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People from elite backgrounds increasingly dominate academia, data shows

washingtonpost.com

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Re: People from elite backgrounds increasingly dominate academia, data shows

#91

Post by bergenty »

AinderS wrote: post #9

Interesting. Although US graduate students are only 53% white [1] (while the US is 57.8% white [2]) and women account for 53% of doctoral degrees [3], all 5 of the people in the generic stock photos in the article are white males, despite making up only an estimated 25% of graduates. A striking deviation from the photographic trend if one e.g. google image searches for "phd graduate". [1] https://www.equityinhighered…

Yeah that should be two Chinese people, an Indian and then white male and female if it needs to match my anecdata at university.

Re: People from elite backgrounds increasingly dominate academia, data shows

#92

Post by Ekaros »

vlunkr wrote: post #49
cm2187 wrote: post #32

> In 1970, just 1 in 5 U.S.-born PhD graduates in economics had a parent with a graduate degree. Now? Two-thirds of them do, according to a new analysis from the Peterson Institute for International Economics. The trends are similar for other fields (and for foreign-born students), but economics is off the charts. > This partly reflects population trends: Over that same period, the share of parents with graduate degr…

I had the same thoughts. The country is now more educated than it was before, and they want to paint that as a bad thing. And point some fingers at the “elite,” Which is now people who’s parents have a college degree I guess.

And realistically we are at point where having a degree doesn't make you an "elite" anymore. Not necessarily even having PhD... The value of degrees has also inflated.

Re: People from elite backgrounds increasingly dominate academia, data shows

#93

Post by zo1 »

AinderS wrote: post #51
cypress66 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You usually see men hanging with other men, and women with other women. There are 2 pictures shown. If you went to a campus and captured 2 such pictures of people at random, it would be completely common for both pictures to end up like the ones in the article.

> If you went to a campus and captured 2 such pictures of people at random Yes. But if a Washington Post photographer went (or chose the pictures), it's vanishingly uncommon. A duckduckgo image search, limited to washingtonpost.com, of "phd graduation", "phd students", "phd graduate", "graduation", or "university students", yields almost no such pictures. Almost all are either very diverse, or entirely black. They on…

No post body was provided.

Re: People from elite backgrounds increasingly dominate academia, data shows

#95

Post by vletal »

lutorm wrote: post #72
cm2187 wrote: post #32

> In 1970, just 1 in 5 U.S.-born PhD graduates in economics had a parent with a graduate degree. Now? Two-thirds of them do, according to a new analysis from the Peterson Institute for International Economics. The trends are similar for other fields (and for foreign-born students), but economics is off the charts. > This partly reflects population trends: Over that same period, the share of parents with graduate degr…

It doesn't scale like that, though. If the % of people with college degrees had increased by 6x, to 24%, would you expect 6/5 of students to have parents with a college degree?

I guess like plenty of bounded processes in nature, this is likely a sigmoid-ish function where close to zero you can approximate the function linearly. Yet yeah, there is some error.

Re: People from elite backgrounds increasingly dominate academia, data shows

#96

Post by aj7 »

frognumber wrote: post #55
usednet wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And all of this contributes to extremely low intellectual diversity at Ivy Leagues. I have the pleasure of frequently interacting with Harvard students and it is consistently true that they are always unremarkable individuals. These schools simply breed a managerial class that is capable of grinding hard and following orders.

I've been affiliated with MIT in one way or another for more than a quarter-century. What's been astounding is the change in faculty. Historically, MIT faculty were nerds into neat tech problems. New MIT faculty are slick politicians with an increasing sleazy Enron-style vibe. That's true of MIT leadership as well.

I’ve suspected this. There was always some seed corn of this type at MIT, even in the old days. I got SB, 1968-72. Hacker was a new word, and nerd was often spelled with a “u.” It would have been unthinkable to try to prosecute Jonathan Swartz then.

Re: People from elite backgrounds increasingly dominate academia, data shows

#97

Post by vishnugupta »

There's a (vicious?) feedback spiral at work here too. Most of the policies, bills etc., are authored by back office workers who are either themselves academics or are heavily influenced by them. Same with lobbyists. Academics (primarily economists) are also at work to produce all those white papers, op-ed articles that shape public opinion.

Academics pays less compared to industry (tech, finance etc.,) so it's mostly those with elite backgrounds with big inheritance wealth who can afford to spend a long time in academia in return for a chance to keep elite's hold in the government.

Re: People from elite backgrounds increasingly dominate academia, data shows

#98

Post by aj7 »

metadat wrote: post #3

Isn't this to be expected with any similarly weighted network? Guess who private sector loves to promote to executive positions like VP and SVP? Harvard and ivy grads. Even in engineering, where it's supposed to be more of a meritocracy, you can see this at every bigco. Human idiosyncrasies lead to branding pedigree consistently being selected over pure skill and / or superior experience in favor of an abstract perce…

It is important to note that schools teach mannerisms and expectation.

The undergrad curriculum in Physics at MIT and a good state school are hardly dissimilar.

Re: People from elite backgrounds increasingly dominate academia, data shows

#99

Post by lordnacho »

Hydraulix989 wrote: post #45
metadat wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Chances are the company you work for was founded by a Harvard or Stanford grad... Thankfully not at the moment, but I get your point. My original point stands- looking at the social network connections, nothing these days is a surprise with regard to general composition. Is it the best? No, I think it is elitist and pointlessly or harmfully exclusionary. These are fundamental divisions in society, a glass ceiling t…

If Harvard went away, I would be VERY happy. Schools like Tsinghua, IIT, and C9 are much more meritocratic. Oxford / Cambridge are also very "exclusive" in the worst way possible, and given the history of the early US, it's not surprising that this insular Victorian / London culture of poshness also permeated into 17th / 18th century Ivy League schools in the Puritanical US. I'm amazed at what abject conditions Easte…

> Oxford / Cambridge are also very "exclusive" in the worst way possible

I went there, and I didn't see anything but ordinary people. Something like Classics will naturally skew towards secondary schools that have a Latin class, but apart from that admissions are close to a dice roll among qualified kids. Certainly the impression I got was that dons were jealously guarding their right to decide, on their own, who would get in.

The place was non-elite enough that I never even realized the Bullingdon Club was a thing until after I left.

As you might expect though, a fairly large proportion of kids came from wealthy backgrounds. Private schools that cost way more than university tuition, that kind of thing.

Re: People from elite backgrounds increasingly dominate academia, data shows

#100

Post by novok »

Hydraulix989 wrote: post #47
Hydraulix989 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, I worked at two FAANG companies and with not a single Harvard or Stanford graduate. I hosted an intern from Stanford once who received a top of band return offer and rejected it for a "better option." I had one coworker from MIT who admitted he should have gone in finance instead. He later left for a prestigious hedge fund and 7 figure compensation. Most of my coworkers ended up here on H1-B visas from top scho…

Quant trader at a firm that I've never even heard of but routinely pays even engineers 7 figures

I've also heard working at such firms has crazy finance hours too, which dissuades me from working there.
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