry Summers, but this was not an impressive interview for him.
Also, the elite universities were quick to decry the Supreme Court’s decision on “affirmative action” claiming it would damage diversity. Yet those same schools seem very focused on destroying diversity of both thought and speech — diversities that universities should value most highly.
100% agree. How very ironic. That would have been a great follow up question by Bari.
I agree. He was completely disingenuous. At one point I think he said he thought the data on the discrimination against Asians in the case was overstated, but he had no control on admissions anyways. Bari tried to press him, but he took no responsibility for his role.
Fantastic interview, Bari. Would love to see more articles about the attendees and topics at Sun Valley. "A move towards subjectivity will end up being a move towards mediocrity" is worth framing.
A few follow up questions for Larry Summers:
1) What does he think of new universities like UATX that are focused on meritocracy and the pursuit of truth, which Harvard and other Ivy League schools abandoned?
2) Now that there are more administrators at Harvard than undergrad students, does he think they have become to powerful relative to the faculty, students, and presidents like him?
3) Given that Larry was fired for wrongthink and the Harvard faculty is 90%+ lefty, what does he think is the best way to restore open inquiry, intellectual diversity, and free speech on campus?
4) Harvard just appointed a new president, Claudine Gay. Does he think she was appointed by merit or DIE? Should she be more carefully scrutinized, given her involvement with several major scandals including Roland Fryer? (details here https://www.karlstack.com/p/the-curious-case-of-claudine-gay)
5) Why should we still revere Harvard when just in the past year their morgue manager was arrested for selling body parts, a leading HBS professor who studies ethics resigned due to fraud, and it hired laughingstocks like Bill De Blasio, Lori Lightfoot, and Brian Stelter? (details here: https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/how-to-get-into-harvard-part-3)
6) Larry bragged that Xi Jinping's daughter attended Harvard. Several years ago, the head of Harvard's chemistry department Charles Lieber was found guilty of lying about his work with the CCP. What measures should American universities take to protect IP from foreign adversaries like the CCP's Thousand Talents program?
And will Harvard restrict acceptances of children of politicians as well? That ‘perk’ is worse than legacy.
And well known journalists too.
And actors
There you go, Bari and Suzi... there's your in for your kid(s).
After reading these suggested questions it seems like Bari missed a golden opportunity to push a bit harder with Mr Summers. I too wondered about the recent appt of their President.
If Bari asked questions like those, she wouldn't get any more invites to Sun Valley.
Unfortunately, you are correct.
Questions indeed!
Think you should have conducted the interview Yuri.
Yuri, a person who asks these types of questions is more qualified, & would be more effective as Pres. Of Harvard than who was - and who is.
The weight of the name, the weight of the access, and the weight of their hubris and elitism, in spite of the tokens. I will be honest… the Harvard name still impresses. Phenomenal branding!
And what has happened to UATX anyway? The last I heard, it was still trying to get accreditation.
Your “victimhood Olympics” question was an excellent one and he danced around a non-answer.
Agreed. Now everyone's going to come up with the saddest disadvantaged stories they can think of. Not sure why people want to be defined by this. Frankly, not sure why anyone still wants to go to an Ivy League.
That is the million dollar question. These "Elite" institutions are not the best anymore. The public needs to stop buying into an idea of what they once were.
It’s all about the contacts you are going to get there. Networking - to be good at it is making the difference. But it totally depends on one’s personality - to profit from being member of a club one has to be clubbable in the first place.
Hmmm. How clubbable was Einstein?
Einstein was quite sociable and no hermit. And he hadn’t to be clubbable of course. He was a fricking genius.
Anyway. The scientist and the IT nerd are less dependent on schmoozing and back-scratching than the poor schmuck who want to make their way in the humanities or succeed in law or financial services.
On the one hand, I knew that Einstein was a poor choice for the particular point raised, but I was lazy. But. Could he get into Harvard today?
I have experience teaching at universities considered “common public schools” and a couple of east coast elites and this comment is spot on. I was going to write a long comment saying so - but @Chris sums it up perfectly. Go find a good affordable school that will allow you to be challenged and learn - stay away from schools full of people who are full of themselves.
Well, probably bc it's entre into the upper levels of government and business.
I was really puzzled by this. Hasn’t it always been a victimhood Olympics? Or at least for the last thirty years? I remember essays in the late nineties were always about how you “overcame adversity”. My son is applying now and nothing has changed.
What is it with these stupid essays anyway ? Anyone can make any old story ?
I am so grateful that we don’t have this nonsense in Australia. You need the grades to get into university, and nobody takes any notice of where you went to high school.
Unless you are indigenous (3%population) in which case you’ll get a scholarship, but probable flunk out because your weren’t actually prepared.
Yeah. I think the best essays are about how easy someone has had it. It's really important to forget where one has come from and to dismiss any adversity/challenges that have been overcome. Builds character.
Summers manages to dodge most of the hard questions in this interview with "that's a question we should be asking." So much of the conversation around elite schools focuses on the top and the bottom but completely ignores the middle class who are sacrificing time, money, and emotional resources to provide opportunities like that archeological dig or an SAT prep class or to live in a tiny home but send their kids to an excellent school or to have a parent stay home with children for much of their youth.
God help the middle class kid with married parents who work in mid level jobs. Woe betide kids who just worked their butt off in a public school to achieve straight As in AP classes, high SAT test scores, leadership in extra curriculars, service, etc. That's a kid who has shown they know how to hustle, how to manage time, and how to achieve what teachers ask of them across the board. I'm not sure why their lack of a dead sibling, a parent with cancer, a tragic divorce, or living in poverty makes them less qualified to attend an elite school and less worthy of financial support if they manage to get in.
But let us be sure to keep football and soccer programs, because that's how we show educational equity!
Mary, they don’t want your kids. All the hurdles they set up are just post facto obstacles to make it harder for your kids to get in. We figured that out a long time ago and when enough of our kids set their sights on other schools, these “elite” schools will be known for their toxic culture. Either way, employers are giving kids veiled IQ tests because they don’t trust the product as Summers alludes. He knows what’s up. He’s just a coward and can’t talk about the elephants in the room.
I’ve talked to a lot of employers across multiple disciplines who now WON’T hire from elite schools because the graduates are entitled grievance mongers who don’t know how to do actual work. They look for smart, motivated kids from so-called second tier schools.
I'm reaching the end of my working career, but for a few decades I was involved in recruiting for our firm. I avoided students from colleges such as Stanford like the plague. The kids were just looking for a resume start and would be gone in two years before they even learned how to be competent (let alone useful or profitable). We called them dilettante, because of their profound belief that they were destined for bigger and better things.
Higher Ed is all about telling kids that they are leaders and will change the world. Forget about competence in your field which in totality is a far greater good for society. We are selecting for selfish traits and the Harvards of the world must be called out for it.
Remember: in the world, the highest self-esteem is found in younger male Blacks. The lowest in younger female Asians. Fighting for the place that merit commands is harder under that circumstance.
I went to Amherst and it’s spelled “dilettantes”. Hmph. 😆
I agree 100% though - building a resume instead of growing up and learning how to build oneself within an organization just screams narcissistic un-seriousness of purpose and speaks to the big problem, here: “what-can-you-do-for-me”, instead of “I’ll prove to you and myself what I can do and be an asset to society”.
Yes. I misspelled dilettante. I guess I should have gone to Amherst. (or used the edit function ...)
Sorry - trying to be funny - more importantly though, your comment was, I thought, spot on.
I still don’t get how private education institutions get to amass a ridiculously huge fortune, tax-free, and then not be required to share that wealth in a way that benefits their local communities, the states they’re in, and America. I mean, in terms of cold, hard, CASH!
Those “entitled grievance mongers” Tawanda, make great Community Activists! (Sarcasm)
You mean like the Messiah, Barak Obama?
Mary, I had similar thoughts. The college “game” is very frustrating. My kids are the kind of kids and we are the kind of family you reference. All of the rhetoric on this focuses on two particular groups and leaves out the large swath of families and students who are too busy working their rears off to be a part of the conversation.
It’s a blessing in disguise. Google Stanford president. Google HBS Gino. Just for starters.
The elite schools are admitting the most kids in the top 0.1% (25% plus) and secondly, in the bottom 40%. Kids of parents in the 90-95% income band, the wealthy, but not the super rich, are punished the most. Kids who are admitted in the top 90% go. It’s the middle class who actually can’t attend because it is economically the most difficult. This data was all recently published by Harvard. I’m sharing the link below.
https://opportunityinsights.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/CollegeAdmissions_Nontech.pdf?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20230724&instance_id=98292&nl=the-morning®i_id=152348616&segment_id=140117&te=1&user_id=b36690bcbc34a99f5ac3366f7ba45e4d
My husband went to an ivy and he was rather poor growing up. (He was not a legacy).
He says not all legacy admissions are just buying your way in. A lot of children of legacys come from smart parents who can get in on their own merits but don't have Rockefeller money to donate a wing.
Banning legacy's is going to prevent a lot of worthy students from getting an elite education.
It will not stop uber wealthy family's from making a giant donation and getting their child in that way.
Also when are people going to wake up and realize the world isn't fair? Some people are just smarter, richer, better looking and good at rowing boats.
I don’t get your argument here. If some legacy students are worthy enough that they can get in without preferences, great! They would still be admitted if colleges eliminated legacy preferences.
I don't think we can totally regulate who is admitted, like legacy admits or sports admits, but race is a special problem that must be solved. Admitting a poorly prepared Latino student is just as wrong as denying qualified Asians, or in my parents' day, qualified Jews and Irish. It's a zero sum game at Harvard, unlike a state uni. Each person admitted means someone else didn't get it. If that's based on race, it isn't fair.
Race is a problem that must be solved? How about "all mean are created equal?" And/or, "judge by the content of character?"
That is my point. The present affirmative action system is the opposite of that.
What radically new ideas!
I agree. Life isn’t fair. Everyone on this forum has immense privilege compared to basically half the world. However, this should not be an argument against meritocracy. Your husband should not have been admitted if he had lower scores. And he may be more capable in the workforce than all those who graduated ahead of him. That competency should be sorted out after graduation in the workforce.
He was a National merit scholar with a flawless SAT score. Foh
Then why would he be a legacy admission?
The second sentence of my comment says 'he was not a legacy'.
You don't have to be something to have a nuanced opinion about it.
The problem is that progressive and identity-consumed culture on elite campuses does lead to a victim/oppression Olympics. Leftists use self-reported marginalized identities for self-advancement. It's a status game. For example, huge numbers of students now pretend to be LGBTQ, either to increase their admission odds or to gain social status as an oppressed person. A whopping 28.9% of Gen Z students at Harvard claims to be LGBTQ. At Brown it's even worse: 38%.
https://euphoricrecall.substack.com/p/the-oppression-olympics
It pays to be part of a marginalized group and a member of the perpetually aggrieved. This creates the competitive urge to be positioned advantageously in a victimhood hierarchy. The Oppression Olympics is the arena wherein this competition of victimhood takes place, using identity politics and intersectionality to establish the “winners” of this grotesque theatre of the absurd.
And it is so incredibly privileged to have the luxury of spending time, energy and money competing for victim status! People who are actually starving in the street or who have no medical care are not going to show up for a "privilege walk."
The parental and student obsession with getting into an "elite" university is one of the biggest wastes of time and resources out there. I have 2 degrees from average universities and 1 from a more elite one. The status of the university meant and still means nothing in my 30 year career, and I am sure I am not the only one. Stop the madness.
Bragging rights. It's truly pathetic
Maybe. I wanted to go to U of Chicago. No particular reason except it was the tops where I was raised. Alas, couldn't afford it.
Sorry you couldn't go :(
A question I believe relevant is how does Harvard justify a $50 billion endowment. Helping students with under $60k household income is a pittance. They probably pay their investment advisors a couple hundred million. Redistribute the wealth, or is that just nonsensical talk?
And their tax exempt status means that we taxpayers helped them make that endowment. They could well use some of that money to sponsor K-12 feeder schools. Sure, teachers' unions would fight it, but so what. Or sponsor sports clubs in inner cities. Lots of things could be done. So why don't they? I guess the way it is now is just easier.
What about after school enrichment programs? A diversity of programs that nourish children’s interest and self esteem along with allowing other methods of teaching math or reading to support academic success. After school, because of the “witching hours” between 3 -6 where children are often unsupervised. Russian math classes, Kumon style English programs, or other paid tutoring programs available to the middle and upper class can provide equal opportunities and hopefully provide the data to suggest improvement in the curriculum rather than the dumbing down. (Prod the dragons of education’s political forces with effective facts.)
Great ideas. They have the money and knowledge to do it.
Exactly. Or support early-childhood education - If they were actually serious about recruiting disadvantaged kids to their college.
Harvard needs to pay their fair share of taxes.
I agree. I thought it was adorable how he kept hanging his hat on that. A bit like letting someone dying, of dehydration, finish the snow cone you don’t want to finish. How heroic.
With two kids in college and having gone through the process twice over the last 4 years, I can tell you there is no such thing as legacy admissions unless you are uber wealthy. You have to donate tens of millions dollars. We know several families who have donated to and raised money for their elite alma maters for years — to the tune of millions of dollars — whose highly qualified kids were rejected. These universities are missing out on a lot of great kids, and killing their fundraising in the process.
Not only that, but schools are disincentivizing regular alumni to donate as well. Why would I give money to a school with a massive endowment knowing my kid won’t get in anyway? And many of the students they are admitting now will have no loyalty or connection to the school. They will complain they were marginalized or mistreated during their time there, and never fundraise or donate a nickel. It’s already happening and will only get worse. I guess they don’t care.
I’ve stopped donating to my alma mater just on principal.
Mine reportedly has one of the biggest armies of DEI officers of any university. I'll bet they are paid up to $300K apiece, depending on their org chart level. No more donations to them!
I agree.
Most schools have more administrators than professors.
Sounds like these elite schools absolutely do not need another dollar in donations or from fundraising...ever. Are people engaging in fundraisers for the purpose of getting their kids admitted ?
Absolutely right. These schools do not need the smaller donations. They get enough from the Uber wealthy leftists who set the institutional agendas.
Jonah Goldberg wrote an awesome piece on legacy admissions:
https://thedispatch.com/newsletter/gfile/okay-what-about-legacy-admissions/
I agree that Larry Summers sounds misguided in this interview.
His response about sports, “Look, I think the difference between some sports and others is that in some sports, the vast majority of Americans can play, and can be trained to play and to develop their talent. There are just vastly more American high schools that have basketball teams than have squash teams.”
Is so absurd. Because some kids have the opportunity to play squash or row they shouldn’t be able to use that as a skill to get into an elite college? Then eliminate the rowing team at Harvard. What a stupid thing to say from an actual former president of the most prestigious school in the US.
It’s like middle schools eliminating algebra to level the playing field. I genuinely think we might be living in the Second Dark Ages. Not joking.
He’s just a commie. End of.
“Larry Summers reveals why …” — weird choice of verb, over, say, “argues”. Immediately makes it sound like this will be a propaganda piece.
Also, he doesn’t even really argue anything. He simply dismisses arguments of others and asserts his own with little evidence. Weak!
I was surprised at the surface level interrogation of his own ideas and beliefs. According to him he is ok with Harvard violating Title 6 derived from equal protection clause of 14th amendment as long as it targets a specific group in the interest of “fairness.”
“Larry Summers reveals why …”
Along the same line as "Geraldo Rivera Reveals Contents of Al Capone's Vault."
This guy is a douche. Nothing to say, nothing there at all.
Plus, they comment regarding eliminating crew and fencing is complete nonsense. A solution in search of a problem. I have a friend from college who grew up in the Bronx in a working class home who became the coxswain on the crew team in college. So Larry will punish her but says nothing about the kids of politicians, etc.
I think Larry got burned by speaking honestly
https://amp.theguardian.com/science/2005/jan/18/educationsgendergap.genderissues
I'm surprised Larry Summers did not comment on the layers and layers of administrators prevalent in higher education. Students and their families are now paying more for poorly educated bureaucrats to tell them what to think than for qualified faculty to teach them how to think.
Yeah, if all they are doing is indoctrinating students then they only need one set of radicals to do it. Faculty and DEI both is duplication of services.
From https://www.mindingthecampus.org/2023/01/05/more-employees-than-students-at-stanford-give-each-student-a-concierge/
"Stanford University has more administrative staff and faculty than it does students. Specifically, there were 15,750 administrators, 2,288 faculty members, and 16,937 students. The paid help of 18,038 (administrators plus faculty) outnumbered the customers (students) by 1,101. That gave me an idea for a stunning administrative reorganization: give each student a paid concierge—an academic butler, if you will—to help navigate the pain of collegiate living in Palo Alto."
You forgot a pronoun coach for all of them.
New admission guidelines:
1. No name, SS# only
2. GPA
3. SAT
This interview is a huge fail for Bari and The FP. You had a one-on-one with one of the most powerful men in American education and you allowed him to punt on every question of consequence. To paraphrase the great American film Billy Madison: everyone is now dumber for having listened to this exchange.
I disagree. I think she pushed him on the victimhood olympics and asked the exact question I was thinking - why didn't he do these things when he was president of Harvard? If his answers were inadequate or pathetically self-serving, which they were, there isn't much more for Bari to do other than maybe yell out "GOTCHA!"