The moral bankruptcy of Ivy League America • Hacker News Board

Re: The moral bankruptcy of Ivy League America

#21

Post by 88913527 » Wed, Jul 05, 2023, 8:54 PM UTC

mochomocha wrote: post #4

This is a very good summary of my own thoughts regarding the Supreme Court ruling. The American obsession with race in this specific case translates into focusing on a more superficial problem and polarizing the debate, as opposed to finding an easier solution to the bigger problem of ALDC admissions (namely: ban them), which I assume would be less controversial.

Demand for exclusive institutions by the elite won't go away if you ban legacy admissions. Expect some new unaccredited institution to open up, and that's where they'll attend.

Re: The moral bankruptcy of Ivy League America

#22

Post by mochomocha » Wed, Jul 05, 2023, 9:00 PM UTC

88913527 wrote: post #21

mochomocha wrote: post #4

This is a very good summary of my own thoughts regarding the Supreme Court ruling. The American obsession with race in this specific case translates into focusing on a more superficial problem and polarizing the debate, as opposed to finding an easier solution to the bigger problem of ALDC admissions (namely: ban them), which I assume would be less controversial.

Demand for exclusive institutions by the elite won't go away if you ban legacy admissions. Expect some new unaccredited institution to open up, and that's where they'll attend.

Good! Everyone will know these new institutions are full of rich people instead of full of smart people, so the job market value of the diplomas they issue will be priced as such (~ 0).

Re: The moral bankruptcy of Ivy League America

#23

Post by tnecniv » Wed, Jul 05, 2023, 9:03 PM UTC

inglor_cz wrote: post #18

tnecniv wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am paywalled from the article, so maybe I’m misunderstanding the quote you pulled due to lack of context, but you also can’t just double the acceptance rate over night. Even if you could admit more students and cover their tuition, you run into a number of issues, e.g.: 1) Students have to live somewhere. More students living off campus will drive up apartment rent in the area. You can build dorms to increase the h…

Maybe there could be a Harvard Lite online academy that wouldn't need any extra buildings and just a little staff, but supply very high quality courses. Also, it could be available to English-speaking people worldwide, including places like Africa, where wider availability high-quality education could make a huge difference - wouldn't that be a win for anyone who is concerned about social justice?

A lot of these schools have been putting their content on services like Coursera for a while now. I think that’s generally a good thing, but it can’t replicate every aspect of being an on-campus student (no teaching labs for example), and I’m skeptical as to how online degrees that some schools offer (I know Penn recently started an online version of their LDS program) will be viewed the same as a traditional degree by employers

Re: The moral bankruptcy of Ivy League America

#24

Post by quantified » Wed, Jul 05, 2023, 9:15 PM UTC

dustingetz wrote: post #12

i don’t get why the chief beneficiary of AA is elite whites as quoted by the article conclusion? are they referring to the legacy and the donors? how is that AA?

It's that AA affects a different pool than the ADLC (athletes, legacies, rich people, faculty/staff people). The ADLC pool remains.

Re: The moral bankruptcy of Ivy League America

#25

Post by photonthug » Wed, Jul 05, 2023, 9:26 PM UTC

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #6

> " The genuinely radical Ivy League option — spending their vast endowments to sharply increase student numbers — is unlikely to be entertained. " This is often said but doesn't seem to be realistic if one digs into the numbers. Endowments aren't one big slush fund that the university can use however they want; they are a collection of individual donations, many of which can only be used in accordance with the donor…

70% of 53 billion is restricted, but presumably they still make significant money from interest/investment on that money. And IDK, but I assume it's all tax-free too, since the alumni probably wrote a big chunk of the tax code. Are these profits considered part of the endowment too and with similar restrictions? If unrestricted, is the available student aid commensurate with that, or does it disappear into operations and/or dean salary?

Re: The moral bankruptcy of Ivy League America

#26

Post by theGnuMe » Wed, Jul 05, 2023, 9:31 PM UTC

naveen99 wrote: post #7

mochomocha wrote: post #4

This is a very good summary of my own thoughts regarding the Supreme Court ruling. The American obsession with race in this specific case translates into focusing on a more superficial problem and polarizing the debate, as opposed to finding an easier solution to the bigger problem of ALDC admissions (namely: ban them), which I assume would be less controversial.

They should just increase the price of admission for non merit based spots. but the universities want to take the money as a “donation” instead of cost of goods, so the parents can save on taxes as well and donate twice as much. maybe tuition should be tax deductible for everyone instead.

They accept Federal research dollars so they should be governed by federal admission guidelines and standards.

Re: The moral bankruptcy of Ivy League America

#27

Post by missedthecue » Wed, Jul 05, 2023, 9:32 PM UTC

mochomocha wrote: post #22

88913527 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Demand for exclusive institutions by the elite won't go away if you ban legacy admissions. Expect some new unaccredited institution to open up, and that's where they'll attend.

Good! Everyone will know these new institutions are full of rich people instead of full of smart people, so the job market value of the diplomas they issue will be priced as such (~ 0).

Implying people don't know this about Harvard. Yet the market value of a degree in practically any discipline is quite high.

Re: The moral bankruptcy of Ivy League America

#28

Post by photonthug » Wed, Jul 05, 2023, 9:35 PM UTC

tnecniv wrote: post #14

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #6

> " The genuinely radical Ivy League option — spending their vast endowments to sharply increase student numbers — is unlikely to be entertained. " This is often said but doesn't seem to be realistic if one digs into the numbers. Endowments aren't one big slush fund that the university can use however they want; they are a collection of individual donations, many of which can only be used in accordance with the donor…

I am paywalled from the article, so maybe I’m misunderstanding the quote you pulled due to lack of context, but you also can’t just double the acceptance rate over night. Even if you could admit more students and cover their tuition, you run into a number of issues, e.g.: 1) Students have to live somewhere. More students living off campus will drive up apartment rent in the area. You can build dorms to increase the h…

> An option might be to start opening separate campuses, but that’s unappealing to their prospective students.

Is it really unappealing to students though? Or is it just unappealing to abstracted others (like some alumni/profs/admins) that are much more interested in university "prestige" than actual education and education-opportunities?

Re: The moral bankruptcy of Ivy League America

#29

Post by GuB-42 » Wed, Jul 05, 2023, 9:37 PM UTC

mochomocha wrote: post #22

88913527 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Demand for exclusive institutions by the elite won't go away if you ban legacy admissions. Expect some new unaccredited institution to open up, and that's where they'll attend.

Good! Everyone will know these new institutions are full of rich people instead of full of smart people, so the job market value of the diplomas they issue will be priced as such (~ 0).

Which will be terrible for both the rich and the smart.

The rich don't need diplomas, if they can just take over the family's business. In fact they don't even need a job at all. But they may need a few smart people for important positions in said family's business. In an institution composed of both rich and smart people, connections naturally form, so the rich get the smart people they need, and the smart get a good job.

Separate them what will happen is that your future boss will not be as well educated, and will probably hire some of his rich friends instead of his smart friends. And the smart will have a harder time finding the jobs they deserve.

Re: The moral bankruptcy of Ivy League America

#30

Post by 1letterunixname » Wed, Jul 05, 2023, 9:51 PM UTC

Maybe I have a slanted view of some outlier assholes with "The Right"(tm) pedigree, but I came to a conclusion reluctantly that they believed the world owed because they were special and deserving. This included making a killing on services delivered by outsourced foreign workers and restructuring local commodity markets in Africa to enrich themselves first while ignoring externalities such as lower profits for farmers and the preferences of buyers and sellers to make the trade platform useful to them.