Reply to Why are people mad that kids of principal donors are institutional priorities?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I don’t have a dog in this fight. I do think middle class Americans hate this, because I don’t think middle class Americans want to be middle class. I think they want to be elite. And I think they want the elite to have the same middle class values they have—work hard, be a good person, be rewarded for it.

But the elite have their own values.[/quote]

OP here. Our family went from lower class fresh off the boat immigrants to UMC (UHNW for my one sib) in one generation through hard work and high IQ. We are literally examples of the concept of “be[ing] rewarded” for “middle class values.”[/quote]

Yet when you “make it”, you sell out by insisting that inherited wealth trumps merit. Pay-to-play is not a middle class value, and you should know that.[/quote]

I never once said that inherited wealth trumps merit, much less insisted. I asked why people are mad that donors who lift all boats are an institutional priority. My siblings and I weren’t mad about that when we were applying to college ourselves. We recognized what philanthropists brought to the table, and just worked that much harder to get a seat too. Since then, my sib has helped many thousands of students who couldn’t otherwise afford it to also attend their alma mater. My sib isn’t the one asking for my nephew to be an institutional priority - the University is the one that will make my nephew an institutional priority regardless.[/quote]

A lot of people take this pragmatic view. Other people have a more idealistic view of colleges and universities. Donor privilege shows that, for all their pretty rhetoric, colleges themselves are happy to take the pragmatic view. This angers idealists.

Why is that surprising to you? Are you surprised to discover that idealists exist?[/quote]

I’m surprised at the vitriol, that’s all.[/quote]

I think people want every kid at top schools to have earned their spot and you nephew did not in most peoples mind. There are very few spots at the top schools and their endowments are large enough that they should stop caring about donors, yet they dont. There is no institution in this country that is a true academic meritocracy  and I think they should have such places (MIT is probably one but even there you have athletes).[/quote]

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