What a College Stunt Says About Higher Education Today
Mr. Dumas certainly could have taken classes without his college tour.
.. What they don’t offer online, at least so far, is the experience Mr. Dumas emphasizes: that of hanging out with other young people who got into top schools, and who thus have social (and, in some cases, actual) capital to offer.
.. It’s possible that such learning organizations will allow students to create their own communities, ones with much lower financial barriers to entry, and that over time, those communities will reduce the influence of the elite-university network ..
But they haven’t always succeeded. In the Yale Alumni Magazine last year, David Zax wrote that 69 percent of Yale’s class of 2017 came from families making more than $120,000 a year. And even lower-income students who are admitted aren’t necessarily welcomed into social groups on campus, as Eleanor Barkhorn at The Atlantic has noted.