Should Colleges Preserve the Idea of Meritocracy? (chronicle.com) 342
"Is Meritocracy an Idea Worth Saving?" asks The Chronicle of Higher Education, reporting on a special forum held recently at the University of North Carolina's Program for Public Discourse.
"This discussion took place before Covid-19 changed everything. But the topics — the definition of meritocracy, the role of universities in a just society, the composition of socioeconomic class, and the real purpose of education — are as relevant as ever." Moral philosopher Anastasia Berg, a junior research fellow at the University of Cambridge: Obviously certain roles in society and certain honors should be going to someone who is most competent for them: the Nobel Prize, or a teaching award, or who should perform eye surgery on us. The question is whether this is the right measure for determining who should be entering universities. There are objections from the left and from the right. I find the left ones persuasive, which is to say, in effect, that the pretensions to meritocracy are not borne out, if we actually look at who gets into colleges. We find out that there's huge correlation between the kind of material support that people have, and their ability to perform on the kind of exams that allow people to get into colleges.
But what I also find problematic has to do with what has formerly been thought of as a conservative critique, although I think that leftists and liberals and progressives should be as concerned about it as anyone else: The current way of running college admissions concentrates talent, ambition, and competence in very few areas — on the coasts, in a very few universities — and draws potential leaders from communities elsewhere. Moreover, the current system leaves people blind to all the ways in which they owe gratitude to a community, for all the help that allowed them to achieve.
New York Times opinion columnist Ross Douthat: It's useful to remember that the term "meritocracy" was coined as a description of a dystopia, in a book by a British civil servant written in the late '50s called The Rise of the Meritocracy. It was a tongue-in-cheek evocation of some pompous civil servant from somewhere around our own era, looking back on what he saw as the self-selection of the cognitive elite to rule over a society that was drained of talent, drained of ambition, and had all power centers outside the elite deprived of leadership and talent from within.
It's reasonable to look at class divisions in the United States and much of the West and say that at least a partial version of that dystopia has come to pass. College-educated and more-than-college-educated Americans cluster together in geographic hubs in ways that they did not 50 or 60 years ago.
It's a fascinating discussion, in which writer Thomas Chatterton Williams argues "it takes a kind of privilege to sneer at meritocratic measures that allow people to advance."
But Berg also makes the observation that at least half of Americans won't ever have a college degree. "If that's the way to make citizens, what do we do with the rest? We have to make room for the dignity of other paths."
"This discussion took place before Covid-19 changed everything. But the topics — the definition of meritocracy, the role of universities in a just society, the composition of socioeconomic class, and the real purpose of education — are as relevant as ever." Moral philosopher Anastasia Berg, a junior research fellow at the University of Cambridge: Obviously certain roles in society and certain honors should be going to someone who is most competent for them: the Nobel Prize, or a teaching award, or who should perform eye surgery on us. The question is whether this is the right measure for determining who should be entering universities. There are objections from the left and from the right. I find the left ones persuasive, which is to say, in effect, that the pretensions to meritocracy are not borne out, if we actually look at who gets into colleges. We find out that there's huge correlation between the kind of material support that people have, and their ability to perform on the kind of exams that allow people to get into colleges.
But what I also find problematic has to do with what has formerly been thought of as a conservative critique, although I think that leftists and liberals and progressives should be as concerned about it as anyone else: The current way of running college admissions concentrates talent, ambition, and competence in very few areas — on the coasts, in a very few universities — and draws potential leaders from communities elsewhere. Moreover, the current system leaves people blind to all the ways in which they owe gratitude to a community, for all the help that allowed them to achieve.
New York Times opinion columnist Ross Douthat: It's useful to remember that the term "meritocracy" was coined as a description of a dystopia, in a book by a British civil servant written in the late '50s called The Rise of the Meritocracy. It was a tongue-in-cheek evocation of some pompous civil servant from somewhere around our own era, looking back on what he saw as the self-selection of the cognitive elite to rule over a society that was drained of talent, drained of ambition, and had all power centers outside the elite deprived of leadership and talent from within.
It's reasonable to look at class divisions in the United States and much of the West and say that at least a partial version of that dystopia has come to pass. College-educated and more-than-college-educated Americans cluster together in geographic hubs in ways that they did not 50 or 60 years ago.
It's a fascinating discussion, in which writer Thomas Chatterton Williams argues "it takes a kind of privilege to sneer at meritocratic measures that allow people to advance."
But Berg also makes the observation that at least half of Americans won't ever have a college degree. "If that's the way to make citizens, what do we do with the rest? We have to make room for the dignity of other paths."
Performance rating the UTMs? (Score:2)
What a trivial topic! Just joking. It's obviously a gigantic can of worms, but I do have one of my peculiar solution approaches that can be measured to fit.
My premise is that people are fundamentally similar to computers, presumably UTMs (Universal Turing Machines). You should be aware that all UTMs are fundamentally the same and solve the same problems. Or perhaps you want to regard a UTM as the image of gawd that we were all made in? If you reject my premise, then I'm not sure we have anything to discuss
Meritocracy only when all else is equal (Score:3, Insightful)
You can't claim someone is better runner if they had a head start
Re: Meritocracy only when all else is equal (Score:5, Insightful)
No. Of course not.
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If we have premier institutions with limited space, they should go to people who best meet criteria.
If you don't get into Harvard, Oxbridge, etc, you can still go to state and community colleges. Nobody's stopping you.
And face it, someone pushing a maxed out GPA in AP-level courses, etc, etc, is more likely to succeed with the curriculum than D+ Danny. Who, in all likelihood, will become frustrated and drop his classes. Thereby wasting that spot in a highly rated college.
Re: Meritocracy only when all else is equal (Score:5, Insightful)
All this is political hot air, until you have a heart attack and they're gonna put you up on a slab of metal and slice your chest open. Then all of a sudden you want the best surgeon, to hell with social justice privlege talk of advantages.
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This is a curious point of view. Do you want to surgeon who got in because mom and dad are rich?
Clearly the idea that you should admit people because they experienced hardship is just as bad as the idea that you should admit them because they did not. Neither of those are meritocratic.
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and then require specific test scores to get in and specific marks for subjects attempted to continue.
You mean like we've had it since forever? I shudder to ask how else you might want to go about this.
Horse is Out of the Barn by College Time (Score:4, Insightful)
People keep trying to remediate inequities in education when kids enter college.
Way Too Late.
If time, money and effort is going to be expended, it needs to be focused on the Primary and secondary stages of education. Unfortunately, (stupid) legal and cultural issues prevent this.
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Three big ones:
Re: Horse is Out of the Barn by College Time (Score:3)
Primarily how disruptive student are dealt with followed by the insidious cultural bias against education in general.
Third I would say is the hamstringing of teachers when it come to how they conduct their classes and how they are able to physically defend themselves
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and then require specific test scores to get in and specific marks for subjects attempted to continue.
You mean like we've had it since forever? I shudder to ask how else you might want to go about this.
That was how it once was. Today SAT scores are considered "racist" and are being replaced by "stories." The applicant with the most picturesque story gets admitted.
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You managed to skip over this bit: "Make university free"
That's important for a couple reasons. First, free (or cheap) university means you don't have to be rich to go. Second, it means the university doesn't have a financial incentive to enrol rich people by, to give a totally random example, allowing them to pretend to be rowers.
It works too. Countries with completely or heavily subsidized universities, with controlled tuition, have more equitable admissions and greater economic mobility.
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Slavery is illegal (Score:2)
> Make university free
Slavery is illegal. You can't make someone teach Korean basket weaving for free. If you want a Korean basket weaving class, you have to pay the professor of Korean culture. It's also illegal to steal the materials - you have to pay for them.
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What's with this nonsense? Obviously nobody is talking about forcing people to teach for free. We pay for stuff like that with taxes, and the teachers then get paid by the government.
Ps you can do that today, no Trump necessary (Score:3)
If you want each taxpayer to pay for a college student, you actually don't have to wait for the government to force you to do that. You can make my college free today. Need my address, or do you want to send your check directly to Georgia Tech?
Re:Meritocracy only when all else is equal (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure you can... the head start doesn't determine the margin at final victory, only the margin at the start.
My grandfather dropped out of school in the 7th grade to go to work in a coal mine before working at an ammunition factory for nearly 30 years, my father dropped out of high school to go to work as a mechanic. Between my siblings and I, there's an MD, two PhD's, and a MSN... the "head start" trope is just an excuse used by people who aren't willing to put in the work to run the race.
As Louis L'Amour said:
"Up to a point a person’s life is shaped by environment, heredity, and changes in the world about them. Then there comes a time when it lies within their grasp to shape the clay of their life into the sort of thing they wish it to be. Only the weak blame parents, their race, their times, lack of good fortune or the quirks of fate. Everyone has the power to say, "This I am today. That I shall be tomorrow.”
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My grandfather dropped out of school in the 7th grade to go to work in a coal mine before working at an ammunition factory for nearly 30 years, my father dropped out of high school to go to work as a mechanic. Between my siblings and I, there's an MD, two PhD's, and a MSN... the "head start" trope is just an excuse used by people who aren't willing to put in the work to run the race.
If I gave you one lottery ticket and everyone else two, everybody can still win the lottery. Just because you can beat the odds doesn't mean it's a fair system, as an individual I understand the advice that through perseverance you can make it. When you're designing the system though you want to even the field so that those who are actually ahead are ahead because they deserve to be, not because it's a pay-to-win system. At least if you want a meritocracy.
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What if your grandfather had stayed in school and gotten a PhD? What might he have discovered or developed?
Sure, people can defy almost any odds, through determination, a lot of luck, and perhaps some multigenerational struggle. But it's better for society if things are set up so talent, aptitude and determination are recognized more quickly. It's *also* necessary to recognize lack of those things and act accordingly.
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Re:Meritocracy only when all else is equal (Score:5, Interesting)
I easily can within constraints you provided. How even is the track are they running on? What kind of weights are put on the person starting ahead as opposed to the one starting from behind? Who ended up winning? And countless other similar questions.
See, this is the problem with Communist idea of "meritocracy is bad, because people must be equal to one another in terms of outcomes". Which is exactly where this "critique of meritocracy" practised in far left circles of anglosphere universities comes from. Some people are simply better, more hard working, more intelligent, more resourceful than others. And due to the fact that humans are a result of natural selection of the best surviving and the rest being selected out of gene pool across what is now hundreds of millions to billions of years of evolution, we are hard wired for this competition on every level.
In your example, those are people with superior training and genetic base from specific Caribbean African origin that will start that 50m dash from behind while carrying a 20 kilo backup, and easily outrun the fat american liberal arts professor who started far ahead, with far more resources. But who's hopelessly fat and due to his personal flaws believes in "fat acceptance" and that him losing that 50m dash because he can't run 20m without running out of breath, the Jamaican runner in question should obviously be constrained further.
And it's very easy to torpedo this discussion, even without reminding people of the roots and the horrifying results of applying this mode of thinking to reality, which is famines of proportions where *error margins* on total dead are higher than entire death toll of Holocaust, by several times. In this mode of thinking, people are inherently not allowed to discriminate against other people in pair selection. You don't get to choose your romantic/sex partners. Because current selectionary mechanism selects on merit. It's a meritocracy.
But if meritocracy is "bad", "utopian" and all of the other arguments of the Soviet scientists from 1930s that are being rehashed in anglosphere universities today are to be entertained, then we must start at the foundations of where meritocracy starts from. And that is pair selection. Which is where Soviet scientists did indeed start from, through they went onto even lower level and decided to apply this principle to horticulture.
And some people know how to throw a party! (Score:2)
> Some people are more hard working, more intelligent, more resourceful than others.
Other people are the life of the party. Still others are comforting to be around - their energy just makes you feel like everything is going to be okay. We are different and that's a good thing! Being a workaholic doesn't mean they are a better person, it means they put in the hours to get things done at their job.
I'll invite beer pong guy over on New Year's Eve. For analyzing the RNA of a corona virus and designing an
Re:Meritocracy only when all else is equal (Score:5, Insightful)
The critique was not communist in origin. The original critique came from the person who invented the term in 1958.
Meritocracy was published as a satirical concept, and various dumbasses decided to make the dystopic vision from that satire into reality without much circumspection or consequential thought.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice, they're not. As Feynman put it, "It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong."
There is a veritable library of evidence within political science and sociology that demonstrates fundamental flaws in the notion of a meritocracy, not the least of which is that the biggest determination of success isn't what you know, but who you know. And those very organizations that pride themselves on being meritocratic tend to very much not be, but rather are fronts for why they are very white and overwhelmingly male, especially at the executive levels.
Black women entrepreneurs (and women in general) have a higher return rate for VC capital on average and yet receive far less VC capital than their male counterparts. This cannot be explained by meritocracy, though VC circles would almost universally describe themselves to be so.
So if the mantra of meritocracy among adherents doesn't actually lead to demonstrably better outcomes, what good is it?
The fundamental flaw tends to come from mediocre individuals with outsized wealth who believe that wealth is a direct proxy for competence when in fact our economic system is biased toward wealth inherently gathering more wealth minus egregious errors in judgment. And those mediocre wealthy folks tend to chose folks they know and who they recognize as similar to themselves.
To achieve meritocracy you first have to convince folks who've gained wealth/power through non-meritocratic means to give it all up in favor of others with better ability. Taking a glance at the current White House I don't see that happening anytime soon nor are the masses of folks who voted for him clamoring for replacement.
This is not just a partisan dig at Trump. Can anyone honestly say that in a meritocratic environment someone like him would rise above all other possible candidates for the presidency. Can you even claim he's in the top 25%? That any of his cabinet are? That even his press secretaries have been?
It was dystopian satire, but far too many didn't get the joke.
Re: Meritocracy only when all else is equal (Score:3)
That's not my argument.
It was satire. From the very beginning. Obviously dystopian. And flies in the face of normal, pan-cultural human social interaction.
Any intended ideology based upon the nominal definition of "meritocracy" is building upon a foundation of sand. We don't have the objective measures to rate it and certainly don't have fairness of opportunity at birth. Unless you can get rich/powerful parents to afford their own kids the same education, health care, and opportunities the children of poor/
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Uh, communism is a all about meritocracy. Roles assigned on merit and ability. That it doesn't work that way in practice is just another example of how the noble ideal of a meritocracy is unrealistic.
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"Some people are simply better, more hard working, more intelligent, more resourceful than others."
Not simply. Different people respond to different stimuli. Some people have never been rewarded for those characteristics. It would be surprising if those people demonstrated those qualities as much as those who have.
Re:Meritocracy only when all else is equal (Score:5, Insightful)
The one thing I agree with in your post is 'name sounds too Asian', but Asians tend to be on the other side of this - they lose positions in college because of affirmative action helping others at their expense.
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That single mom made choices. The family she doesn't have supporting her made choices. The parents that saved money to afford a better education for their children made choices. I want a system where people who work hard and make responsible choices are rewarded. That encourages people to work hard and make responsible choices.
It sound like you want kids to be punished if they're unlucky enough to have parents who made poor choice.
The alternatives (Score:5, Insightful)
I can understand where people are coming from with some of the arguments made in the article. No system, including the college admissions system, is perfect. Every decision has drawbacks including those decisions, so I understand how someone might be unhappy with it.
Having said that, what do you propose instead?
Currently, the system for deciding who to most invest in educating in the best universities works like this:
A candidate gets points if they are of the preferred complexion. No points if you're pale.
A candidate gets points if they have the preferred genitals. No points if you have an outtie.
A candidate gets points of they've studied and do well in school. No points if you ditched classes regularly or didn't learn much in high school.
What system do they propose? Because I think racism and sexism are both bad and also foolish, I could see getting rid of the first two. IMHO my daughter shouldn't get into the best school because she's black, she should get in by putting in the work to learn stuff in high school, demonstrating that she does learn in school - that it wouldn't be a waste of time and resources to have her in the best schools for college.
But here they propose eliminating the consideration of whether the applicant does well in school. What, if anything would replace that? Would be be guaranteed admission for everyone, no child left behind at Yale? (Meaning the whole class sticks to the level of the slowest / most drunk student). Would we keep the first two and fill up the campus with all the black females? My daughter would be in, since by chance she's a daughter and not a son. That might not be an improvement.
Re: The alternatives (Score:3, Insightful)
Replace hard work with the obvious ranking system:
Most points for non-binary
Second most for Trans
Third most goes to Gay/Lesbian
No points to bisexual
Penalty to CIS, or ideally just automatically deny due to historic systematic oppression inflicted on others by CIS so now we need an equality long time of discriminatory correction. Maybe 2000-3000 years would do.
As far as yo
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I am commenting just to keep myself from upvoting this. I hate how terrifyingly accurate that might be.
Re: The alternatives (Score:4, Insightful)
Best wishes you to both. Maybe she can learn a trade like plumber.
I get the sarcasm and the hyperbole, but what's wrong with being a plumber? Sure the world need doctors, engineers, and other kinds of people who typically need a four or more year college education, but the world needs plumbers as well. I'd even argue that a plumber is at least useful, whereas the kinds of degrees being handed out by the sort of people who might like at your ranking system and fail to see that you were making a scathing criticism are pretty much useless.
We really need to stop putting college up on some kind of pedestal or creating the implication that the people who don't go are somehow inferior. We created this lie that we tell ourselves and our children that if they want to be successful they need to go to college, and that's the misstep that's led us to go so far astray. Countries like Germany have a much smaller percentage of their population go to university and yet they're still an incredibly successful and country and an economic powerhouse.
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The system should give every candidate reasonably equal opportunity to prove their worth. After that, only the candidate's achievements should be the relevant metric for determining their career, or lack thereof.
The big issue is how to determine "reasonably equal opportunity", especially given how radically different could be a candidate's background and events in life, on top of the concept offering a very good excuse for failing candidates to divert responsibility from themselves for their failure simply
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Even this misses the point which is NOT for young people to "prove their worth" to us, it is for us to provide young people their best opportunities to contribute as adults to a better society. There is no "after that" nor can "lack thereof" be an acceptable lifetime "punishment" for failure to achieve some goal as a child.
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Widen the criteria by which you judge people to give more people an opportunity. That also means increasing the number of places available.
Too often one failure is enough to write someone off. A bad highschool, a few failed tests at a time something else was happening in their lives, or just kids but realising they need to put in the effort early enough. More opportunities to recover from setbacks like that should be available.
No other viable solution (Score:2, Interesting)
There is just no other viable solution. I truly think that most of the people can succeed in the highest studies given enough time and dedication. It is also true that meritocratic institutions are filled with students from upper class families that gave them access to resources others families do not have (like time, money to pay for extra tuition and most important of all: ambition for their kids), and that this background is what allows them to succeed more than anything else.
However, it's also this way
Re:No other viable solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Family emphasis on education outstrips any other factor in scholastic success.
Hollywood shitting on this helps nothing.
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Which is why improving public grade school level education is the only effective way to combat inequality in education. We still have high school graduates that can barely read. I've watched a recent high school graduate look for a calculator to figure out 7 x 10.
Sure, the ones with better resources at home still have advantage, but that doesn't mean we should give up on the rest. As a society we're all one group. The more that are failing, the worse we're all doing.
Agglomeration effects (Score:2)
The current way of running college admissions concentrates talent, ambition, and competence in very few areas — on the coasts, in a very few universities
This is a probably a good thing - concentrating talented people together with each other leads to higher productivity and increased economic growth [upenn.edu].
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It also makes it easier to manipulate and brainwash them.
Tokens, tokens everywhere (Score:5, Insightful)
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Keep telling yourself that. A degree doesn't necessarily signify intelligence, but it does certify minimum attainment in a particular field. Since you mentioned the US, the current secretary of education appears to have education or experience in the field. Neither does the secretary of energy for science.
I'm not American, but I do realize how tribal you all have become, so I looked up the previous office holders who had a different colour beside their name. I fully expected to see equally unqualified offic
Efficiency in society (Score:5, Insightful)
Meritocracy is, at this point, the best way we have found to get most out of society.
The ultimate goal of our education system should be to allow each and every member of society to provide the most value to society they can.
Of course that doesn't happen if the educational system has to proportionally overindulge weaker students and thus leaves the more gifted ones to fend for themselves because in the end, they'll manage a "good enough" living on their own anyway.
Not to mention I really, really dig meritocracy when I go to a doctor. I think we're actually not meritocratic enough when it comes to occupations like doctors, lawyers and thus judges and certainly politicians.
The problem is that meritocracy is a costly concept to which a fully free market based system does not cater. A university in free market mode will want to sell diploma because nobody is paying them to weed out the mediocre and the cheaters.
Now we have this inflation of academia, we spend a lot of money to hang diplomas on people we barely want flipping burgers. Meritocracy is a theoretical concept at this point.
Like democracy, holding meritocracy's ideals high involves backbone, money and a clear understanding that unless you're willing to make sure that even the most useless of person can be given something they'll feel useful about, then human instincts will take over and discontent and crime WILL rise. And in that climate, nobody prospers.
DISAGREE (Score:2)
A university in free market mode will want to sell diploma because nobody is paying them to weed out the mediocre and the cheaters.
Now we have this inflation of academia, we spend a lot of money to hang diplomas on people we barely want flipping burgers.
So you found out the answer by yourself, except you didn't understand that that was the answer.
Do you know what INFLATION means? That is what is happening with those diplomas. The value of the diploma goes DOWN. If they want it to go up, then they weed out the cheaters.
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That of course, presumes that there is no force driving that inflation that is stronger than the direct profit incentive, or that the collegiate board is not set on immediate short-term increases in profits over long-term viability.
The reality is that there is a strong incentive to create "qualified candidates", which is why there are diploma mills in places like India.
To compete against the storm, the better schools have to produce more graduates as well, or risk being removed from the pool, due to the inc
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Bollocks. If universities are prioritising people based on wealth or family connections then they're clearly not meritocratic.
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what do we do with the rest? (Score:2, Funny)
#remembergolgafrincham
Thank your local telephone sanitizer.
Without merit-driven incentives... (Score:3)
Without merit-driven incentives w/in college communities, academia serves little useful public purpose.
Absent that, there would be little justification for granting them access to public funds, so many (most) would fold.
Just sayin'. And even then, “merit” is typically in the eye of the beholder. At least in a free market economy, merit can be defined & refined by the pocketbook of the consumer & alumni. Money talks. That's why it is generally considered to be a token proxy for value... at least when not overtly skewed by PoLiTyKz. ;-)
Nothing wrong with the IDEA (Score:3, Insightful)
The idea of meritocracy is perfectly sound, especially in terms of college admission. However, in actual practice, it runs into a few problems.
The first is what do you measure for merit? A lot of the current people advocating 'meritocracy' are merely advocating the current class/race/gender based status quo, based on the head start they got because of it, and confusing that head start with merit (either consciously or more commonly subconsciously). So-called 'objective' tests have been shown to have biases inherent in their design, thus advantaging people on more than just pure merit.
The corollary: if you know this, how do you set the standard for admission? If you have students that may be mentally prepared for college, but scoring less on the standardised test, do you set an entry barrier that lets them in, letting the college life do the sorting? Or do you pre-sort based on tests? And in the latter case, are you then still meritocratic?
It's not an easy answer. But what is true is that there often is a perception of meritocracy where there isn't. So the task is to get reality closer to the ideal.
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Ditching meritocracy because some people have a head start in life is however foolish.
There's nothing wrong with selecting on competence and capability. If that leaves certain demographics disadvantaged then take measures to address those disadvantages but don't entirely devalue the thing you're selecting for.
A lot of the current people advocating 'meritocracy' are merely advocating the current class/race/gender based status quo
A lot of the current people advocating for meritocracy are seeing their chance of university or a job disappear because other less capable and less competent people are being selected based on their ge
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Well aren't you an ignorant shit, calling someone a bigot for advocating against sexism and racism.
Go and find a dictionary you fucking idiot.
Meritocracy. Yes, but careful what you wish for... (Score:2)
Let me explain it to you.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Also, me being from europe, you are NOT a liberal, you are perhaps a sotzialist.
PS: i went to uni, i consider it mostly a waste of time. could not care less about it.
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The issue of those that fail to go into Universities shouldn't be handled by the higher education admission scheme. The issue should be handled by making those that can't enjoy the higher social status can still live with dignity. Community College / University / Vocational Training are all possible paths one may get into. There are various nature / nurture factors that affect the path one go into.
Baseline 1: If a job is life-threatening if not done well, we will want people that obtain those positions be
Politicians should be a test group (Score:3, Insightful)
Preserve? (Score:5, Insightful)
Preserve it? They could start with it. It seems that at least until recently you could buy your way into the best colleges.
Yes, but the USA isn't doing it (Score:2)
In the USA college isn't meritocratic. It's based on wealth, trust funds and donations. It's based on standard tests which are absolutely worthless for determining someone's intelligence or capability of higher education. It's based on a popularity contest where extracurricular activities and volunteering somehow determine whether you belong in an institution whose sole focus should be on strengthening your big brain. In the worst cases it's based on the idea that playing football with your IQ printed on th
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Really? Your view of colleges and universities in the US is that each and every one of them is some sort of Harvard or Yale where babs and diddums can pay for their mutant offspring to learn how to believe they should lord over all even though they have zero capabilities?
There are hundreds and hundreds of non-Harvards/Yale that are hugely competitive. Some are even state schools where in-state students can excel without racking up huge debt.
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Yes they all are a sort of Harvard or Yale. Not all to the same extent. But the reality is that your ability to go to college in the USA is not exclusively linked to your ability to embrace education.
There are hundreds and hundreds of non-Harvards/Yale that are hugely competitive.
And there are millions who can't afford them.
It depends on the metrics. And forget US College. (Score:2)
What is merit? How popular I am? How much my software/research/gadget/patent is used? How good I am at content-free PC speak?
Colleges should have clear metrics for entry and clear metrics for degrees. Those should, if generally deemed necessary, be adjusted for affirmative action, with metrics that are publicly known and get reviewed every 3 years for their effect. Like "Handicapped Black Ladies get +200 points automatically if they reach a minimum requirement of X"
Other than that, I don't see any need for
Equality!! Equality!! Equality!! (Score:3, Insightful)
On the way to obselence (Score:2)
The universities are continuing to shoot themselves in the foot. They were already losing ground to online education, and the recent forced quarantines had sped up that progress. Now, avoiding to get the best students might be the final nail for their own coffins.
One thing that does not change is, life itself awards genuine effort. The software companies for example will look at your resume, but will hire you based on the code you produce, not where you graduated from. Even if the top universities will not
the mere fact (Score:5, Insightful)
That the headline is even questioning meritocracy is a staggering testimony to the insane time we are living in, in a loonhouse.
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Well, where are we now? The gays can marry and ... guess what, the nation didn't turn gay.
In other words (Score:3)
"I didn't get into Harvard. It's not fair. Wahhhhhh!!!!"
Ok, so there's a small handful of self-proclaimed "elite" universities that are the wet dream of a certain class of people. But there are hundreds of HUGELY competitive universities all across the country that turn out many of the best-an-brightest across the gamut of disciplines.
Some of those are even public universities. Some of them are downright affordable for in-state students.
Who is your meritocracy now, punk? (Score:2)
Yes. Make it the ultimate meritocracy. (Score:5, Interesting)
In my country, universities are free (or, rather, by now almost-free, we're talking less than 1000 a year, mostly to discourage people from becoming perpetual students for the various student discounts and special offers companies and social programs offer). In other words, we have new students flooding the universities every year. And every year, most of them throw in the towel. Because with about 20 times more student than what the economy needs in graduates, knockout testing is merciless. Perform or perish. Nobody is holding your hand and nobody gives a fuck about you. Can't find your course? Don't know what to do? Can't be assed to get up on time for the course? Step aside and make room for someone who does. For every seat in a lab, there's at least 5 waiting for the guy to say "fuck this".
And nobody gives a fuck who you are or who your parents are. Because it's state funded, there's no way to buy your way in. If you want that, go study abroad.
What's getting out of there with a degree is people who can self-motivate and self-organize and who do have a perfect understanding of what's been taught or they could be as motivated and organized as they please and not get passing grades, because, you guessed it, nobody gives a fuck if you fail. Dropout rates would make the average US college go broke because they rely on dragging idiots along to ensure continued funding, a problem that's nonexistent in this model.
It doesn't get any more meritocratic than that, if you ask me.
Re:Yes. Make it the ultimate meritocracy. (Score:4, Insightful)
This was literally how US public university systems worked prior to guaranteed student loans. You aren't describing anything that Americans don't know, only something that young Americans don't know.
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In your country, what is the demographic distribution of university graduates vs. the general public? Heck, is there much genetic diversity?
Doubt that (Score:2, Offtopic)
Typical argument based upon a false assertion believed by someone to lazy or ignorant to do a little research to find out if it is actually true, because it would contradict a position they wish to believe in. Google's NGram Viewer shows the word appearing in print as early as 1809. Here> is a reference from 18 [google.com]
Justifying her own existence... (Score:2)
Wait, what? We're discussing the ponderings about merit, generally measured by success and accomplishments, by someone who can best be described as a professional student with no concrete accomplishments ever and studying in a field that actively avoids anything measurable?
When else do we take a complete outsider with clearly no actual experience living the life as an expert?
correct for genetic confounding (Score:2)
We find out that there's huge correlation between the kind of material support that people have, and their ability to perform on the kind of exams that allow people to get into colleges.
.... and? Why assume that this is incompatible with a meritocracy?
Confusing this with meritocracy (Score:4, Insightful)
1. We do NOT have a meritocracy. We have an oligarchy that we pretend is a meritocracy. Both in college and out of college.
2. We claim we do and criticize the 'meritocracy' based on the failings of the oligarchy.
3. This is used to prevent us from changing the system.
STOP calling it a meritocracy, instead DEMAND a meritocracy.
Starts with free college education for all. No government supported loans, only grants. Add in free medical care at least for children under 21.
And end it all with a huge inheritance tax. If you can't get wealthy from all the contacts you inherited from your parents plus the better schooling they paid for, then you deserve nothing.
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Knowledge that you've worked for and acquired is yours, and so is the property.
It is NOT your children's. They don't get to keep the knowledge you acquired, so why do you think they should get all your money? I am fine with them getting $1 million (or, as I prefer, 10x the president's salary - account for inflation).
I am not seizing property. I am letting you give it away. But the people that get it need to pay a tax on the UNEARNED money they get.
Especially because people that get wealthy usually find
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Preserve, Yes. (Score:3, Insightful)
It's interesting how the only example of Meritocracy given is college-level education, as if that's the only merit worth having. What about people that learn skills outside of a college education? A meritocracy of society as a whole should be nothing but positive. Judges should be selected from the best lawyers, government treasurers should be selected from the best accountants, etc...
The main issue the author seems to have is how we define 'best' and 'merit', which she uses to tear down the idea, decrying it as not inclusive enough. Let include all aspects of society. Not every individual needs a college education, but everyone should be educated.
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When I ride over or under a bridge, I would prefer that the engineer who designed it:
Give me practical experience over top-of-their-class grades any day of the week. If fresh engineering graduates, no matter how good, are anything like the fresh graduated developers I sometimes interview, I wouldn't let them touch a bridge design with a 10 ft pole.
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For example, the SAT is a highly racist exam
You're the first person I've seen to make that claim. From the very little I've seen about it, it looked like any other school test, except for the abuse of multiple choice questions, which I later understood to be a thing in the US.
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Stephen Jay Gould wrote an entire book on it. The Mismeasure of Man is still worth a read, though he passed away many years ago.
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Stephen Jay Gould was a lying fraud. [nytimes.com]
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The SAT most likely has racial bias, but as far as being a "racist" instrument, it is far less racist than the OP is. The suggestion that there are "white schools" and that these schools exist to "move rich white kids from high school to their trust funds" just shows how serious a problem this poster has with his own racism.
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"Except for state like Washington, Oregon, and Vermont who actively keep segregation alive, more states are not majority white, and many states that are majority white, like Virginia, are really poor."
That's a remarkably racist statement, wonder what your ethnicity is?
BTW, as of 2017 45 out of 50 states are more than 50% "non-hispanic" white. "More states" than what?
Also, most universities are public, and public universities implement admissions differently than how you characterize. Their purpose is to s
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"as a policy anywhere for any reasonable length of time. Can someone provide an example where something appeared like "meritocracy" wasn't a random fluke?"
Mom donates a couple of hundred thousand dollars and the brat gets accepted to the university in the rowing section even though the kid never saw any body of water in her life.
She 'merited' that, no?
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Dad passes legislation that benefits, or awards grants to universities and his kids get accepted to the university without even having to join the Rowing team.
Lori's problem wasn't being rich. Her problem was that she isn't politically connected or powerful
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Mom goes to jail (because it's merited) (Score:2)
You skipped the "mom goes to jail" part, because it's merited.
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The Peace Prize is pretty much the beauty pageant of the Nobel Prizes. What matters is how you appear, not what you do.
Re: I was unaware that we've had "meritocracy" (Score:3, Insightful)
Greta is butt ugly, almost downs syndrome ugly
Most astute thing ever posted by an AC; she looks like a fucking transgender Ron Weasley.
'Ugly by design' for sure; she doesn't even need to open her mouth and she's still divisive... and I'm a fucking non-denialist tree-hugger.
"Just how sickening are the globalists and their bullshit?? Well, look at Greta."
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Kid from the hood attempts murder? His arresting officer attempts murder? You know it won't work this way.
This is why having good judges is so important, but we screw that up too.
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"Who am I supposed to thank other than myself? "
A society where this is even possible? A technical sector where you can have access to tools while bootstrapping your education?
And were you really an alcoholic if one day you just decided to quit? I think you aren't really telling this story objectively. I suspect you well know you have plenty to be thankful for.
As for "do not need algebra", I feel very comfortable not relying on you to determine the curricula for our children. I don't think uneducated, u