The Atlantic How College Became a Ruthless Competition ...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is a by-product of all American capitalism and materialism. China and India are two other major countries that share this elitism with the U.S. Europe has long moved away from the elitist education mechanism, there are schools that you attend based on the craft you to follow, although they do have rankings the pressure to chase them is somewhat muted compared to the U.S in most of Western Europe today, they do not share the same chasing the American dream of living large in McMansions with our boats, expensive cars, country club memberships, and school prestige. American society has degenerated, we need to go back to implementing more social and economic equity, that the progressive left has been talking about for too long.

This is just flat false. Europe is more class driven than US. They talk a good game but they live in a rigid system where there is little movement between classes. That is reinforced as early as elementary school. Europe is being left in the dust. They all feel it there now as they look at COVID and vaccines and see the US, UK, and China far far ahead of them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Because somewhere along the way a ticket to an elite college also became, in the eyes of parents of privilege, an entitlement to an entire life of privilege for their (aided and abetted by parental wealth).

Somewhere along the way? F. Scott Fitzgerald was writing about Ivies 100 years ago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a by-product of all American capitalism and materialism. China and India are two other major countries that share this elitism with the U.S. Europe has long moved away from the elitist education mechanism, there are schools that you attend based on the craft you to follow, although they do have rankings the pressure to chase them is somewhat muted compared to the U.S in most of Western Europe today, they do not share the same chasing the American dream of living large in McMansions with our boats, expensive cars, country club memberships, and school prestige. American society has degenerated, we need to go back to implementing more social and economic equity, that the progressive left has been talking about for too long.

This is just flat false. Europe is more class driven than US. They talk a good game but they live in a rigid system where there is little movement between classes. That is reinforced as early as elementary school. Europe is being left in the dust. They all feel it there now as they look at COVID and vaccines and see the US, UK, and China far far ahead of them.

As an example of this, I will always remember this story because it is nuts to me. 600 years of the same families in Italy being rich.
https://qz.com/694340/the-richest-families-in-florence-in-1427-are-still-the-richest-families-in-florence/

Tax differences with the US are important. Typically low property and estate taxes in Europe. This is why elimination of the estate tax in the US is very, very bad.

[Anonymous]

So the author, a Yale/Oxford/Yale Law graduate who is a law professor at Yale, opines on the evils of elite university culture. “Meritocracy is a menace" Talk about embarassing hypocrisy. The evils of SATs, GPAs to sort applications. Yet he offers no insight into what would be a better way. Talk about a long article filled with empty calories so he can hear himself speak...lightweight.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Focusing intensely on career and future wages is because of the insane price of college these days. If you pay full price, 80k for 4 years, you don’t have the luxury of saying I went to college to enrich my mind. You need a high paying job to justify your parents having spent over $300,000 for college for only one child. For 3 kids, you can end up spending close to $1 million. How can you not be career focused with these kinds of costs. Canada and Europe have figured it out much better than the US in my opinion. Maybe Asia too although HS stress in Asia is just too much

+1 parents are expected to save from the time their kid is a fetus or risk the kid having lifetime of crushing debt, yet we’re supposed to pretend that salary isn’t an outcome that matters

I've been saving since my kids were born to save them from a lifetime of crushing debt precisely so that the salary they make after college doesn't matter! I want them to pursue what interests them and figure out to make lives for themselves. I don't expect some financial return on the investment.

How can it not matter? It only matters if your child has a trust fund! If your theory is that your college graduate child doesn't care if he eats steak or ramen, shares an apartment with three other people or lives in his own house, travels by greyhound or by first class, you're wrong. Salary matters for quality of life. Is your child blind to that reality?

The options aren’t limited to big salary or no salary. I want my kids to go to college and pursue the career paths that interest them, which means I don’t care if they choose paths that result in high salaries. I don’t expect them to make a lot of money to justify the cost of college.

One of my kids thinks he wants to major in history and become a teacher; if that’s what will make him happy, I’m happy for him to pursue that path. He can have a happy, fulfilling life on a teacher’s salary. That’s what matters to me.

That sounds all well and good but what about your future grandchildren? Unless you have generational wealth to pass down, if your child found a career path they love but at a low salary (let’s go with teacher) how could they do the same with THEIR kids? Would they be able to save enough to afford their children the same opportunities of graduating college debt free and they can choose a career path they love instead of one resulting in higher salaries. Are you okay with your kid needing to make major sacrifices in their future adult lives? What if they aren’t able to save enough for their children’s education? Are you okay with your grandchildren going into debt for college?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So the author, a Yale/Oxford/Yale Law graduate who is a law professor at Yale, opines on the evils of elite university culture. “Meritocracy is a menace" Talk about embarassing hypocrisy. The evils of SATs, GPAs to sort applications. Yet he offers no insight into what would be a better way. Talk about a long article filled with empty calories so he can hear himself speak...lightweight.

+1 to the bolded.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love the section about halfway down that starts with this: “The turn away from the humanities is a sign of competitive schooling’s most far-reaching effect: It perverts our culture’s understanding of what education is, and makes us forget that schooling has value beyond status seeking.”

How many threads on DCUM include assertions from parents that a degree in anything other than business or STEM is useless? That they expect a return on their investment in their child’s education? That they would not *allow* their child to study what interests them?

I grew up poor and when I did go to college, ensuring I could immediately transition into a well paying job was the top priority for me which I knew I could do with a BS in engineering. Growing up UMC or higher offers a lot more insulation, but when the standard of living is falling for everyone below the 90th percent income level, is it any wonder that this results in overall financial anxiety for basically everyone outside the top few percentage income?

You can be a plumber or electrician or a skilled tradesmen and make just as much as someone with a bachelor’s degree and have a basically recession proof career. Yet, we somehow drive the majority of kids to four year colleges.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Very interesting perspective. From the article:
“Education’s core purpose is (or once was) to help people engage with the world and grow into themselves—to discover the overlap between their interests and their talents and develop it. Different people and schools each embrace distinctive visions of empathy, understanding, wisdom, and usefulness: The scholar aspires to know the forces that drive history forward, the inventor seeks to bend technology to practical ends, and the activist strives to reform institutions and inspire citizens to embrace justice. Schools with different educational missions ought to favor different students, and students with different aspirations ought to favor different schools. ”

Yes! I have repeatedly said on here and say to my kids that college is not intended to be trade school!

What’s wrong with trade school?

https://www.pbs.org/video/work-shifts-1613679719/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Agree with prior poster, and I am not rich.

I think you are choosing a place where your kid will finish forming into an adult. If you want them to do that somewhere full of frat bros or backstabbers, go for it.

My child was not fully baked when I sent her away, so we both gravitated to a place that would be forgiving and steer her/him towards independence and social responsibility. For example, at the parents session when I dropped my child off, the adminstrators shared their goals (for their students) with us, so we could all be on the same page.For example, if our kid called us freshman year asking for guidance how to approach a paper, they told us about campus resources that we should direct the kids to instead. So they would learn how to solve their own problems. Similarly, they had a slide with attributes that they hoped their graduates would emulate. One was kindness. I really liked that and wondered if it would appear on the list of some hard-charging school that prided itself on sending graduates off to Goldman Sachs?

PP, please share the name of the school your child attended. Sounds wonderful! I have a kid who could benefit from that kind of environment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's easy to agree with this in the abstract, but the fact is that it's easier to have a good life if you have enough money, and it's easier to make money if you go to a prestigious school. The employers and industries that pay the most and offer the most obvious path to prosperity hire disproportionately from these schools. That is also true for the jobs and fields that wield the most power in this country - when was the last time there was a supreme court justice, or even clerk, who didn't graduate from an Ivy/Stanford? You can get a great education many places, but the more "status" a university has, the more options it keeps open for the future. Obviously there are successful people who didn't take this route, but it's harder without that type of a well-worn path. How many of us are visionary entrepreneurs? I'm certainly not. Biglaw has been a good fit for me.

Last year? Amy Coney Barrett went to Rhodes College and Notre Dame Law School.

And their boss went to UD

Fair point about Barrett, but she is the exception that proves the rule. But Biden is not their "boss." Co-equal branches of government and all that.

Yes, I was a little scared to read that someone thinks that the President is the boss of a Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. That's pretty basic stuff you should be learning in high school (or I would hope).

[Anonymous]

I think some people have a very strange concept of what life is all about.

If my son became some asshole who went to Yale and then Goldman I would be embarrassed, not proud. These people are shits and have miserable lives with no vacation, no weekends, and no values. All to chase money. Pathetic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Focusing intensely on career and future wages is because of the insane price of college these days. If you pay full price, 80k for 4 years, you don’t have the luxury of saying I went to college to enrich my mind. You need a high paying job to justify your parents having spent over $300,000 for college for only one child. For 3 kids, you can end up spending close to $1 million. How can you not be career focused with these kinds of costs. Canada and Europe have figured it out much better than the US in my opinion. Maybe Asia too although HS stress in Asia is just too much

+1 parents are expected to save from the time their kid is a fetus or risk the kid having lifetime of crushing debt, yet we’re supposed to pretend that salary isn’t an outcome that matters

I've been saving since my kids were born to save them from a lifetime of crushing debt precisely so that the salary they make after college doesn't matter! I want them to pursue what interests them and figure out to make lives for themselves. I don't expect some financial return on the investment.

How can it not matter? It only matters if your child has a trust fund! If your theory is that your college graduate child doesn't care if he eats steak or ramen, shares an apartment with three other people or lives in his own house, travels by greyhound or by first class, you're wrong. Salary matters for quality of life. Is your child blind to that reality?

The options aren’t limited to big salary or no salary. I want my kids to go to college and pursue the career paths that interest them, which means I don’t care if they choose paths that result in high salaries. I don’t expect them to make a lot of money to justify the cost of college.

One of my kids thinks he wants to major in history and become a teacher; if that’s what will make him happy, I’m happy for him to pursue that path. He can have a happy, fulfilling life on a teacher’s salary. That’s what matters to me.

That sounds all well and good but what about your future grandchildren? Unless you have generational wealth to pass down, if your child found a career path they love but at a low salary (let’s go with teacher) how could they do the same with THEIR kids? Would they be able to save enough to afford their children the same opportunities of graduating college debt free and they can choose a career path they love instead of one resulting in higher salaries. Are you okay with your kid needing to make major sacrifices in their future adult lives? What if they aren’t able to save enough for their children’s education? Are you okay with your grandchildren going into debt for college?

You are not responsible for your GRANDCHILDREN's quality of life. Let go of the savior image. Do your best to provide for the children you birthed. Then have faith in them to do the same. And have faith in your grandchildren to make your own way.

Such a warped concept that you have to plan for financing two generations ahead. Guess what. Lots of two teacher families have wonderful lives. THEY are investing in the next generation of citizens. Their schedules are family friendly. The teachers I know have a very nice qualitly of life.

You really need some perspective.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think some people have a very strange concept of what life is all about.

If my son became some asshole who went to Yale and then Goldman I would be embarrassed, not proud. These people are shits and have miserable lives with no vacation, no weekends, and no values. All to chase money. Pathetic.

So this isn't really true. They often lead tough lives and get paid for it on the way up. There are many offramps where they could choose to leave or be forced to. But once at a good place they often have lots of vacation, weekends and most of them if not the vast majority have values. They are people like anyone else. The effort to demonize them is wrong. The life is good. Same as Biglaw. Tough getting there but you are well paid and for most it is better than the horror stories you hear. So the life is good. It is hard. Money is good but you have a life, a family, and are well compensated for it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:From a parent whose nerdy DC never fit in a public high school and who is finding a tough very high level college is a very good fit, these places are not the terrible places described in this article. The geeks can have a place to do what they do and not be crapped on.

I don’t understand this argument. Most public schools in the DMV have geek students who can hang out with each other and geek out. It wasn’t the case when I was growing up and geeks got crapped on. Now they have their people in good public schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agree with prior poster, and I am not rich.

I think you are choosing a place where your kid will finish forming into an adult. If you want them to do that somewhere full of frat bros or backstabbers, go for it.

My child was not fully baked when I sent her away, so we both gravitated to a place that would be forgiving and steer her/him towards independence and social responsibility. For example, at the parents session when I dropped my child off, the adminstrators shared their goals (for their students) with us, so we could all be on the same page.For example, if our kid called us freshman year asking for guidance how to approach a paper, they told us about campus resources that we should direct the kids to instead. So they would learn how to solve their own problems. Similarly, they had a slide with attributes that they hoped their graduates would emulate. One was kindness. I really liked that and wondered if it would appear on the list of some hard-charging school that prided itself on sending graduates off to Goldman Sachs?

PP, please share the name of the school your child attended. Sounds wonderful! I have a kid who could benefit from that kind of environment.

Juniata College.