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Most US professors are trained at same few elite universities

nature.com

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Re: Most US professors are trained at same few elite universities

#21

Post by setgree »

thfuran wrote: post #19
setgree wrote: post #5

> “Accepting that prestige is a good measure of excellence means that we’re not looking into the history of how things became prestigious,” Gonzales says. The founding of elite US universities is “intertwined with exclusion”, she adds. For instance, many institutions have a history of seizing land from Indigenous groups, or originally derived their wealth from or supported their infrastructure with the labour of ensl…

>These are non-sequiturs. And also probably little more than proxies for the age of the institution.

At the very least, highly correlated :)

Re: Most US professors are trained at same few elite universities

#22

Post by mjfl »

There's many opportunities to go through one of these institutions - you could do undergrad there, grad school, or one of multiple post docs. There's lots of people that go state school -> ivy/prestige -> state school and end up professors. Or state school -> state school -> ivy/prestige. Or state school -> state school -> state school -> ivy/prestige. If you work really hard, chances are you end up somewhere prestigious eventually. Probably hard to avoid.

I was also going to say that there are plenty of less prestigious schools that graduate a ton of professors, like UC Berkeley, but it turns out it's on this list hah.

Re: Most US professors are trained at same few elite universities

#23

Post by commandlinefan »

Both times I was in college (undergraduate and master's degree), it seemed like at least 90% of my professors were immigrants from foreign countries. I never really thought to ask, but I would have assumed that they attended a foreign university in their home country at least for undergraduate... does this mean they all went to the same 8 institutions for a U.S.-generated PhD before they could move into academia?

Re: Most US professors are trained at same few elite universities

#24

Post by azinman2 »

I don’t know why this is a problem or even surprising. There are few academic positions. Getting in and making it through the top schools is competitive and difficult. So why wouldn’t the best and brightest and most motivated and best networked beat everyone else out?

I’ve been to every kind of level of school (public, private, non-elite, elite). Whenever I’ve had someone from an elite background teaching at a non-elite place has made me feel better about the education I received, and was grateful for it! Relatedly, the expectations in the elite environments were substantially higher, which ended up producing better work from myself because of my peers, culture, and pressure than when I was lacking those in non-elite environments… despite the fact that I’m the same person.

I hate this trend perusing equality by lowering to the common denominator. That’s how you lose competitive edge in the world and end up with a mushy disinterested public. Talent is non-uniformly distributed… we should encourage and have ample mechanisms for the cream to rise to the top regardless of background. Finding ways to identify and prop up talent is what’s culturally lacking. I’ve seen it first hand countless times, and it’s saddened me each time because it’s so wasteful for society and the individuals. We need access to more elite institutions not less!

Re: Most US professors are trained at same few elite universities

#25

Post by Nimitz14 »

iudqnolq wrote: post #3

Universities are efficient, they create many potential professors with a small number of professors. So every class of potential professors will have many who can't get jobs where they studied, and will apply to less desirable places. This was very disheartening to realize in college. It was too late for me to attempt to become any of the role models physically in front of me.

I personally like it that not anyone can become a professor, it should be an elite position imo.

Re: Most US professors are trained at same few elite universities

#27

Post by bo1024 »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #6

This is a really ignorant question and I'm pretty sure I already know the answer. But say I wanted to become a teacher at some school, specifically teaching things like "how to organize and execute the operational side of a tech product", or "managing Enterprise IT". You have to have a degree (in something) first, right? They won't just hire someone with 25 years experience and no degree to teach a class?

To teach a class or two on the side, they absolutely would. For full time options, there is a title “professor of the practice” which might not need a PhD but it’s a bit rare.

Re: Most US professors are trained at same few elite universities

#30

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 »

setgree wrote: post #5

> “Accepting that prestige is a good measure of excellence means that we’re not looking into the history of how things became prestigious,” Gonzales says. The founding of elite US universities is “intertwined with exclusion”, she adds. For instance, many institutions have a history of seizing land from Indigenous groups, or originally derived their wealth from or supported their infrastructure with the labour of ensl…

It is a nice catch. I read and re-read the quote and the argument is oddly worded. If I were to try to make sense of it and try to defend it, I think I would say that the author is trying to say that how you got where you are matters. It is still a bad and poorly worded argument. Than again, 'everything is racism' clearly sells clicks today so even non-sequitur works.
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