"America’s new aristocracy" and "An hereditary meritocracy"

But don’t you expect raises that go beyond COL in your own job?

But don’t you expect raises that go beyond COL in your own job?

Raises have been dire in private companies rank and file for several years now because of the economy and unemployment rate.

@scholarme - that was true for a while (and btw our teaching contract also had 0.5% raises during that time, not even COL) - however, cnnfn has announced average raises exceeding 3% for several years now, which even under current conditions, most teachers do not get.

Again, you are looking at only one way. Here’s an example.

College graduate with a basic degree in education looks the salary scale and notices that his base salary will start at xx.000 in year one and will adjust at COL plus 2 percent for seniority. He notices that a teacher with 20 years of seniority and a similar degree earns his salary times 1.60.

Now repeat the same but with a graduate with a math degree who obtains a masters’ in his third year. What is he looking at? An increase based on the advanced degree but a salary that still falls short of the tenured teacher. Where is the incentive?

What would be wrong to have a starting salary for the soon to have advanced degree holder from a competitive school in such a field to start with a salary that is higher than the tenured teacher who graduated from one of those darn awful education colleges and might even have picked up an advanced degree in a soft field from the same type of mediocre college?

@collegebound1516, interesting that you think that your family is not racially diverse. Need aid is not based on race (some merit aid is). My family is very racially diverse, Asian Indians, Brazilians (mixture of Portuguese/Spanish/Italian, African, and Native Brazilian), Irish and Nordic. I just found it funny you used the term “family is not racially diverse”, instead of URM.

@mom2and, of all the posts on this thread, I liked yours the best. The biggest issue I think there is in America in keeping the rich rich and the poor poor is that more tax money is spent on rich kids than on poor kids. This is all a result of the way schools are funded locally. That also contributes to keeping neighborhoods somewhat segregated, in a self perpetuating loop. I as an immigrant like you was able to move into a “good” neighborhood, and my kids got to go to a “good” public high school. I also will be getting no inheritance from my parents. My kids were able to get into good colleges (not Ivy’s). I did pay for my kids to take the SAT prep classes, which bumped their SAT scores up by 250 points on average. That totally convinced me that life is not fair (in this case positive in my direction). Somebody from a neighborhood with bad high schools who gets an SAT that is way lower than my kids “can” deserve a spot in a college my kids does not get into. Because my kids not only had the privilege of a SAT prep class, but also parental involvement, and prodding their whole life.

The issue here is that people are increasingly looking at university background as your social status. After 10, 20 years of work experience where you studied doesn’t matter anymore(unless it is an Ivy, but with that not having such experience will raise serious questions) but it does determine your first job and if you don’t have nepotism benefits it is hard to get a good first job out of college. This hurts the economy with debt, but not even considering that it means you are stonewalled in the corporate latter and will most likely be behind many of the people who attended more prestigious schools, as they have the same experience as you but started higher. Now, of course you can get around this by doing something wondrous like starting a successful business or saving a company single-handedly, but let’s admit it most people lack either the competency or opportunity to do those things.

The “hereditary” aspect comes not from official titles or outright nepotism, but because children of the extremely wealthy will attend at worst a medium-level college with plenty of opportunities. For the poor, they lack the private schools/well-managed public schools, tutors, influence via donations, legacy status, and other traits the wealthy enjoy. While I doubt there will ever be an actual aristocracy, the mismanagement of education regarding the poor and their position in the economy, as well as inflated university worth, means social mobility is declining for many. There will always be those that can break through and move to the upper class but it is growing increasingly difficult.

On average, 2007-2008 graduates were employed about 84% of the time.

So… the children of our smartest people are turning out smart as well, thus creating a cognitively stratified society. Instead of writing news articles on this, why not just refer people to the Bell Curve, published in 1994.

Earl, I think you need to read some more. You could read the critiques of the Bell Curve, there are many criticisms of that simple old book and its ideas, or if that is too hard, you might go back to rgosula’s post #84 or mom2and #50 and think about their comments as appropriate to the large system of US education. You might also consider reading the World’s Smartest Kids and How they got that Way, which I suggested earlier in the thread; it compares HS educations around the world.

I know that my HYPS kid wouldn’t be there if I didn’t have the resources to buy her ECs, SAT prep books, books in general, lessons, and leisure to study. In part she is the student she is because, through my job, I model an academic life. She would not have the same intellectual tools if she was born into a poor family, or for that matter if she went to a ordinary high school.

CC exists because getting to the high end of U.S. culture requires specialized work and knowledge starting well before college. It is a symptom of growing aristocracy.

@1rd2st3nd‌, you don’t need to benefit from nepotism or go to an elite school to get a good first job out of college.

@PurpelTitan I never said you did. You don’t even have to go to an Ivy to become massively successful, what I am saying is that social stratification is growing. While some of the lower and middle classes will break through the social barrier, the children of the rich will always have every educational opportunity provided to them. A student who would struggle with math or science in public school would have access to world-class tutors. A student who might struggle to find a related job could ether get a position at their relative’s company(and thus fast-track themselves to CEO status) or easily use their family’s influence to get a position they desire. Students who would struggle or have no chance at all of getting into an Ivy can simply buy their win or make it through legacy applications. A Harvard admissions officer even outright admitted that legacy applicants go through an entirely different process, and even for general admissions being from a prestigious family was a massive plus. He, in his own words, admitted that where you come from does in fact matter.

I never said nor intended to say that is impossible to succeed without an influential family. Bill Gates, although hailing from a middle-class family, was beforehand from an unknown family. Steve Jobs attended a relatively unknown and obscure college.

The issue is that a continuing amount of these executive positions, in both business and politics, is being taken by people from said prestigious families. This is the “hereditary meritocracy” as they are still qualified from their educational opportunities, but achieved those mostly from nepotism.

Those who can’t teach…c students from d schools teaching = awful state of public education

Everyone is way over analyzing… The cream always rises to the top. End of story.

@kollegeguy No doubt many of the “creme” will rise to the top, but the problem is the creme is being formed by the children of the rich with increasing frequency due to how education is treated. Generational social static is not good for a capitalist economy/

I’m sure this has happened in the past because of the concentration of capital - money. But, now it appears to be happening because of the concentration of intelligence, and maybe to a lesser degree, experience.

American kids show an amazing lack of interest in their own education. Even more worrying is that parents show an amazing lack of interest in their kid’s education. And most worrying is how many education professionals are more concerned about seniority, tenure, pay & benefits, etc than about a kid’s education.

Bottomline, everyone says they are concerned about the state of education but nobody is willing to take responsibility for it.

Plus, with so much junk science, ideological beliefs posing as science or educated opinions and add in a society/pop culture/mass media that always appeals to the lowest common denominator, it’s almost impossible to reverse the trend because society is being reconstructed on a foundation of ignorant masses rather than an educated electorate.

"The issue here is that people are increasingly looking at university background as your social status. After 10, 20 years of work experience where you studied doesn’t matter anymore(unless it is an Ivy, but with that not having such experience will raise serious questions) "

Only in certain pockets / areas /professions do “Ivies” have special, magical powers. You seem to be unaware of vast swathes of the country where the state flagship will get you anywhere you need to go.

@1rd2st3nd‌ , you said “After 10, 20 years of work experience where you studied doesn’t matter anymore(unless it is an Ivy, but with that not having such experience will raise serious questions) but it does determine your first job and if you don’t have nepotism benefits it is hard to get a good first job out of college”.

I said “you don’t need to benefit from nepotism or go to an elite school to get a good first job out of college.”

You then said “I never said you did.”

So, what exactly did you never say? Because it seems to be that you did say you need to benefit from nepotism or go to an elite school to get a good first job out of college. Is there another way to interpret your original statement?

As affordable higher education becomes out of reach for more and more Americans, new class hierarchies emerge, based not just on $, but on access to premier institutions and jobs. We are entering the vicious cycle where the rich get richer and the poor (and middle class) get poorer.

I hope college gets expensive to the point where people stop going and employers stop hiring exclusively college grads. Most jobs do not need a college education to do. They need training and mentorship/apprenticeship. Engineering, physics, chemistry, astronomy and some business disciplines may demand higher education but most jobs that people actually get could be performed by most people with training.

Maybe a great shortage of college grads will wake employers up to that fact and bring back on-the-job training instead of entry level jobs posting that say experience required. It’s ridiculous.