@mathyone - If you take a statistics class, you find that the variability in test scores is somewhat normal.
@everyoneelse - Reading through the article, the author does not call call for the abolition of the Ivy League. USA Today made up the headline to draw attention, and it worked. Instead, the author calls for the abolition of certain tax breaks that these not-for-profits enjoy, and supported those proposals with the quotes from a noted member of the Clinton administration.
“Tax and Regulate the Ivy League” would be a more accurate headline.
This is one of the comments to the OP article:
Obviously research money should be redirected to the Hudson County CC. They will have better use for it.
I have to say that I have not heard may Ivy League students describe the environment as a “playground.” It seems to me like there are a lot of very busy students at those schools who are working very hard.
This article is so laughably full of errors and so poorly reasoned that I had to look again to make sure I wasn’t reading The Onion. I could take it apart line by line, but why bother? I cannot believe the author passed law school, much less became a law professor.
“variability in test scores is somewhat normal”. Yes, but many people assign great importance to small differences in scores which are statistically insignificant. According to the college board, “Usually, your scores fall in a range of roughly 30 to 40 points above or below your true ability.”
“Isn’t that what the SAT and ACT are for?” This is a very crude and incomplete measure. The SATs don’t come close to measuring all that students are supposed to be learning in their classes.
Suppose high school 1 has lower average SATs than high school 2, but a comparable distribution of grades. Does that mean grading is more lax? What if high school 1 also has more kids in groups that tend to score lower on the SAT (eg. low SES). Does it mean they are handing out easy As to the top students? Or are the lower level classes giving out easy As?
What if high school 1 pays for all kids to take the SAT and high school 2 makes kids pay to take the SAT so the lowest achieving kids skip the test because they aren’t going to college? Does it mean high school 1 is handing out easy A’s?
Sure he does, first line of paragraph 2.
When in fact…
That aside, the author’s research, analysis, and presentation are extremely weak. For example, he “modestly” proposes that “We should require that all schools with endowments over $1 billion spend at least 10% of their endowment annually on student financial aid.”
Apparently he didn’t do the math. If you apply this percentage to Princeton’s endowment of $18 billion (source: the author), to Princeton’s 7,946 total student population (graduate and undergrad) he is arguing that Princeton should give each of its students around $2,000,000 in FA each year. I doubt that’s what he intended to propose.
And, given that Princeton has need blind admissions, his unrealistic solution addresses a “problem” that hardly exists.
I write this as a parent who knows, having benefitted from a lot of Princeton FA.
Seriously? This is just ridiculous.
I am adding this one to the “why is this a thread” thread.
OP seems to like to let loose with the fireworks it seems. I’ll know to steer clear from being baited in the future. This is as useful as reading the “comments” to some article about gun control/immigration/racism in the local news website
Instead of artificially dragging down the top, shouldn’t we work on elevating the lower performers in the quest for equality?
In order to achieve a small measure of this, I recommend renaming certain colleges and universities at which can be found large numbers of under-performing students.
For example, Northern Peninsula State College would become something like “Bartlesby College”, removing the stigma of the directional university for all time.
Your state flagship university would become, maybe, “Oak & Shield University”. How regal.
The South Harmon Institute of Technology could become simply “J. Trottingham Sr. Institute” which should go a long ways to removing all negative connotations.
The end result should be to dramatically improve student and public perception.
The article is a parody, y’all. “A Modest Proposal?” Ring any bells. There have been legitimate calls to remove the tax breaks for these extremely wealthy institutions which do primarily advantage those who don’t need tax advantages. Those who want to ‘tax the rich’ (many of whom went to these very elitist institutions) don’t recognize that institutions with billions in endowments are ‘the rich’.
This whole achievement thing is completely unfair. We should also start taxing the grades of high performing students so we can spread the grades around a little.
These “elite” schools are doing more to eliminate inequality than most any organization in the country, but it takes time and requires that students from the high school level who have lower incomes or other challenges, have access to the kind of education that enables them to do the work at Harvard.
70% of Harvard students receive some kind of aid, 20% go for free, and 40% are minorities. This article is ridiculous.
There is actually a lot of gratitude out there among parents, for what these schools have done in terms of financial aid and access.
@DecideSomeHow Excellent suggestion. The higher your GPA, the more time you’d be required to spend tutoring the “less fortunate”.
Eventually, things would even out. Of course, if there weren’t sufficient numbers of low-performing students showing up for tutoring, we’d have to have proctors who would make sure the (volunteer) tutors sat on their hands and didn’t do something productive with the down time.
I think the author of the article is angling for a future appointment to be Handicapper General.
JustOneDad, great post.
@justonedad, no, my suggestion was quite literal, and sarcastic. A kid with a 4.0 should be dropped down to a 3.8 so a kid with a 3.2 can be propped up to 3.4, It’s the exact same logic as “hey! that school has money! They should be required to give away tuition!” Would we scream for Apple to give away iPhones because they have $200B? Nope.
I’m not going to even Goooogle it, but if I had to hazard a guess…