“The new “meritocracy” means we have replaced direct familial bloodline as an entry point to elite status with meritocratic achievement, albeit which, with a lifetime of nurturing from the best money can buy, just so happens to be highly correlated with direct familial bloodline.”
Thread title is not an accurate representation of Granato’s writing or the title thereof.
Basically, it looks like the point is that the existing aristocracy of wealth can more easily ensure that their kids mostly come out ahead in any meritocratic criteria, and that financial aid allowed him, one of the few from non-super-wealthy families, a view of the next generation of aristocracy of wealth through attendance at Middlesex and Stanford.
I.e. financial aid did not create this situation; it only helped allow a small number of outsiders like him into the exclusive club.
Interesting
My 3 kids have been beneficiaries of the policies as we have received need based awards; and I think being bright, hard working, talented kids have helped my kids tremendously as doors have been opened that we would have never thought otherwise,
I just want to thanks donor’s to provide us with unparallel opportunities.
I am going to raise a separate question in a different thread
Q.If kids receive a greater than 80% need based aid, does it help in elite college admission provided kid is top 10% in prep school, have stellar SAT1 AND SAT2, leadership positions and other awards, based on this article
Disaimer So far for two kids we got 100% need based aid at prep school and college
Yes to get out of that situation, one has to be street smart, but not unethical,; otherwise you become educated fool who is bookish smart; that real life learning comes through working in fast food or similar place like Burger King, you learn what a hard day of work means, you go do job that require manual labor; these are must tools to learn about life, most important you learn to empathise as you have lived that life your self
At least he’s honest why this whole thing matters not.
On a related topic…
"Financial aid is now the single biggest source of funds in paying for a college education, according to new research.
Scholarships and grants make up more than a third of college costs, outstripping the contributions made by parents and students themselves."
Re #9
Chart in that article shows for 2016-2017:
35% scholarships and grants
23% parent income and savings
08% parent loans
04% friends and relatives
11% student income and savings
19% student loans
So parent total is 31% and student total is 30%.
“such a change would only affect the fortunes of a few thousand students per year — not enough to alter deeply rooted structures of inequality. …changes need to happen on a national, systemic level. We should move education funding away from local property taxes that pour resources into schools in wealthy districts.”
A few thoughts.
- "only affect the fortunes of a few thousand students per year": A few thousands is better than nothing. In many other countries, low- or middle-income kids receive no or very little need-based aids.
- "not enough to alter deeply rooted structures of inequality": Yes, it will be nice to mitigate inequality, but it is easy to say than done.
- "changes need to happen on a national, systemic level. We should move education...": In this country, education is traditionally done at the state and local level. A national system? In addition, a national system will not really address inequality in education, either. Just look at South Korea. It has a very nice national education system. But the education competition and inequality is actually more severe than it here.
There have been dramatic changes in terms of diversity (of all kinds) at elite schools, since the 1960’s and that change will continue. It may be too slow for some.
Many of the so called storied families are now on financial aid. This is a simplistic approach in my opinion, to the matter of class, which is different from wealth.
And many who go to elite colleges are not quite so conscious of their new status, nor is every grad doing well.
While that is certainly true – and our family was the beneficiary of an generous need-based financial aid package such that attending the Ancient Eight was less than the cost of attending our instate flagship – but yet, there are ~3.5 million high school grads in the US each year. A few thousand which includes internationals, is not even a drop in the proverbial bucket.
And the authors’ conclusion is a little on the hyperbolic side:
The fact is that there are only a few thousand students who can receive “hundreds of thousands of dollars in financial aid.” Even if the most highly selective colleges dropped test scores and legacies and donor hooks, and started accepting ~50% Pell Grantees, that would only be a few thousand more students – a slightly larger drop.
There just aint’ enough slots to go around to make a dent in meritocracy or aristocracy.
In the interest of anecdotes, noted that the author of the article has moved on from Stanford to an Associate Economist position with the Chicago Fed. Annual salary maybe $60k? Maybe a couple of years there, before heading to grad school, which the fed will pay for.
https://www.chicagofed.org/people/jobs/associate-economist-program