{"id":2306,"date":"2008-02-26T09:41:56","date_gmt":"2008-02-26T09:41:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/principles\/2008\/02\/26\/class-is-not-a-footnote\/"},"modified":"2008-02-26T09:41:56","modified_gmt":"2008-02-26T09:41:56","slug":"class-is-not-a-footnote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/2008\/02\/26\/class-is-not-a-footnote\/","title":{"rendered":"Class Is Not a Footnote"},"content":{"rendered":"

On the subject of silly things said about academia, Matt Yglesias does a quick pass over “assessment,”<\/a>, and in the process recommends Alan Kruger’s research that claims the benefits of elite colleges are all from selection effects. He links a Newsweek<\/cite> article on the topic<\/a>, which contains this paragraph:<\/p>\n

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Dale and Krueger then compared graduates who had been accepted and rejected by the same (or similar) colleges. The theory was that admissions officers were ranking personal qualities, from maturity to ambition. Students who fared similarly would possess similar strengths; then, Dale and Krueger compared the earnings of these students–regardless of where they went. There was no difference. Suppose that Princeton and Podunk accept you and me; but you go to Princeton and I go to Podunk. On average, we will still make the same. (The result held for blacks and whites, further weakening the case for race-based admission preferences. The only exception was poorer students, regardless of race; they gained slightly from an elite school.)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

You know, that’s one heck of an exception to blow off in a single sentence. Kruger has what appears to be an old New York Times<\/cite> column<\/a> on his web site, but he doesn’t give much more detail, writing only:<\/p>\n

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One group of students, however, clearly benefited from attending a highly selective college: those from lower-income families — defined approximately as the bottom quarter of families who send children to college. For them, attending a more selective school increased earnings significantly.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

To his credit, he does mention this in the recommendations to colleges at the end. Still, you might think this would rate a somewhat more prominent position in stories about the research. That would require a discussion of class issues, though, and we can’t be having that. Not in America.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

A bit of Googling turns up the relevant paper<\/a>, which appears to give the effect as a 7% increase in earnings for a 200-point increase in the average SAT score of the college attended by a low-income student. That’s not spectacular, but it’s not trivial, either. <\/p>\n

It’s not hard to see why this would be the case, either– it’s all about connections and access. Students from higher-income families naturally have access to resources that lower-income students do not. Their families have more money, to help support them through graduate or professional school. They’re more likely to be able to secure loans to pursue business projects, and their families may have social or business connections with other people who can help advance these students in their future careers.<\/p>\n

These are resources that aren’t available to low-income students, and they don’t get extra access to those resources by attending cheaper local colleges. Going to an elite school can provide some of these connections, though– the name on the diploma opens some additional doors at the beginning of a career, and the network of alumni and classmates that students naturally plug into through attending these schools can provide some of the same career boost that family connections give higher-income students.<\/p>\n

This is something that we, as a culture, prefer to ignore, though. Outside of the occasional teen movie, we like to pretend that there aren’t these sorts of class-based distinctions in American society. When politicians bring it up, that’s “populism” or “class war,” and something to be avoided at all costs.<\/p>\n

These issues are real, though, and play a major role in higher education. Not to get all Will Shetterly on this, but class privilege and bias is every bit as influential as the race and gender biases that get much more discussion.<\/p>\n

The epitome of this sort of thing can be seen in this breathtaking James Altucher column from the Financial Times<\/cite><\/a> (via one of Matt’s commenters), in which he proudly declares that he has no intention of sending his kids to college, because it’s all a waste of time. What should they do instead?<\/p>\n

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1. Working – not just a labour or service job, but there are internet-content jobs out there. I have high school and college kids working for me who are making over $50,000 a year from writing gigs on the internet. Scour Craigslist for opportunities, your favourite blogs, or websites related to your favourite interests. Companies are dying for good content. Create your own blog, get yourself noticed, build relationships with other content companies and communities.<\/p>\n

2. Take half the fee for one semester, give it to your kid, and tell him or her to start a business. Not every youngster has entrepreneurial sensibilities, but it’s always worth trying once. The cost for starting a business is next to zero, so it’s a viable alternative. What business should they start? For one thing, now that Facebook and MySpace have open development platforms, try out a few applications for these platforms; for a few hundred dollars you can outsource development of these applications to India, and get your friends to start trying them. Make sure they are viral (that is, a message should appear “click here to get all your friends to try XYZ”) and see which ones are a success. I mention Facebook and MySpace because every kid is familiar with these sites and comfortable with the subtleties, and it’s this comfort that can create the best businesses.<\/p>\n

3. Spend a year trying to become good at one thing. Whatever your child’s greatest interest is, whether cooking, chess, writing, maths, there are so many resources on the internet available for learning that college is almost the last place a kid should go to pursue a passion. Intense immersion in a favourite topic is the surest way to become an expert in that field.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The reek of privilege here is overwhelming. Of course, everyone<\/strong> has the ability to just hand their kid a quarter of their college tuition (about $10K at an elite private college), right? To say nothing of the social resources needed to start a business.<\/p>\n

It’s positively disgusting. But it’s something to keep in mind when the Financial Times<\/cite>, or the Wall Street Journal<\/cite>, or even the New York Times<\/cite> or Newsweek<\/cite> start scratching their chins and pondering the concerns of “ordinary people.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the subject of silly things said about academia, Matt Yglesias does a quick pass over “assessment,”, and in the process recommends Alan Kruger’s research that claims the benefits of elite colleges are all from selection effects. He links a Newsweek article on the topic, which contains this paragraph: Dale and Krueger then compared graduates… Continue reading Class Is Not a Footnote<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,49,13,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academia","category-class_issues","category-education","category-politics","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2306\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}