Gift link: How The Ivy League Broke America

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102

And that’s the problem right there. The socioeconomic “chasms” in the United States were not created by colleges, they were created by a wide variety of actors in the US and indeed beyond.

And again, the timeline suggests these chasms were if anything shrinking in the first few decades post-WWII, while the “meritocractic” college model Brooks is critiquing was going through a massive expansion.

But then those chasms started widening out again circa the 1980s. And while they have had faster and slow periods of widening, overall that trend has continued through today.

And so while many US colleges may in various ways be participating in this broad societal trend of growing disparities, that is far more effect than cause of these trends, which are actually being caused by much broader forces.

But for various reasons, people like Brooks want to scapegoat colleges specifically, rather than the much more fundamental forces shaping US, and indeed global, socioeconomic conditions.

Oh well.

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103

Bingo!

This is taken from Scott Galloway, the professor at NYU Stern:

The signature policy tool of the Reagan era was the tax cut. When he took office, the highest marginal tax rate was 70%—which was the lowest it had been since 1935. When he passed the baton to his vice president, George H. W. Bush, that rate was 28%.

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Well, can we at least agree that these “fundamental forces” are put into motion by real live human beings, and not by fate, prophecy, and witchcraft?

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Sure, at some level it is all people making decisions.

But take a question like why are socioeconomic outcomes so much better today for most engineers than they are for former non-management production workers whose jobs were eliminated by automation–including with the help of engineers.

OK, so some colleges at some point helped educate those engineers. Did they thereby create this difference in outcomes? I guess they played their part, but I would not describe it as the decisive part.

But yes, it didn’t happen by magic either. There are more possible explanations than those two, but of course elaboration on that subject would be outside the allowed scope of this discussion.

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106

And can we also agree that 45 years is twice the lifetime of today’s college generation? It’s a pretty long time and probably about a billion times the rate of change of the 45 that preceded it. I guess the question is, whether we’re looking down the barrel of 45 years yet to come that are already beyond the ability of universities - as a group - to meaningfully effect, am I right?

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That’s more or less my feeling.

As I have mentioned here before, I do think there are critical practical college access issues that affect certain kids in certain states, or parts of states. And then of course individual institutions can do all sorts of things worth criticizing, for-profit colleges are often problematic, and so on.

But I don’t really see US higher education being notably “broken” at the national level, nor do I think it is “breaking” America.

And so to the extent people are worried about these growing disparities in socioeconomic outcomes continuing over the next 45 years–and for sure it is a legitimate concern–I really doubt that problem can be solved by reforms targeted at the US higher education system. Those may be good ideas in their own right, but I really don’t think these problems can be solved by universities, because they were not in fact really created by universities in the first place.

For that matter–if you expanded the scope of educational reform to include birth through HS, and then also tossed in a better system of non-college/post-HS programs, that would do a lot more than college reform alone, but I still think that would not actually solve these bigger problems. I just don’t think they are really education problems in general.

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Brooks, like many Ivy Graduates, seems to think that the world revolves around The Ivies, and therefore, all the advances in society and all the woes of society MUST have their source in The Ivies.

Brooks, also like many Ivy graduates also seems to think that the entire higher education system in the USA is just an extension of the Ivies. All universities are just slightly modified versions of Harvard or Yale, but for the Lesser People, and that they all take their cues from HYP.

Of course, colleges are convenient scapegoats, because they have less power, and any damage to higher education will only harm the USA in another few decades, long after this or that politicians or public figure has left the scene.

The USA also has a long history of hating smart people. There is a reason that villain have always been more educated and smarter than the typical American He-Man Hero. There is a reason that the most common type of villain was always the Mad Scientist. Even when the USA started to accept that Being Smart Was Good, they invented “Book Smart” in order to belittle people who actually demonstrated intelligence.

That makes colleges, which hire the higher percentage of Smart People, a great scapegoat for populists. It’s not new, either. They have been a convenient scapegoat ever since higher education has become available to the middle classes.

Brooks has been very helpful by creating a nonsense narrative to blame poverty on colleges. I fully expect that he will find a way to blame colleges for the issues with Social Security, and blame The Ivies for the National Debt.

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109

But is America broken? Let’s establish that first.

I find it amusing that both you and @NiceUnparticularMan treat the Ivy “product” as separate and distinct from the factories themselves.

So, I’m trying to understand this: Does higher education have an effect on the well-being of the USA, or doesn’t it?

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110

So people sometimes use the terms knowledge economy and knowledge workers. You’ve got knowledge workers like engineers designing useful stuff. You have knowledge workers managing firms that employ engineers. You have lawyers getting patents, helping firms enter transactions, and helping firms resolve disputes. Financial analysts allocating capital. Doctors and nurses treating other knowledge workers. And so on.

For sure, part of all this is the schools giving knowledge workers their initial education. And their professors and administrators are themselves knowledge workers. And of course universities also have a lot of labs full of researchers, and so on.

So yes, universities are part of the knowledge economy. But only one part. And not in a particularly privileged position over the other parts.

OK, so Brooks is complaining knowledge workers are doing so much better on average than most other workers. And professors and such are participating, but not necessarily as the biggest winners! And again, their function is indeed part of all this, but no more so than other parts.

The really fundamental fact is that operations in the knowledge economy tend to be very profitable. This ends up benefiting knowledge workers, even more so investors in the knowledge economy, and so on. It is not so good for net consumers of knowledge products and services.

So why those profits are so high is an important question for diagnosing these resulting disparities. But again, that is not really a college conversation, so outside of scope here.

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111

So, you and Brooks are pretty much in agreement as to the problem; you and @MWolf just think it’s more a matter of political posturing and scapegoating. I think we’re getting closer to a consensus!

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Or at least as to some of the problems he identified.

Also largely yes, although I want to emphasize this does not mean I think the US higher education is not subject to all sorts of important and valid criticisms. But the particular criticism that the US higher education system as a whole, or some particular colleges within it, “created” the growing disparities in socioeconomic outcomes in the US, and indeed across the world, is not in my view one of those valid criticisms.

But if you just want to say US universities are among the many different entities participating in the relevant socioeconomic processes, then sure, that is true.

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113

I don’t subscribe to The Atlantic, so I didn’t receive that email from them.
However, perhaps their number of subscribers are down if David Brooks is asking people to subscribe.

I disagree with Brooks’ opinion that “we as a society sort people, putting some on the escalator to affluence and tossing others out.” I also disagree with something else he kind of talks around and around about: people in elite jobs in “finance, law, government, media and atop large corporations.”

He appears to assume that the tippy top goal of everyone in society is to reach an elite level in one of those 5 areas.

Somebody like him who appears to live in an ivory tower, hangs out a lot with other ivory tower people, and might tend to only exchange ideas with other ivory tower people, might not ever understand or realize that there’s a lot of people who DO NOT CARE about becoming a billionaire or becoming famous or reaching some high status elite level in finance, law, government, media, or large corporations.

For example, who are you going to hire to mow your lawn or repair your HVAC unit or replace your broken toilet if everybody’s some elite-level worker? And holy cow, has he even seen how much money longshoremen make these days? Or how about how much money an ICU/CCU nurse can earn per year? Skilled service workers like plumbers, electricians, HVAC repair, etc. all can live a very fulfilled life, earn a good salary, even start & grow their own small business…all through their own sweat equity that, honestly, doesn’t require you to spend upwards of $90k/yr at an Ivy League or similar college.

There’s more than one definition of happiness & fulfillment in life. And the Ivy League doesn’t control access to all of that. Nor does a particular end of the political spectrum.

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114

So, you would be in the “America Isn’t Broke” contingent? The sorting process is pretty fair and equitable.

So, what is the problem? Is it the rewards system, as @NiceUnparticularMan suggests?

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You are right, that is another very telling moment for Brooks.

If you actually look at the sorts of careers that provide a very large return to higher education, they are dominated by health careers. Like, see here:

https://www.bls.gov/ooh/highest-paying.htm

Or if you look at this list:

https://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/rankings/best-paying-jobs

Again tons of health, and the first non-health career is IT Manager. Eventually you get some other business management positions, more computer stuff, lawyers, Petroleum Engineers . . . and actually Political Scientists! But health professions continue to be the most common.

So why on earth would Brooks omit all these sorts of people–computer people, engineers, and health professionals? Why is he omitting them from his description of the college-educated “inherited caste system” in the United States? Why are they not also examples of the winners in the “meritocracy”?

I think, unfortunately, the answer is obvious. As soon as you start naming people like that, many readers are going to start thinking, “Wait, what is wrong with those people being highly compensated? In fact, is maybe the problem more that other people are NOT well compensated, as opposed to those sorts of people being highly compensated? Does that mean the problem is not actually the colleges, and the outcomes provided to college-educated professionals, but the outcomes our socioeconomic system is NOT providing to other sorts of workers?”

Those are dangerous questions for Brooks’ thesis, indeed for his whole brand. So he selectively points just at the safe targets, and ignores the examples that would raise questions he would rather people not be considering.

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116

Again I think it is important to distinguish effect from cause. And of course things can be both depending on which direction you are looking.

To me, the relatively high compensation of knowledge workers is at least a large part of the cause of them ending up wealthier, healthier, higher social status, and so on.

But that relatively high compensation is in turn an effect, at least in large part, of the relatively high profit margins of knowledge operations.

OK, but then what is the cause of the relatively high profit margins of knowledge operations? We have not really discussed that yet, but it would be the next logical step in the analysis. And I have all sorts of thoughts on that subject. But I have not expressed them here because to me that is beyond the boundaries of a college conversation.

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Because they are. They are not, however, the product of the education that they received at their college, but a product of the branding in which the college has engaged. The professors are really not the ones telling them that “you’re all Harvard students, therefore you’re elite”. It’s the administration who is hammering that into them. That’s how you get Princeton students complaining about the work load claiming “we already have been accepted, why do we have to continue to work hard?” That’s why super wealthy and influential people use their money and influence to get their kids accepted to these colleges.

While universities are “higher education”, education of undergraduates is only a small part of the mission of research universities.

Professors at research Universities, which includes all of the Ivies, BTW, only have 40% of their job as teachers, and only half of that teaching undergraduates. Most tenure-track and tenured faculty at research universities only teach one undergraduate class a semester, at most.

Professors produce the vast majority of the scientific research that is being done in the USA. That affects the well-being of the USA is so many deep and profound ways, and has little to do with what they are teaching their undergraduates.

When we look at education, Professors at all colleges are also producing the next generation of researchers. These, however, are only around 1%-5% of all undergraduate students. Professors also teach courses to graduate students - that’s some 50% of the teaching duties of faculty at Research Universities. This has little effect on the social processes in the USA, but, again, has a profound impact on the well-being of people in the USA.

On the other hand, for the vast majority of students, faculty at all colleges provide an education, which consists mostly of knowledge and some attempts at teaching their students how to analyze data. That has a profound impact on the abilities of that student to perform well in the rest of their life. However, it has very little impact on their politics or ethics.

Universities do affect whether we have vaccines and other medical treatment, whether we have better homes and transportation, healthier food and more affordable clothes, how we affect our environment, etc.

However, while social sciences and humanities have a lot of impact on our understanding of past social processes, they don’t really have that much impact on existing and emerging social processes. College faculty in the USA do NOT determine whether people care about their neighbors, whether they believe in a Deity, whether they prefer socialism or capitalism, whether they want to marry, etc. The reason that many of these movements start on campuses is because those are places where young people with extra time meet and discuss life and other things. Colleges are great places for social movements to spread and evolve, regardless of what is being taught in the classrooms.

BTW, the biggest social movements are not started at the Ivies, nor are they at their most intense at the Ivies. The big political demonstrations are at public universities, and always have been.

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118

This is just an echo of what you said (but it affirms my own ideas, so of course I agree), but one of my theories-to-disprove while reading it is actually “Brooks is on a Capitalist → Social Dem ideological realignment, but hasn’t realized it yet, and is casting about for a scapegoat that isn’t naked capitalism”. I haven’t had time to read the full piece (print version finally arrived last week, but life), so this could be way off, but I look forward to testing that out as I get through it.

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119

The author of the article goes around and around and down so many rabbit holes that, to be honest, I don’t understand what the main problem or issue is in the first place.

I don’t even quite follow his logic about this theoretical ‘sorting process’ like we’re sorting people into different Hogwarts houses or sorting between people with magical powers vs. muggles.

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I see. There’s a lot of “There’s nothing going on here. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain” going on here.

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I have no idea what you’re talking about. You could explain? I mean this with no ill intent or sarcasm.