It’s time to break up the Ivy League cartel • Hacker News Board

Re: It’s time to break up the Ivy League cartel

#281

Post by unishark » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 10:11 AM UTC

throw123123123 wrote: post #242

Something usually amiss with the current talk of universities is that they are an immigration racket. Universities make most of its tuition money from foreign students, but foreign students go to american universities to get visas they can use to get into the labor market. The F1 visa is unlimited, contrary to the H1B one, and allows for a transition out of university. Also for the H1B and multiple categories, one ke…

I think is especially true of MS programs in technology areas. Schools compete to require the fewest courses possible while including capstones and internships to pad resumes. They basically operate like immigration agencies that will get you a visa and an H1b job in return for $30k or so.

Re: It’s time to break up the Ivy League cartel

#282

Post by citrin_ru » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 10:16 AM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #19

sokoloff wrote: post #11

> Faculty members at prestigious universities are 50 times more likely than the average person to have a parent with a Ph.D. American meritocracy has become a complex, inefficient, and rigged system conferring its graces on ambitious children of highly educated and prosperous families. What’s the ratio in other fields of top achievement for kids to follow in their parents’ footsteps? It’s entirely unsurprising that a…

From the NYT: Working sons of working fathers are, on average, 2.7 times as likely as the rest of the population to have the same job but only two times as likely to have the same job as their working mothers, according to an analysis by The New York Times, one of the first to look at mothers and daughters in addition to fathers and sons. Daughters are 1.8 times as likely to have the same job as their mothers and 1.7…

Why anyone is surprised? Parents are the most powerful role models for children, especially at early age. Also they have good opportunity to teach they kids and what they will teach depends on what they know. This limits social mobility, but all proposals to fix this so far IMHO will do more harm (to high acheivers) than good (to under achievers). This is a difficult problem to tackle so I don't expect easy solutions to work here.

Re: It’s time to break up the Ivy League cartel

#283

Post by sokoloff » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 10:33 AM UTC

devnonymous wrote: post #244

mc32 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that’s a bit facile. When you look at other traditional cultures, or unmodernized cultures offspring still likely follow their parents’ footsteps, but that doesn’t mean those are caste systems. People are permitted to pursue alternatives and aren’t forbidden.

> People are permitted to pursue alternatives and aren’t forbidden. Systematic barriers are seldom built consciously, yet they exist and without conscious effort to break down continue to be perpetuated. From the point of view of opportunities/privileges available to an individual, is there really a difference between the caste system and a class system?

I think there is a difference. As I understand the caste system, it’s inherited durably. If I’m X, not only will I always be X, but my kids and grandkids will also be X, so there’s no point in trying to become “not X”.

Not so for socioeconomic class. My grandfathers milled steel and mined coal. They made sure their kids became the first generation in the family to attend college. My parents became teachers and made sure their kids focused on education and we all attended “good colleges” and have built careers. My generation is saving for college while the kids are still in diapers.

That’s still systemic advantages from the family, but it’s marked change in economic class in just two generations, which is IMO dramatically different from the Indian caste system. It still matters who your parents are, but in a significantly different (and I think more fair) way.

Re: It’s time to break up the Ivy League cartel

#284

Post by unishark » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 10:34 AM UTC

Dracophoenix wrote: post #194

mlac wrote: post #21

“In 1940, the acceptance rate at Harvard was 85 percent.” I didn’t realize that was the acceptance rate, but JFK’s application to Harvard is interesting and that acceptance rate adds context: https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/11/jfks-v... And maybe it’s not people pulling the ladder up behind them - it’s that the ladder has become more visible and desirable without expanding or changing. I do have so…

Just to add to your point, in 1940, Harvard (and most other universities) had its own exam and its own application. The person who was going to spend the time to try for Harvard was a boy (and only boys) who had finished high school (an accomplishment achieved by less than half of all students back then), had book smarts (a common quality today but not in the past), and some form of "noteworthiness" (whether that was…

Also prestige whoring wasn't always as pervasive as it is now. Even as recently as the 90's when I was applying to college, the ivy league proudly proclaimed their lack of merit or athletic scholarships... so I didn't even consider applying there. I think the location of schools was a bigger factor to most of my fellow students than the reputation. New England winters were scary. And my high school actually advised against the nearby elite university because of their recent student suicides. The solid state flagship school was where normal people aspired to go.

It's bizarre to compare the world back then to now. My parents' number one concern was they wanted me out of the house and able to support myself.

Re: It’s time to break up the Ivy League cartel

#285

Post by joatmon-snoo » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 10:39 AM UTC

lordnacho wrote: post #230

retrac wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was just going to look for data on plumbers and carpenters. One common theme to all these jobs is that they tend to be quite stable, and require a life-long set of skills. My father did metalwork before moving to an office job in the civil service. He was the son of a die pressman. Who was the son of a blacksmith. Dad taught me how to weld and cut and so on before my teens. My intellectual interests went to math an…

I wonder if I'm the only kid who expressly did not do what their parents did in this thread. Of course I also sit in a cluster, knowing several other kids who also did not want to become restaurant workers. It was simple really, our parents would say "I'm serving fried rice to people so that you won't have to." None of my family friends have taken over the family business. It's nearly an insult to suggest it, I remem…

Re this thread specifically, I suspect medicine is viewed differently in the US than in the UK. There's certainly an impression, imo, of the profession in the US that's derived from the upper percentiles of the earning potential here; I've heard (but am not sure) that the range is less extreme in countries with superior healthcare systems.

Re: It’s time to break up the Ivy League cartel

#286

Post by sokoloff » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 10:41 AM UTC

exporectomy wrote: post #254

sohei wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s equally unsurprising that the ambitious children of highly educated and prosperous families themselves pursue such a similar path and achieve similar outcomes. That kind of misses the point. You want to train as many effective engineers and researchers as you can. The point of the article is that most Ivies can comfortably train more people, but doing so would reduce some of the scarcity "value" of an Ivy Leag…

But are Ivy League universities really that much better at training people or is their success mostly due to skimming from the top of the applicant pool? If the latter, then it seems like those students would do just as well if they didn't exist and nothing's really lost or gained either way by their exclusivity. If they have a magic recipe for creating success, why can't other universities copy it? Does it depend on…

There’s been research on this point and it supports your thesis. After adjusting for applicant scholastic aptitude, the additional benefit from attending an elite school is “generally indistinguishable from zero.”

Excerpt from article*: In November 2002, the Quarterly Journal of Economics published a landmark paper** by the economists Stacy Dale and Alan Krueger that reached a startling conclusion. For most students, the salary boost from going to a super-selective school is “generally indistinguishable from zero” after adjusting for student characteristics, such as test scores. In other words, if Mike and Drew have the same SAT scores and apply to the same colleges, but Mike gets into Harvard and Drew doesn’t, they can still expect to earn the same income throughout their careers. Despite Harvard’s international fame and energetic alumni outreach, somebody like Mike would not experience an observable “Harvard effect.” Dale and Krueger even found that the average SAT scores of all the schools a student applies to is a more powerful predictor of success than the school that student actually attends.

* - https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/12/does-it-ma...

** - https://www.nber.org/papers/w7322

Re: It’s time to break up the Ivy League cartel

#287

Post by tester756 » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 10:47 AM UTC

rkk3 wrote: post #64

wolverine876 wrote: post #55

What is the author's thesis? I skimmed and read and re-read, but didn't figure it out. It's well known that elite universities are elitist in their admissions and have over-large endowments. And the elite universities have acted on it, and many of their new classes are very different. And it's well known that the rest of the U.S. educational system is underfunded. > Sen. Tom Cotton, of all political leaders, suggeste…

> What is the author's thesis? I skimmed and read and re-read, but didn't figure it out. Same. I think they are hoping Biden will put more money into public schools and stop preferential tax treatments for the large endowments. > It's not a surprise. Cotton and his party see Ivy League universities as institutions of the political opposition, whom they attack and want to punish and diminish. Tom Cotton... Harvard Uni…

>It is probably just posturing.

What makes you think so?

Just because I have degree, then it doesn't mean that I'm not talking shit about academia

Re: It’s time to break up the Ivy League cartel

#288

Post by KMag » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 10:59 AM UTC

lordnacho wrote: post #230

retrac wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was just going to look for data on plumbers and carpenters. One common theme to all these jobs is that they tend to be quite stable, and require a life-long set of skills. My father did metalwork before moving to an office job in the civil service. He was the son of a die pressman. Who was the son of a blacksmith. Dad taught me how to weld and cut and so on before my teens. My intellectual interests went to math an…

I wonder if I'm the only kid who expressly did not do what their parents did in this thread. Of course I also sit in a cluster, knowing several other kids who also did not want to become restaurant workers. It was simple really, our parents would say "I'm serving fried rice to people so that you won't have to." None of my family friends have taken over the family business. It's nearly an insult to suggest it, I remem…

> I wonder if I'm the only kid who expressly did not do what their parents did in this thread.

My father and my father's father were both anesthesiologists. I'm a software developer with a degree in mechanical engineering.

Growing up, I saw a lot of my dad's frustration butting his head against hospital and regulatory bureaucracy and decided to steer clear. (His biggest headaches came because it's not uncommon for one anesthesiologist to cover 3 simultaneous low-risk operations, circulating among the operating rooms while each surgery has a dedicated nurse anesthetist. There was one billing regulation that was ambiguous in a corner case for such simultaneous services, where one reading indicated that they weren't allowed to charge any fees at all in a corner case. His company inquired for clarification from the government regulator and got no response. Years after their inquiry, they got sued regarding corner-case billing of the government for services provided to low income patients. The legal discovery process found internal government memos where regulators joked with each other over my dad's company's inquiry about how it would be great to have zero-cost healthcare at the expense of physicians. The laws were later clarified to avoid the ambiguity to essentially match my dad's company's interpretation, but unfortunately, the lawsuit was over the laws at the time the billing was made. They were actually sued by a third party on behalf of the government, in exchange for a percentage of the money recovered for the government. Some of the key pieces of evidence were shown pre-trial to be "mistakes" where the other side had "accidentally" photocopied several bills twice and redacted the two copies of each bill slightly differently. There were some "anonymous whistleblower" faxes that were traced to an office service center across the street from the other party's offices (conveniently preventing the whistleblower from having to answer questions under oath), and all kinds of other obvious dishonest evidence submission. Most of the complaints were thrown out pre-trial, the rest they settled out of court rather than risk a jury trial pitting "rich doctors" against a government program for low income folks, over ambiguous wording. There were also anti-trust allegations made by defining a market as the area right around the hospital's where dad's company operated and conveniently ignoring some hospitals in-between those included hospitals. At least the anti-trust stuff was dropped pretty quickly, but the whole ordeal was a high-stress multi-year situation for my dad when I was in elementary school.)

Re: It’s time to break up the Ivy League cartel

#289

Post by janeroe » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 11:02 AM UTC

meheleventyone wrote: post #268

plank_time wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone I know is an illegal immigrant from Central America. She cleans houses for a living. Her husband is also illegal immigrant and he paints houses. Her daughter is going to one of the top private schools in SF, on a full scholarship. She dreams of Yale, and I would bet that she gets it easily. If you are dedicated to education, there is plenty of opportunity to succeed. It’s sad that some bloodlines don’t make i…

That’s not actually “just how the world works” that’s “how people have chosen to organise society”. Other places work differently with different outcomes.

Too bad, "I have no other [ways to organize society] for you" (Stalin [my edit]). In a paradise there is no shortage of anything and everyone has whatever they wish. Not the case for the real world we live in. Take it or leave it.

Re: It’s time to break up the Ivy League cartel

#290

Post by lordnacho » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 11:05 AM UTC

joatmon-snoo wrote: post #285

lordnacho wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if I'm the only kid who expressly did not do what their parents did in this thread. Of course I also sit in a cluster, knowing several other kids who also did not want to become restaurant workers. It was simple really, our parents would say "I'm serving fried rice to people so that you won't have to." None of my family friends have taken over the family business. It's nearly an insult to suggest it, I remem…

Re this thread specifically, I suspect medicine is viewed differently in the US than in the UK. There's certainly an impression, imo, of the profession in the US that's derived from the upper percentiles of the earning potential here; I've heard (but am not sure) that the range is less extreme in countries with superior healthcare systems.

Yeah, I happen to have relatives who are doctors in the US. I think they get paid more than my father-in-law did, but they talk about malpractice insurance taking up a lot of that income, so I'm not sure how it nets out.