Ivy League Education as "Laundering Privilege"

One of the Chapo Trap House guys – the podcast at the heart of the "Dirtbag Left" – recently said this about Harvard:

I mean, the entire Ivy League exists as a perpetuator of privilege, obviously, but also as a perpetuator of the fantasy of meritocracy, which is what justifies the privilege. All of these kids who are so brilliant just happened to be children of people who are in a similar social situation, but they went to Harvard — like Jared Kushner, for example!

Scott Sikind explains what he ment like this:

That is: Harvard accepts (let’s say) 75% smart/talented people, and 25% rich/powerful people. This is a good deal for both sides. The smart people get to network with elites, which is the first step to becoming elite themselves. And the rich people get mixed in so thoroughly with a pool of smart/talented people that everyone assumes they must be smart/talented themselves. After all, they have a degree from Harvard!

This intrigues me because it corresponds pretty closely to some things I saw at Yale. Most of the students were earnest, hard-studying children of doctors and professors, but there was a sprinkling of very wealthy scions of privilege; Georges Saint Laurent was in my class, as was Jodie Foster, and a guy they called Carr whose name was Carrington something the Fourth. I was told that another classmate met with her financial advisor every Tuesday, her stockbroker every Thursday, and flew to Paris on the Concored every other weekend. I had minimal interaction with such people, although I did once have a long, fascinating conversation with a Mexican millionaire who had been to Andover. I wonder what happened to him?

Anyway it's funny but when I think about diversity in college admissions what I actually think about is those people. I mean, I had met black people before, but until I went to Yale I had only the vaguest concept that really rich people existed. What did they think of being thrown into classes with people like my friends, earnest bourgois who thought getting A's was the most important thing in the universe?

There is a movement now that aims to demolish every sort of admission criteria except academic potential. From the right this movement takes hatred of racial quotas and from the left it takes hatred of legacy admissions and other perpetuations of hereditary privilege. And the goal is what, exactly? For elite schools to be filled entirely by hard-working middle class kids who think getting A's is the most important thing in the universe? Why?

Why does it matter so much to some people who goes to Harvard or Stanford? I suppose this is partly because a lot of journalists and so on went to those schools, and partly because they stand at some kind of pinacle of American something. Or are people like the Chapo Trap House guys really angry that somebody like Jared Kushner can go to Harvard? What difference does that make? If you are thinking that Kushner's minor role in American politics has anything to do with his Harvard degree, as opposed to his money and family connections, I suggest you reconsider. Has anyone ever heard Ron DeSantis mention that he went to Yale?

If you care about justice in America you should care about almost anything else more than who goes to Harvard: better elementary education for everyone, better high school education for everyone, better career preparation in community colleges, better remedial courses at state universities so more students can thrive there, more investment in the second- and third-tier state universities that take in lots of kids from working class families.

To get back to laundering privilege: one of the interesting things about the college admissions debate is that nobody, so far as I know, is out there defending legacy admissions and explaining why elite colleges actually like to admit millionaires' kids, which means that we don't really know what their plan is. Is it all about money? Maybe, but since Harvard in particular really doesn't need the money, I have to wonder. Is there maybe a social theory behind it? Like, millionaires are going to be prominent and powerful in America whether you like it or not, so part of our mission should be to shape them? That besides allowing smart kids to meet the rich, our model allows rich kids to meet smart kids and learn from them about hard work and excellence? 

I suppose this is what differentiates me from the Chapo Trap House guys: they see something weird and get mad about evil rich people; I see something weird and wonder what is going on that I don't understand.