It’s a shame we don’t try to get lawyers who needed three tries to pass the bar exam onto the high court. What a crazy bunch of overachievers sitting on the bench right now.
Wow, I have not head that reference in a very long time, but you are quite right. Still, there is no way in a mass publication like USA Today that the reference will be understood by any but a very few. Frankly, I am not sure I even consciously read those words, or if my mind would have retrieved that reference given the publication choice for this piece. I was so shocked by the “Abolish the Ivy League” part, I admit to going numb for a minute. If he indeed meant it as satire, he should have waited until the end and then revealed his October surprise, even if it did sneak into November.
Yeah like I said, just very poorly written, whether it was meant to be satire or not 
Now this modest proposal - well thought out AND funny: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/509446-modest-proposal-the-super-stat.html (hat tip to @Hunt )
Spare us the sarcasm. You know that’s not what I meant. A true meritocracy would simply focus on academics - GPA and test scores. But that’s not even what I’m suggesting. I’m saying it’s totally fine for them to keep playing whatever cutesy little game they want to play to keep their desired demographics, but they should walk the talk on equality and extend the same need based aid to those equally qualified by academic merits but were kept outside the gate because they weren’t in the “right” demographics.
Because they likely took the same classes from the same professors, read the same books, joined the same clubs, lived in the same dorms, ate/studied/partied with one another, probably have lots of friends in common, maybe even came from more or less the same family backgrounds. Do you think people actually get jobs in the Obama administration without knowing someone?
The Supreme court today is Exhibit A of lack of diversity. Different law schools have different teachers with different viewpoints. People who live in different parts of the country also often have different backgrounds and viewpoints. After all, that’s why elite schools emphasize geographic diversity in their admits. A truly representative SCOTUS would have 9 judges from 9 different law schools from 9 different parts of the country. And @blossom, are you saying all lawyers other than those who went to Harvard or Yale have to take 3 tries to pass the bar? Give me a break! 8-|
I agree. I would tax only private universities with an acceptance rate <15% and an endowment >$2B.
Why stop there. My modest proposal is to tax every university that practices holistic admissions.
individuals have “too much money” = take it away from them and give it to other people
schools have “too much money” = let them keep it all for themselves
… seems some posters in this thread do not have consistent views of those with “more than they need”
It must be so rough to know that test scores / GPA aren’t the sole measure of a person, and yet have nothing else to offer.
Cmsjmt, the vast majority of colleges in this country admit solely on scores. Why don’t you restrict your search to them if Ivy policies are so problematic for you. It’s not like you need the Ivies to be successful in life.
“Instead of artificially dragging down the top, shouldn’t we work on elevating the lower performers in the quest for equality?” (JustOneDad)
A-yup. Somehow, eliminating Harvard doesn’t seem the way to create more movers and shakers from Northern Kentucky University ("recently deemed “more inspirational…” in the London Times Higher Education magazine.”)
I don’t think it’s parody. I think that, like lots of opinion pieces, it’s merely self-serving.
What a stupid idea proposed by the uninformed. Harvard requires absolutely NO money from families making less than $65000. Find another college that does that. There are very few.
Not quite, nobel. A student is expected to contribute from summer earnings and work study. And, “Families at all income levels who have significant assets will continue to pay more than those in less fortunate circumstances.”
The quote about NKU was from the Reynolds article.
And what about the San Diego state grad who passed the bar once with flying colors?
I think cmsjmt misunderstood JHS’s absolute/relative point, which was that a bloated per capita endowment (such as Princeton’s $2M/student) is a much different case than an similarly large total endowment at a more populous school.
I’ve re-read the article and am convinced that the author is either a very poor satirist or, more likely, factually ignorant and/or extremely analytically challenged.
He’s a professor and Yale Law grad who- like others we could name- likes to rile things up, probably likes to be quotable and inflammatory, and knows many will assume he speaks with authority. After all, he is in some newspaper. And now, his words are on CC.
This reminds me of a famous quote by a senator in support of a Supreme Court nominee who was viewed as not a stellar choice:
In looking again at the article, I guess the author is making the following points, through satire (1) inequality isn’t really a big problem, and (2) if it is a big problem, why don’t we start by taking away money from these liberal institutions that produce people who are concerned about inequality? The argument about the big endowments is decent, but that’s not really what this is all about.
Taking it further, I would also tax the out-sized givings. Anyone who donates more than $10M to any single private university will no longer be able to do it pre-tax. Tax payers got cheated out of $160M from that $400M gift to Harvard from John Paulson. Think how many scholarships we could’ve established with that money. We should start making it completely free for any citizen to get a degree in Computer Science in college, plug that “talent shortfall” that employers are always whining about while they press Congress for more H1b visas to hire foreign workers (or just hike the h1b visa fee to $100k per visa, then use the fund to establish scholarships for citizens to study CS).
Indeed, we should tax any donation that we deem useless–like maybe wasting a costly ointment just to wash some itinerant preacher’s feet.
Charities get slammed as scams when they collect millions of dollars and spend only a small fraction of that on their ostensible cause. All eleemysonary institutions who receive tax breaks should be required by law to do the same.
But the political class who went to these same institutions have to protect their little club.
This may be of interest to some, Myths About College an University Endowments. https://www.aau.edu/WorkArea/DownloadAsset.aspx?id=7792