I remember sitting in a dorm at Brown listening to people complain about why rich kids seemed to get into Ivy League schools regardless of their intelligence, scores or any other metric with which we were familiar judged; the complaint centered around heritage admissions and famous people’s kids. One of my friends reminded the group that it was clearly a valuable element and should be promoted not critiqued.
If you look at many well-known American universities, the primary value for undergraduates concerns the social network. Frankly, internationally renowned researchers can’t teach. But you don’t pay $30K a year to get the best *formal* education. You pay $30K a year to get tapped into a collection of like-minded driven people who will be a key aspect of your social network for life. The late-night dorm session conversations are so much more informative than the lecture halls. But the connections you make from shared alumni extend widely.
If you assume that the social network is the most valuable asset, it is clearly important to have as diverse a population as possible. You want to introduce the poor brilliant students to the rich ones because they will have a better chance. One of the most obvious impacts of higher education is that you jump socio-economic class. While i didn’t grow up as such, i recognize that i’m now a part of the privileged class. It is not due to my income (which is non-existent), but due to my potential and connections. Those connections are intimately tied into the network that i built as an undergraduate. Basically, college brings together people from diverse backgrounds and with unique access to knowledge or connections. This is then utilized to help groups of students branch out. College is the ideal time to meet new people who can/will introduce you to a wide variety of things.
Thus, from an admissions perspective, it is desirable to bring in rich kids who will not only help offset the costs for poor kids, but help introduce them to a network of possibility. This is why Harvard and Princeton’s decision to give all grants to the poorest students is a great idea. One of the biggest class dividers on a campus like that is who works in food service and who doesn’t because they don’t need to. By letting the groups mingle and not trying to reinforce class in these environments, there’s a great potential for connecting diverse people.
[I’d love to hear a critique of this perspective.]
Seems to me that you’re far over-valuing the social network of the Ivies… I dunno, maybe for many people it is the major value of going to a $30k (or however much they are now) school, but personally, I haven’t found my Brown “connections” to be all that valuable, at least from a career/business perspective. Then again, maybe that’s not what you mean?
-neilfred
I don’t mean explicitly career/business, but generally. For example, housing connections, friend groups, business, access to information, etc. Also, i’m not saying that this is true for everyone. But when i interview people about their networks, i’m amazed at the role that university plays. There’s a huge divide between the kinds of networks that people have access to as a result of the Ivy-esque schools and the state schools. When i went home and spoke with folks from Penn State, i was amazed at how many of them only knew people who were in PA. They didn’t have the broader access that i’m accustomed to as a result of going to a place whee people spread far.
Interesting. Maybe I’m also more the exception than the rule, as a result of having found/formed a whole new community after leaving Brown, within which all of the same kinds of ties you mention are stronger for me than any of my Brown connections.
-neilfred
(Gah! How did that get there four times?? danah: please delete the extras, and this…)
In theory, this sounds like a really good strategy, but i’d question the extent to which it actually works (at least, at my university). Some divides are more obvious than others, but general tendencies towards homophily are very apparent. The school attempts to group students randomly – all freshman live on campus, and they are given very little input into their housing situation. Residential life makes incredible attempts to expose individuals to people of different backgrounds. Unfortunately, this is quickly undermined by outside influences. For example, the greek system is quite large here, and a particular subset of students is attracted to that environment (often though not exclusively individuals from economically priviliged backgrounds). In any major or campus organization there is always a mix of students from diverse backgrounds, but these contacts rarely extend to social environments (particulaly in the larger fields of study – i.e. government or psychology). While they could still serve as legitimate networking prospects, the ties aren’t as strong as those created by friendships.
At the same time, i completely agree that the social network is geographically extended. My family lives in Kansas, and it’s truly a rare occasion that anyone leaves the state to attend college. Actually, it’s pretty rare that anyone leaves the state at all. Consequently, most of my friends at home rarely know people (with the possible exception of relatives) outside of the immediate region. In contrast, i will be heading out to one of four major metropolitan areas in about seven months (Boston, LA, Minneapolis, or Cleveland), and i can go with the reassurance that i will have at least a handful of acquaintances in any of these locations.
On a side note, current tuition, room, and board is actually just over $40K.
In a couple of ways, this isn’t a surprising result. Sociologists have argued that one chief function of country clubs is to allow wealthy people to make social ties with other wealthy people. (They otherwise risk wasting network ties on less-advantageous poorer people, with less power and fewer opportunities to offer).
This is partially what motivated Granovetter’s work on the strength of weak ties. Weak ties are people who are advantageous, but aren’t in your immediate social network. Thus, they are the people who might have interesting material for you. Ivy leagues–with their travelling a capella groups, parties in Boston, and a distinctive line on the resume–are very good at cultivating lots and lots of weak ties.
1) As others have pointed out the benefits for the poorer students only occur if they actually do mix meaningfully with the richer ones.
2) It is possible that preferential treatment for children of alumni may gradually squeeze out the spaces left for other, less well-connected people.
Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. Just a few points.
You said that it’s important to have a social network as diverse as possible. I dunno about that. Diversity within the subset of “valuable connections” is a good thing, but from any individual’s point of view, stacking the deck with rich, influential people is way better.
Let’s say I had 20 people in my dorm, and they were completely representative of America. One person would likely be real wealthy, most of them would come from lower and middle class households; some would come from abject poverty.
Contrast that with another 20 people who are the sons and daughter of senators, CEOs, royalty, etc. The second group is way less diverse, but I’d get a lot more mileage out of that network.
So the poorer students definitely benefit from being exposed to people from a higher social class. It’s not clear to me what the benefit are to the wealthy students (and their families). This is worth noting, to be vigilant about the universities catering too much to the people of privelage, ’cause I don’t see an obvious counterbalance to that influence.