Stop Donating to Your Elite University - The Atlantic:
“Everything we do in academia is based on the assumption that merit can be assessed,” Son Hing said, citing Michèle Lamont’s How Professors Think, a remarkable behind-the-scenes look at the peer-review process. Virtually every evaluative mechanism in the academy—peer review of scholarly articles and grant applications, grading, and tenure evaluation—purports to be objective and are supremely hierarchical.
The process culminates with the types of careers that elite colleges steer students into. The majority of Harvard graduates take a job in technology, investment banking, or management consulting—occupations that make wealthy people wealthier and, research shows, increase their support for social hierarchy. In a survey of Harvard’s class of 2020, only 4 percent of seniors entering the workforce said they planned to go into public service or work for a nonprofit organization.
So elite colleges disproportionately let in affluent applicants who are predisposed to denying inequality, surround them with similar people, teach them in a system that confirms their belief in merit, and, finally, steer them into careers that cement this worldview.