How the Ivy League Broke America

The advantages of elite higher education compound over the generations. Affluent, well-educated parents marry each other and confer their advantages on their kids, who then go to fancy colleges and marry people like themselves. As in all caste societies, the segregation benefits the segregators. And as in all caste societies, the inequalities invol... See more

Being smart doesn’t mean that you’re willing to try on alternative viewpoints, or that you’re comfortable with uncertainty, or that you can recognize your own mistakes. It doesn’t mean you have insight into your own biases. In fact, one thing that high-IQ people might genuinely be better at than other people is convincing themselves that their own ... See more

Would we necessarily say that government, civic life, the media, or high finance work better now than in the mid-20th century? We can scorn the smug WASP blue bloods from Groton and Choate—and certainly their era’s retrograde views of race and gender—but their leadership helped produce the Progressive movement, the New Deal, victory in World War II... See more

Most admissions officers at elite universities genuinely want to see each candidate as a whole person. They genuinely want to build a campus with a diverse community and a strong learning environment. But they, like the rest of us, are enmeshed in the mechanism that segregates not by what we personally admire, but by what the system, typified by th... See more

the Marshall Plan

Waldsterben , or “forest death.”

Helpfully, some of these project-based-learning schools are pioneering a different way to assess kids. Students don’t graduate with only report cards and test scores; they leave with an electronic portfolio of their best work—their papers, speeches, projects—which they can bring to prospective colleges and employers to illustrate the kind of work t... See more

For instance, Princeton’s unofficial motto is “In the nation’s service and the service of humanity”—and yet every year, about a fifth of its graduating class decidesto serve humanity by going into banking or consulting or some other well-remunerated finance job.

Mehta and Fine profiled one high school in a network of 14 project-based charter schools serving more than 5,000 students. The students are drawn by lottery, representing all social groups. They do not sit in rows taking notes. Rather, grouped into teams of 50, they work together on complicated interdisciplinary projects. Teachers serve as coaches ... See more