Has the college academic job market always been highly competitive and elitist?

[ucbalumnus]

@bristlecone

HYPMS grad will go further than a state school grad on average.

This is not true for most STEM faculty posts at state schools, though it may be true at medical schools.

The way I have always heard of how college prestige matters in faculty hiring is that the prestige of one’s PhD department (rather than the college overall) and one’s PhD supervisor is the prestige factor that matters.