The Disadvantages of an Elite Education (2008)

The remarks here on HN dissing this article piqued my curiosity, so I began to read the article. It's been a long ..year...and I am super tired, so I am not going to manage to actually read the whole thing. But, I was one of the top three students of my graduating high school class and I turned down a National Merit Scholarship to one of the top two universities of my home state. I think I made the right…

I attended an elite prep school, took two years off and then enrolled at my local state university. A few thoughts: 1. You are the future leaders of America: I heard this frequently, and never understood the import, really. I get uncomfortable when too many people agree with me, let alone do what I say. Why would we all aspire to leadership? And where does that leave me, stranger to my own cohort? 2. The gap years between high school…

Graduates of elite schools are not more valuable than stupid people, or talentless people, or even lazy people. That's a common enough platitude, but I'm not convinced that it's true. Or rather, it's the sort of thing we like to pretend is true for the sake of a functioning society (since nobody likes to discuss exactly who is worth more than whom) and everybody goes along with it. We'll admit extreme cases (like Beethoven is worth more than some bum…

> When parents explain why they work so hard to give their children the best possible education, they invariably say it is because of the opportunities it opens up. But what of the opportunities it shuts down? An elite education gives you the chance to be rich—which is, after all, what we’re talking about—but it takes away the chance not to be. Yet the opportunity not to be rich is one of the greatest opportunities with which young Americans have…