The Disadvantages of an Elite Education (2008)

In my experience, there is a placebo in this delusional sense of elitism that galvanises your belief in being able to achieve literally anything. At your disposal are unrivalled resources, networks, prestige and financial backing that make it much easier to succeed.

What a great article. While I certainly don't agree with everything Deresiewicz tries to say, I will echo one bit I found to be true at least in my time at MIT (which is, incidentally, the only experience I have with an 'elite' university): there were far too many students with a myopic view of where they were and what they wanted to accomplish.

Many of the students (and friends) with whom I interacted saw MIT as their "final step" in a long life of achievements and accomplishments. After this, they were "set for life." They just had to get through it. Then came the high-paying consulting jobs, the fun research, the exciting leadership opportunities, etc. It was all right there for them. Until it wasn't, because the economy sank.

Many of those same people now took "less important" jobs just to get through the economic slump. So few people thought about venturing out on their own, it actually kind of disheartened me.

Don't get me wrong, there were still a ton of people trying to start their own projects, think on their own, and whom looked at MIT as but a stepping stone to propel them to be able to affect the world. Unfortunately, a lot of the students also seemed to only care about making their money and living comfortably.

On the other hand, I think this is a problem with our educational system in general; not just the elite schools. I consider myself almost lucky to have come from a fairly non-affluent family, since I grew up around one "class" of people (mostly not-well-off immigrants) and got to experience interacting with another at school.

MIT is probably not the worst offender in terms of not having any sort of socioeconomic diversity, since admissions are all done need-blind and there really are a lot of immigrants and no legacy or sports admissions, but the issue still exists. I can only imagine that at schools where that is not the case, this problem manifests itself in a much worse way.

A childhood friend who had gone to Harvard invited me to hang out with some Harvard grads in SF two weeks ago. It was strange--as an outsider--to listen to their college stories; they would talk about how they'd drive down to Yale and scream "Harvard, Harvard!" and it was then, I realized, how little I had in common with these grads.

I tried to talk to one of the Harvard grads, and asked him what he was doing. Apparently he's working at the Sierra Club, and from his job description, his role amounted to essentially a receptionist. And from talking to him, he seemed disillusioned that his degree didn't offer him all the benefits that he believed he was entitled.

The Harvard elitism that come out a bit, if not intentionally. My friend was trying to help out the bloke who couldn't understand why he couldn't get a decent paying job as a Harvard grad, and was telling him to do lucrative tutoring jobs. He coached, "You're a Harvard grad! Parents will fork a lot of money to have a Harvard grad tutor their kids, hoping that their kids can also attend Harvard!"

Maybe I'm oversensitive as an outsider, but I didn't feel much warmth or feel that these Harvard educated fellows were very interested in talking to me. And maybe they're blessed to have such camaraderie. After all, I am just one who went to Arizona State/AFROTC with a vocational degree in CSE instead of a liberal arts education.

It's not difficult for me to talk to grads of schools from "regular" institutions, such as UCLA, Berkeley, USC, UC Irvine, et al, even with a liberal arts education. But when trying to talk to grads of an "elite education," I have found it considerably more awkward, and struggle to level common ground. Usually it ends up in a lack of interest by both parties to talk to each other, or smalltalk, waiting for the first opportunity to escape from discomfort such as a convenient phone call or errand to run.

It's possible that this is just a typical case of in-group vs. out-group happening, but I've never found myself so lost at words that I pretty much conversed smalltalk the entire time.

They may not be more valuable in an "all men are created equal" Orwellian sense. In practice however they are given benefits, chances and advantages denied to others and so find their path through life eased. It is of course still up to them to exploit these advantages.

This article has popped up a few times (I think it's been on HN before) and I've read it each time with increasing disgust. There's a pervasive attitude amoung attendees of elite universities of feigned modesty, mostly it's fairly innocuous and that's fine. In many cases it's genuine. But this is truly a new level of feigned. The "hole" in the writer's education an educational topic, it's a character trait. And this is a flaw he's developed by spending his whole life assuaging his own insecurities by convincing himself it's true. Now there's no doubt that elite universities are breading grounds for this type of thought and students first encountering them must choose whether or not to imbibe in the kool aid. Most do. It takes a very strong 17 year old to walk into this type of society and call bullshit, but it does happen and when it does we got authors who can write genuinely on this topic.

A wonderful example of such a work is J.R. Moerhinger's Tender Bar.