[HN Gopher] Ivy League Schools Sure Look Like a Cartel
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Ivy League Schools Sure Look Like a Cartel
Author : xqcgrek2
Score : 165 points
Date : 2023-03-11 18:11 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bloomberg.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bloomberg.com)
| musicale wrote:
| For some reason I can't reply to a comment that said
|
| > Author is biased, probably couldn't get to one of those
| schools...
|
| Ad hominem attack, but I was amused even though the facts don't
| precisely support the accusation.
|
| It is technically true that Prof. Carter didn't attend an Ivy
| League school as an _undergraduate_ - he went to Stanford, which
| (currently) plays in the Pac-12 and NCAA division I. Of course
| that doesn 't tell us whether he received admission offers from
| any of the Ivies at that time - it seems likely that he would
| have.
|
| But the reason I rate the implication "false" is because he
| subsequently attended and graduated from Yale's law school and
| currently teaches there.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Because it was marked dead. replying to flame bait comments is
| precisely what HN tries to avoid when it does that, but you
| found your workaround :)
| musicale wrote:
| Hmm, I don't think I would have been quite as quick to hit
| the flag button. The (now missing?) PP comment to me read
| "probably couldn't get into an Ivy" with the crux being that
| Stanford is of course not part of the Ivy League. (But Yale
| Law School is certainly part of Yale, though iirc it's rare
| for graduate or professional students to play in the NCAA due
| to eligibility.)
|
| Sometimes people forget that the Ivy League isn't a
| classification of elite schools but actually an athletic
| conference; this is of course directly relevant to the issue
| of athletic scholarships which is under discussion.
| nobodyandproud wrote:
| The author seems to have an axe to grind.
|
| > The need for diversity in education is as vital today as ever.
| But it's not clear whether the Ivy Agreement's ban on athletic
| scholarships actually promotes that end. One might even wonder
| whether, by not competing over sports stars, the schools are
| reducing the diversity of their student bodies.
|
| Yet later admits:
|
| > But recent research tells us that fielding a great team
| predicts higher alumni giving only to the athletics department.
| And a 2005 study found little connection between on-field success
| and giving, at least among those alums who regularly attended
| sporting events.
|
| Higher education became corrupted with money from athletics and I
| wish more schools took note of:
|
| > In the Ivy Group Agreement, the universities defend their ban
| on athletic scholarships as part of a general policy "that the
| players shall be truly representative of the student body and not
| composed of a group of specially recruited athletes."
| stale2002 wrote:
| You are missing the point.
|
| It is not a problem of an individual school refusing to give
| academic scholarships.
|
| Instead the problem is the schools all agreeing together to do
| this.
|
| By all means, let each university individually choose if they
| want to allow scholarships or not, with zero agreement between
| the schools.
| ccooffee wrote:
| How is this different from a HomeOwner's Association (HOA)
| enforcing community standards?
|
| I don't understand the linked article (or your) point about
| this being some sort of illegal collusion. Can you help me
| understand how this is fundamentally different from an HOA
| enforcing things like "no boat parking"?
| flerchin wrote:
| The schools offer competing services for the consumers.
| They've all agreed to not compete for certain consumers in
| the same way. Does that help you? An HOA is not an
| appropriate metaphor.
| LudwigNagasena wrote:
| A university shouldn't be in the business of competition
| for athletic stars. Let NBA and other sports
| organizations do that. They may open their own sports
| schools and whatnot.
| Analemma_ wrote:
| HOAs should be illegal as well.
| stale2002 wrote:
| > How is this different from a HomeOwner's Association
| (HOA) enforcing community standards?
|
| This is a horrible comparison. Ivy league schools are
| competiting businesses in a market. Much different than a
| group of homes, which really aren't directly competing in a
| market.
|
| (even though, I am sure you can twist an argument that they
| are. They really aren't. Most people are not trying to sell
| their homes, and there are a lot of homes all around the
| world. 'market collusion' between a couple homes not a big
| deal compared to huge businesses doing it).
|
| > from an HOA enforcing things like "no boat parking"?
|
| Because 1 ivy league school should have no business forcing
| a different school on the other side of the country on how
| they run their business, thats why.
|
| Thats market collusion.
| pge wrote:
| The flaw with this statement is that the Ivies absolutely do
| recruit athletes and allow coaches to prioritize students for
| acceptance, just like other D1 schools. The only difference is
| that instead of putting scholarship money in front of them,
| they dangle an Ivy League degree. If Ivies removed coaches from
| the admissions process, they would have more integrity.
| kevinventullo wrote:
| Honestly I'd prefer admission of an athlete who prioritizes
| an Ivy League degree over money to admission of one more
| silver-spoon legacy.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| In my experience at an Ivy, these things often dovetail
| because of the types of sports they choose to recruit
| (outside of football & basketball) tend to be of the
| decidedly more squash, crew, equestrian sports, etc. that
| bias towards new england elites.
| jshaqaw wrote:
| Most Ivy League schools could eliminate most teams and most
| students/donors could care less. This isn't Duke or Michigan we
| are talking about.
| mikeg8 wrote:
| Hate the headline as it downplays the terror and brutality that
| cartels inflict on the people of Mexico. Nobody is holding a gun
| to a football player head and forcing them to play for Harvard.
|
| Is there price fixing going on? Probably. But I don't have very
| much sympathy for student athletes who had to pay full price to
| go to an Ivy league school... I'm sure they had more
| opportunities in life than the cartels give they people the rule
| over.
| noobface wrote:
| Just because the term is used to describe groups of
| organizations participating in price fixing activity doesn't
| mean all groups performing price fixing are equal.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartel
| khazhoux wrote:
| > Hate the headline as it downplays the terror and brutality
| that cartels inflict on the people of Mexico
|
| The word "cartel" is not exclusive to the criminal Mexican
| organizations.
|
| > I'm sure they had more opportunities in life
|
| But that reasoning applies to academic scholarships too. Every
| single person smart enough to get into a top school, will have
| more opportunities throughout life.
| stametseater wrote:
| [dead]
| ElevenLathe wrote:
| The article doesn't mention the Mexican drug cartels at all.
| Maybe you're just not aware, but the word cartel has a meaning
| outside of organized crime and the drug trade. OPEC, for
| example, is a cartel of oil producing states.
| [deleted]
| gptgpp wrote:
| As the premier Ivy League authority on the inner-workings of
| Cartels, I can definitively say that our illustrious Ivy League
| institutions only happen to appear like a Cartel to the very,
| very stupid and uneducated (eg. People who couldn't attend).
|
| It is quite an amazing psycho-social phenomena, inextricably
| linked to a low SES and impoverished social capital; I hope to
| secure a grant to make my PhD students shit out a bunch of papers
| with my name on it soon.
|
| Don't worry, all the confounding variables have been accounted
| for. We can't release any raw data though, so sorry but it's to
| protect confidentiality. Could we reasonably anonymize the data?
| Oh nooooo, I'm so sorry you're breaking u --
| mindcreek wrote:
| [flagged]
| JoshTko wrote:
| "Stephen L. Carter is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is a
| professor of law at Yale University and was a clerk to U.S.
| Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. "
| somat wrote:
| I like to joke that sometimes it is hard to tell the difference
| between the mafia and the government, they both demand you give
| them money in return for protection.
|
| Which is why the government goes after the mafia, they hate the
| competition.
| Eupraxias wrote:
| The bottom-line tangles a weave of right-of-force and rule-of-
| law.
| sixo wrote:
| The difference is the legitimizing force of accountability to
| the people (at least, in principle.) It's a big difference.
| Pre-liberalism govts basically _were_ mafias.
| soneca wrote:
| Omer Moav mentions in a recent Econtalk episode how you can say
| that the emergence of the state in human society can be
| considered the transition from road bandits to organized crime.
|
| https://www.econtalk.org/omer-moav-on-the-emergence-of-the-s...
| mikeg8 wrote:
| Listened to that episode yesterday and was about to recommend
| as well, it was fascinating.
| gptgpp wrote:
| Wow, I am so sorry...
|
| It must be really difficult living in an area of the world
| where the Government tortures your child, dismembers them with
| a chainsaw, and dissolves them in a barrel of acid if you don't
| pay your taxes.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lupara_bianca#Examples
|
| :(
| hnuser847 wrote:
| You act as if governments throughout history haven't
| committed atrocities a thousands times more gruesome than
| this. I'm fact, I can think of a fairly famous example within
| the past hundred years.
| gptgpp wrote:
| Come on, give examples please don't leave me hanging! I
| think the Mafia are sick fucks, but lots of governments
| have been too. No shortage of violence in this pit of
| animals on this stupid space rock.
|
| But thousands of times more gruesome than that!? That's
| wild. I've watched Cartel vids where they slice open and
| expose the vocal cords laterally as their victims wail,
| creating otherworldly sounds.
|
| But that's like... MAYBE 0.5x as gruesome as torturing some
| poor helpless child or tossing infant into a barrel of
| acid. So if you've got stuff that's 1000x as gruesome, I
| can't even comprehend! Please post.
| hummus_bae wrote:
| [dead]
| mhb wrote:
| The Machinery of Freedom by David Friedman is an exploration
| along those lines.
|
| http://daviddfriedman.com/The_Machinery_of_Freedom_.pdf
| kolbe wrote:
| This is basically the opening scenes of Goodfellas.
|
| Henry Hill : [narrating] All they got from Paulie was
| protection from other guys looking to rip them off. That's what
| it's all about. That's what the FBI can never understand - that
| what Paulie and the organization offer is protection for the
| kinds of guys who can't go to the cops.
| baq wrote:
| If you think about it, large criminal structures need to become
| like governments, otherwise they are unstable, so it's in their
| best interest to have rules and be fair within themselves.
|
| One interesting limit case is what happens if everyone is a
| member of such a criminal organization? There's no practical
| difference between a government.
| influx wrote:
| And if they grow large enough, they typically start providing
| welfare to the population, to pacify normal citizens. They
| even police their bad actors, see the cartel giving up their
| own in the recent murders of American tourists.
| stametseater wrote:
| [dead]
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Organized crime also routinely work to control government.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Surprised the article does not discuss the much more impactful
| fact that Ivy's coordinate to not provide _merit scholarships_.
|
| Columbia does a bit of defection on the side that is tolerated,
| but otherwise there are no merit scholarships for Ivy league
| students.
| ryukoposting wrote:
| This one has always been truly baffling to me. By all means,
| make sure that need-based scholarships are plentiful, but isn't
| great academics the entire point of the Ivy league?
|
| I was never going to make it into an Ivy anyway, but I remember
| learning about that system as a middle-class high school kid
| and thinking "huh, sucks for me I guess." Too rich for need-
| based scholarships, too poor to pay full price.
| sandkoan wrote:
| The Ivies and adjacent elite colleges are more than capable of
| giving out academic scholarships--they simply refuse to because
| that would lead to a race to the bottom in terms of how much
| money they'd be able to extract from top talent (who could
| easily negotiate colleges against each other for lower and
| lower tuition). And, from experience, Colubmia's defection
| hardly counts for much (which is why, I suspect, it's
| permitted): even their "prestigious" Rabi Scholarship yields no
| reduction in a mind-boggling $90,000 tuition--just a minute
| research stipend. They want to make you feel special while
| ensuring you still pay full price.
| musicale wrote:
| It was always baffling to me that collusion on financial aid
| wasn't illegal (also note that it's not just the Ivies that are
| involved.)
|
| I find this particularly interesting:
|
| "But the 3rd Circuit's 1993 rationale isn't helpful to the Ivies
| today. Back then, the court rejected the government's accusation
| that the schools' cooperation on financial aid increased tuition
| for other students. But subsequent work has concluded that the
| government was probably right."
|
| Over the past 30 years, universities have absolutely continued to
| raise tuition and fees beyond the rate of inflation. They have
| increased the size of university administrations and enhanced
| campus facilities and services to some extent, but the
| educational benefit isn't as clear, while student loan debt has
| ballooned.
|
| Tuition at Yale (for example) was about $15K in 1993 (equivalent
| to around $31K today.) In 2023 Yale's tuition is more than $64K.
|
| I'd like to hear Yale's explanation of how this is possibly
| sensible.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| But very few at Yale etc. pay full sticker. it's basically
| perfect price discrimination
|
| you have to have a very affluent family to pay full sticker at
| Yale or Harvard.
| jhawleypeters wrote:
| https://archive.ph/I6mJI
| meghan_rain wrote:
| @dang, why are some comments that include archive links
| replyable, and some not?
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| I'm pretty sure mods can pin a post, something they often do
| to archive links, and that makes it so you can't reply.
| causality0 wrote:
| Most likely the same rule about replies too soon after the
| comment is posted, like any other comment.
| TrackerFF wrote:
| Athletic scholarships is one of those very foreign concepts, for
| us outside the US. Seems like a uniquely (North) American thing?
| gramie wrote:
| Canada has them, but fewer, smaller, and students still need
| the academics. We don't have the religious fervour around
| university sports that we see in the U.S.
| jalla wrote:
| Cambridge, Oxford and Imperial College in the UK admit students
| and provide benefits, scholarships and bursaries to people that
| are considered world class rowing talent, quietly and
| unofficially.
|
| Many European countries have special programs for sports
| talents to develop and receive economic benefits whilst serving
| military service and/or seeking higher education. Most people
| don't know anything about these programs as they are not
| advertised or generally published.
| jstx1 wrote:
| Also because they aren't nearly as common. Just because this
| exists in some form outside of the US doesnt mean that it
| happens at the same scale.
| WastingMyTime89 wrote:
| To be blunt as someone who attended Oxford and was friend
| with someone who ended up coxing the Blue boat, nobody gives
| an actual shit about rowing there. It's just a funny
| tradition. Colleges boat clubs are nice because the sport is
| great, the two bump races are fun and the mixers are rowdy.
| The Boat race is seen as a funny tradition and an excuse to
| compete with Cambridge. It is in no way as serious as
| academic leagues in the USA.
| whakim wrote:
| Having competed in The Boat Race, this is unequivocally false
| at Oxford and Cambridge.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| That and the institution of the "college application essay".
|
| Does any other country have that?
| marcosdumay wrote:
| I think it is common everywhere to require essays during the
| college evaluation process, but I don't understand well
| enough what is the US's "college application essay" to
| compare.
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| In the US you write an essay to send to the college with
| your application, about why you should be accepted. I don't
| know of anywhere else that has anything like it.
|
| Edit: examples https://www.usnews.com/education/best-
| colleges/articles/2019...
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Wow, no, I have never seen anything like that before.
|
| Is it really a literary resume for people that didn't
| have the time to accomplish anything yet? I just found a
| niche for chatGPT!
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Oxford certainly has it when i applied.
| bjourne wrote:
| China has it...
| whimsicalism wrote:
| I thought the gaokao was all that mattered
| krigath wrote:
| College application essays for undergraduate degrees vary a
| lot by country.
|
| The UK UCAS admission system used for all undergraduate
| admissions requires an application text. It is much freer in
| its form than how I understand the US system with a very
| specific prompt.
|
| As for Norway, to pick another random example, there is no
| requirement to submit any piece of writing to explain your
| motivation. Your grades do all the talking for you, so to
| speak.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| The difference between UCAS and US system is that UCAS is
| universal essay whereas US "common app" has both universal
| and school specific essays.
|
| Honestly i much prefer the US system to my exposure to the
| british system, much easier to apply to multiple schools in
| the US
| lofatdairy wrote:
| Cui bono?
|
| There are _a lot_ of problems with the Ivy League, the lack of
| athletic scholarships are one of the few things they do
| absolutely right. The thing is that athletics are less, not more
| democratic as a distribution mechanism for admission slots. The
| author seems to be under the mistaken belief that most of these
| slots would be available for your football and basketball
| players, where stories of rising from poverty are commonplace at
| the highest level. That 's simply not the case at Ivies. You
| think underrepresented and the economically disadvantaged are
| rowing or playing squash or fencing or golfing or diving at the
| level where this would matter? Sure, there are ways of making
| this equitable, but that's not solved by the scope of this
| argument.
|
| The fact is that athletics has been a backdoor for admissions,
| and always used to exclude, not to include, those outside the
| upper class. The college admission scandal showed as much, with
| the Stanford sailing coach. It has historical roots in excluding
| Jewish students, and it's currently used to exclude Asian
| students among maintaining a proportion of elite students.
|
| Certainly, it looks like price fixing, and I don't have a problem
| with that argument, but I would prefer is more universities took
| courage to actually focus on academics like chicago, caltech,
| mit, etc.
| brian_cunnie wrote:
| > It has historical roots in excluding Jewish students
|
| I'm glad the Ivy (Penn) that I graduated from over thirty years
| ago was enlightened enough to admit good students regardless of
| whether they were Jewish. Or Asian.
|
| > athletics has been a backdoor for admissions ... used to
| exclude ... those outside the upper class.
|
| The student athlete I knew, my roommate Tony Tomaska, was the
| son of a Chicago policeman. He played for the football team. He
| was working class, not upper class.
| lofatdairy wrote:
| I do recommend the Third Reich in the Ivy League as a
| generally good read, which highlights the significantly more
| nazi-sympathetic student body at harvard with the more
| activist population at Columbia, largely in part due to the
| fact that Columbia failed to attract the white elites of NYC
| and had a larger Jewish population as a result.
|
| >The student athlete I knew, my roommate Tony Tomaska, was
| the son of a Chicago policeman. He played for the football
| team. He was working class, not upper class.
|
| Yeah I don't deny that a lot of athletes are from
| disadvantageous backgrounds, I was only to highlight that the
| sports we associate w/ that fact do not make up a lot of
| other sports in the ivy league, and that if your goal
| diversity, you should just increase admissions of
| disadvantaged students, not use athletics as a proxy.
| kerpotgh wrote:
| [dead]
| TechBro8615 wrote:
| They don't have athletic scholarships because admission is
| need-blind for all students and you will only pay what your
| family is able to. But they still have "slots" for athletic
| admissions, where each coach gets to pick who they admit, and
| as long as they clear the minimum bar (which is different for
| each sport) of GPA and test scores, they will be admitted
| early. It's not technically "athletic scholarships" but it may
| as well be.
|
| What it does mean is that an excellent athlete from a rich
| family will choose Stanford over Harvard, because Stanford will
| pay them a scholarship even though they don't "need it." This
| is one reason why Stanford athletics are superior to those of
| Ivy League schools.
| blobbers wrote:
| Is this the Chris Rock joke... there's a new form of
| discrimination called 'Price'?
|
| ... and it discriminates against the poor?
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