What the elite expect and receive from an Ivy League education

Full Disclosure: I work at an Ivy League institution, but not with undergrads, nor is teaching my primary job.

I also went to another Ivy League school, many years ago. I wasn't well off, but I wasn't struggling to pay for school, either. I can tell you for a fact that the pandering to student complaints described in the article wasn't the case when I was in school, but that was many years ago.

I TA'd while in grad school last century, at the University of Michigan, and I've TA'd recently at my Ivy League university's extension school, where endowments aren't a consideration. I can tell you that we get FAR more requests for grade adjustments now then we got we got decades ago. That seems to me to be as much a function of the change in the students over time as the change in institutional finance. What's surprising to me, though, is that even in an extension school, instructors STILL entertain and indulge what I would consider frivolous student regrade requests, as described in the article - even without the monetary drivers the article's author ascribes to the Harvard instructors.

So, why do professors pander to students' regrading requests, even if there is no apparent monetary motive? I believe that the cause is the rise in "instructor review" websites, and the easy communication between students. If an instructor is rated poorly by students, his class enrollments drop. If an instructor's enrollments drop too far, and they aren't tenured, they may be asked to find employment elsewhere.

So, while the monetary motive may be there, there is also the "popularity" motive. Word about poor or overly strict instructors travels very quickly among a student body. If students don't have to take a class from an instructor they feel is too strict or a poor lecturer, they won't. It's the economics of the instructor market, not the university endowment, that I feel is often the motivating factor behind pandering to students

Full Disclosure: I work at an Ivy League institution, but not with undergrads, nor is teaching my primary job.

I also went to another Ivy League school, many years ago. I wasn't well off, but I wasn't struggling to pay for school, either. I can tell you for a fact that the pandering to student complaints described in the article wasn't the case when I was in school, but that was many years ago.

I TA'd while in grad school last century, at the University of Michigan, and I've TA'd recently at my Ivy League university's extension school, where endowments aren't a consideration. I can tell you that we get FAR more requests for grade adjustments now then we got we got decades ago. That seems to me to be as much a function of the change in the students over time as the change in institutional finance. What's surprising to me, though, is that even in an extension school, instructors STILL entertain and indulge what I would consider frivolous student regrade requests, as described in the article - even without the monetary drivers the article's author ascribes to the Harvard instructors.

So, why do professors pander to students' regrading requests, even if there is no apparent monetary motive? I believe that the cause is the rise in "instructor review" websites, and the easy communication between students. If an instructor is rated poorly by students, his class enrollments drop. If an instructor's enrollments drop too far, and they aren't tenured, they may be asked to find employment elsewhere.

So, while the monetary motive may be there, there is also the "popularity" motive. Word about poor or overly strict instructors travels very quickly among a student body. If students don't have to take a class from an instructor they feel is too strict or a poor lecturer, they won't. It's the economics of the instructor market, not the university endowment, that I feel is often the motivating factor behind pandering to students.

You completely misunderstand the level of "privilege" of the average ivy league student. While there are some students who are definitely going to get amazing opportunities through their parents regardless, the average student comes from a family that makes about $200-250k/year. That's wealthy and privileged for sure, but not typically "graduate with a 2.0 straight into a six-figure job set up by your parents" level of wealthy and privileged.

That's correct.

dupe