I would invoke "chicken and egg" here: are the leaders of this country in the Ivy League because they're from ruling families, or are they ruling because they went to Ivy League?
I suspect it's much more of the former than the latter. It's not that you have to go to an Ivy League school to run the country. Instead, the people born into the families that run the country have no reason not to go to Ivy League schools.
You have unlimited tuition money, and you're guaranteed to be accepted into Harvard since you have passably average grades and your legacy family donates to the school. Would you not go to Harvard?
Some prestigious companies hire mostly/only from Ivy Leagues, but ultimately those are mostly just upper-middle-class salary jobs (e.g., MBB consulting companies).
Ivey leagues do a lot to enable the propagation of generational wealth. Considering that many equally smart and talented individuals don’t get into Ivies because there simply isn’t enough space, one can view Ivies as primarily a tool to enable generational wealth by providing an environment where a hand curated selection of exceptional people (and curated diversity) is admitted to the environment to give your elite kids a well rounded education.
I guess it boils down to do the Ivies really move the needle on upward mobility or is it really just doing it just enough to create the ideal student body for wealthy participants? Is it easier to guarantee entry by merit or through money?
Lots of elites never go to college. Lots go to non-Ivies. The top liberal arts schools have Ivy level tuition for that reason. Lots of elites go to Ivies, but the Ivy league's primary value will always be the possibility of an upward class mobility gateway. In the social sense, which is impossible to achieve otherwise generally speaking. In other words, your trailer park upbringing suddenly becomes much less relevant to a true elite job. Some liberal arts colleges can probably achieve near the same effect, but generally speaking the Ivies serve as the only true possible class ceiling penetrators. Actual elites don't need to go to college at all.
> I would invoke "chicken and egg" here: are the leaders of this country in the Ivy League because they're from ruling families, or are they ruling because they went to Ivy League?
Obama went to columbia and harvard. Trump went to UPenn. Neither are from ruling families.
It's simply a matter of the ivy league representing some of the oldest institutions in the US and the ruling elite being entrenched members of these institutions. So those who want to serve the ruling elite need to go to these schools to get themselves vetted.
What I said wasn’t “everyone at the Ivies is in a ruling family,” what is said was “ruling families go to Ivies.” There’s a big difference in logic between those two statements.
Ivy League schools have other students besides legacy admissions, but if you’re not very smart/driven (Obama) or very rich (Trump) your chances are not so great.
(You should read Obama’s biography on his Wikipedia page. He transferred to Columbia as a junior, and between his undergraduate studies and law school he had a bunch of pretty unique accomplishments, the exact kind of “extracurricular activity” that would get you into Harvard. As far as Trump, he’s the son of an extremely wealthy landlord.)
I suspect it's much more of the former than the latter. It's not that you have to go to an Ivy League school to run the country. Instead, the people born into the families that run the country have no reason not to go to Ivy League schools.
You have unlimited tuition money, and you're guaranteed to be accepted into Harvard since you have passably average grades and your legacy family donates to the school. Would you not go to Harvard?
Some prestigious companies hire mostly/only from Ivy Leagues, but ultimately those are mostly just upper-middle-class salary jobs (e.g., MBB consulting companies).