It's because the primary purpose of these institutions is cultural filtering. The only reason we have name brand unis is to sort and filter people into a very small (i.e. 1%) cultural/economic elite. The point is for you to go "ooh, stanford" or "ooh harvard" when you meet a partner at a big law firm, VC, or hedge fund.
In order for there to be a 1% there must necessarily be a 99%. The percentages are fixed; they always will be. Acceptance rates (public, reported) tend towards the filtering rate (implicit, hidden) as the college educated in the broader population tends towards 1.
Look at the endowments of these institutions. They are comparable in magnitude to elite hedge funds and VCs.
Of course they do top research and learning as well -- but only because they must. Under the old system, which worked simple, you'd be selected for an Ivy based on your blood relations and receive no education at all (for a recent example of this, Brett Kavanaugh: Supreme Court Justice).
I guess it is an improvement on the old system that these places offer a "world-class education" ** to at least some of their students; and that some of their students are pleased to receive it.
** whatever that means. My degree isn't printed on vellum Ivy league stationary, only the coarse public Ivy stuff (public Ivy: isn't that an interesting turn of phrase?); but I received the finest education of my academic career from a California community college. My classmates were navy veterans, part time auto mechanics, and young single parents.
In order for there to be a 1% there must necessarily be a 99%. The percentages are fixed; they always will be. Acceptance rates (public, reported) tend towards the filtering rate (implicit, hidden) as the college educated in the broader population tends towards 1.
Look at the endowments of these institutions. They are comparable in magnitude to elite hedge funds and VCs.
Of course they do top research and learning as well -- but only because they must. Under the old system, which worked simple, you'd be selected for an Ivy based on your blood relations and receive no education at all (for a recent example of this, Brett Kavanaugh: Supreme Court Justice).
I guess it is an improvement on the old system that these places offer a "world-class education" ** to at least some of their students; and that some of their students are pleased to receive it.
** whatever that means. My degree isn't printed on vellum Ivy league stationary, only the coarse public Ivy stuff (public Ivy: isn't that an interesting turn of phrase?); but I received the finest education of my academic career from a California community college. My classmates were navy veterans, part time auto mechanics, and young single parents.