Yale’s Daniel Markovits writes in The Atlantic: “Because education, like aristocratic rank, is a positional good, the most elite educations yield the greatest returns.” But isn’t college “about helping people engage with the world and grow into themselves“? Read more here.

“Seattle University, for example, promotes social justice in the Jesuit tradition and emphasizes deep connections to its region. By contrast, Harvard University aspires to educate the global elite and to collect the world’s best research faculty in every academic subject. U.S. News boasts that “our methodology is the product of years of research.” But the basic question of what this research is studying—of the educational values that the rankings are supposed to measure—remains unaddressed. What account of educational excellences could yield the result that U.S. News reports—that Seattle ranks 124th and Harvard ranks second among U.S. universities? This is madness. Education’s core purpose is (or once was) to help people engage with the world and grow into themselves—to discover the overlap between their interests and their talents and develop it.”