It feels like having a purely merit based population of students would create a very stagnant and dull environment.
It feels like having a purely merit based population of students would create a very stagnant and dull environment.
'This university sucks! Everyone here is a nerd.'
OK, you probably did not mean it that way but I can't resist having a little fun with this. If all you want to do is shake things up, why not just draft random working class people via lottery? For extra amusement, make them go even if they don't want to. True, we would not learn anything about the perspective of the super wealthy, but they already have billboards and TV stations to inform us of their opinions.
Yes, there's a system available to the masses that the super-rich are bypassing using their wealth. The same is true of anyone who flies by private jet, or anyone with private health insurance in a country where the vast majority of the population uses the public health system. Are these things "corrupt"? What's different here?
If there's no dishonesty and nobody is harmed, what's the moral issue? Why are universities, unique among all society's institutions, required to operate as perfect meritocracies?
Short answer: The difference lies in the transfer of wealth to the next generation and our meritocratic values.
As a society, we have a value system that we implicitly adhere to. At least in the US, meritocracy is big part of our value system.
We believe that if you work just as hard and contribute just as much as your neighbor, you deserve to enjoy the same quality of life.
So, let's look at some examples:
Example A) Person A works his/her ass off and becomes rich off the fruits of his labor. He then spends his riches on private jets and private health insurance.
Does this conflict with our meritocratic values? No. He deserves a higher quality of life because he worked his ass off.
Example B) Person A then purchases access to an elite university for his child, who as a direct result, enjoys a better life than his poorer peer who works just as hard.
Does this conflict with our meritocratic values? Yes. His child didn't deserve their higher quality of life because they didn't work their ass for it.
You don't have to agree with meritocratic values, but it explains the difference.
One of the reasons people want to go to these schools is because they have lots of resources. If you ban wealthy parents and alumni from donating, the school wont be outstanding, so the University has good reason to accept these.
https://www.aau.edu/sites/default/files/AAU%20Files/Key%20Is...
"charitable, scientific, testing for public safety, literary, or educational"
Obviously a university is scientific and literary, and a college is educational.
Actually, they are publicly subsidized (by tax deductibility of donations made to them) because they are private charities.
Undergrads are pretty much irrelevant to major research institutions (e.g. my undergraduate alma mater MIT spends only about 16% of its budget on undergrads who are actually subsidized -- tuition is about 14% of revenue). Grad students are what matter and apart from the B school they are mostly paid (barely) to attend.
