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The Disquieting Truth About Elite Education
Imagine being at the pinnacle of academic achievement-perfect grades, impressive extracurriculars, admission to a prestigious university-only to find yourself feeling empty, anxious, and utterly directionless. This is the paradox William Deresiewicz explores in his provocative bestseller that sent shockwaves through higher education. When a Yale student described himself and his peers as "excellent sheep"-smart and accomplished but lacking purpose or passion-Deresiewicz recognized a profound truth about our educational system. The book resonated deeply with students at elite institutions, becoming required reading at many universities and sparking heated debates about the purpose of education. Even former Yale professor and bestselling author Harold Bloom called it "a necessary challenge to conventional wisdom," while The New York Times praised its "scorching critique" of elite institutions that produce "zombies" instead of leaders.
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The Manufactured Excellence Machine
Today's elite students are products of an increasingly frantic meritocratic arms race. In the early 1980s, top college applicants typically took three AP courses and participated in three extracurriculars. Now, competitive applicants take seven or eight APs while juggling nine or ten activities. The admissions process has become ruthlessly efficient-committees spend mere minutes per application, seeking both stellar numbers and that elusive "spark" that distinguishes the truly exceptional.
This system doesn't primarily enable social mobility. Rather, it determines status hierarchies within the already privileged upper-middle class. Parents simultaneously hover and pressure while coddling and praising-seemingly contradictory behaviors that stem from overprotection and overidentification. They infantilize their children through constant surveillance and intervention, treating them as extensions of themselves rather than autonomous beings.
The psychological toll is devastating. Students describe feeling like "machines with no life" or "robots going page by page." They survive on minimal sleep, living in constant fear of failure. The mechanics of addiction operate in these high-achieving students-each A is a temporary fix that quells anxiety without bringing genuine pleasure. Their self-esteem is a balloon perpetually inflated by external approval, collapsing at the first contact with reality.
At the heart of this pathology lies what psychoanalyst Alice Miller calls "the drama of the gifted child." The accomplished child forms their identity in response to parents' need for gratification through achievement. The child becomes what parents need them to be, but the demand is insatiable. They internalize "never good enough" and strive for perfection, creating an endless cycle between grandiosity ("I'm the best!") and depression (self-loathing when setbacks occur).
The result is a "false self" that ignores authentic feelings and desires. Instead of developing inner goals and values, these young people become dependent on authority figures and external validation. They define themselves through superficial achievements rather than authentic identity.
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The History of Elite Education
The modern elite college system's roots trace deeply into America's Gilded Age, marking a dramatic transformation from humble beginnings. Prior to the Civil War, Ivy League colleges were modest institutions serving primarily local communities, with student bodies rarely exceeding a few hundred. The post-war industrial revolution, however, created unprecedented wealth and a new class of industrial magnates seeking to establish their social legitimacy.
This emerging WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) aristocracy methodically constructed an elaborate network of exclusive institutions. Beyond colleges, they established restricted summer resorts like Newport, exclusive country clubs, and prestigious preparatory schools like Groton and St. Paul's. These institutions served as sophisticated barriers against the rising tide of immigrants, particularly Catholics and Jews, who threatened their social hegemony.
Harvard, Yale, and Princeton underwent dramatic transformations, evolving from relatively simple schools into the wealthy, influential institutions we know today. Their campuses expanded with Gothic architecture and manicured quads, while their missions broadened beyond education to include social refinement. These universities became finishing schools for the upper class, teaching everything from table manners to the art of conversation, while fostering networks that would define America's power structure for generations.
The introduction of standardized entrance examinations in the late 1800s initially focused on classical languages and literature. However, when these requirements were dropped in 1916, public school enrollment surged, bringing an unprecedented wave of Jewish applicants - reaching 20% at Harvard by 1922. The response was swift and calculated. The Big Three developed an elaborate new admissions system featuring recommendation letters, alumni interviews, athletic recruitment, leadership evaluation, legacy preferences, and the notably subjective assessment of "character" - a thinly veiled method of maintaining social exclusivity.
The 1960s marked a pivotal shift under progressive leaders like Yale's Kingman Brewster. Recognizing that the old aristocratic model was becoming untenable in an increasingly democratic society, Brewster's 1965 reforms initiated the transition from pure aristocracy to meritocracy. Need-blind admissions were introduced, and academic achievement gained prominence over social background. However, rather than completely abandoning traditional criteria, institutions merged old and new standards. Successful applicants now needed to demonstrate both conventional upper-class qualities - leadership, artistic talent, athletic prowess, and community service - alongside exceptional academic performance.
The system has only intensified since then, particularly after U.S. News & World Report introduced its influential college rankings in 1983. This created a singular metric of institutional prestige, triggering an arms race among both colleges and applicants. A massive admissions industry emerged, featuring expensive test preparation services, private counselors charging up to $50,000, and elaborate strategic planning beginning as early as middle school. Now in its second generation, with meritocratic parents who themselves succeeded in this system, the competition has reached unprecedented levels. Families invest enormous resources in building the perfect application, while universities face mounting pressure to maintain their selectivity and status in an increasingly competitive landscape.
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The Commercialization of Higher Education
Our colleges and universities have fully embraced commercialization, transforming from centers of learning into corporate enterprises. Professors are increasingly replaced by low-wage adjuncts who often teach at multiple institutions to make ends meet, while tenured positions continue to decline. Academic departments are now viewed as "revenue centers," with administrators scrutinizing enrollment numbers and cost-per-student metrics. Unprofitable liberal arts programs, despite their cultural and intellectual value, face budget cuts or elimination, while business schools and STEM programs expand due to their revenue potential.
Science departments increasingly prioritize research with commercial applications, forming lucrative partnerships with pharmaceutical companies and tech firms. Traditional academic inquiry and basic research take a back seat to patents and marketable innovations. Universities aggressively expand through satellite campuses in Asia and the Middle East, viewing international expansion as essential to building their global brand and capturing market share in the educational marketplace.
Most destructively, institutions now view students as "customers" to be pandered to rather than challenged. This consumer mindset manifests in various ways: rampant grade inflation where A's have become the new average, luxury dormitories with resort-style amenities, state-of-the-art recreation centers, and gourmet dining options. These expensive additions drive institutional debt, forcing continuous tuition increases. Marketing materials emphasize career outcomes and starting salaries rather than intellectual growth or character development. Colleges compete for students by promising comfort and convenience, not rigor and transformation.
The intellectually serious students - those seeking genuine education and personal growth - feel increasingly marginalized. They must actively fight against the system to find mentors and pursue meaningful learning. Students with genuine curiosity and independent thinking find themselves swimming upstream in an environment that prizes conformity and career preparation above all. Elite institutions, while publicly championing diversity and critical thinking, have little incentive to produce too many "seekers and thinkers" - the poets, teachers, social workers, and nonprofit leaders who might question societal values but generate little alumni donation potential.
As one Yale graduate pointedly observed, "the purpose of Yale College is to manufacture Yale alumni" - successful professionals who will become wealthy donors. This cynical but accurate assessment reflects how elite education has become a self-perpetuating system of privilege. David Foster Wallace astutely noted this hypocrisy: universities proudly trumpet their commitment to diversity and progressive politics while systematically preparing their students for high-paying corporate careers that often perpetuate social inequality. The gap between institutional rhetoric about social justice and the reality of their role in maintaining economic stratification grows wider each year.
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The True Purpose of College
College offers a precious opportunity to stand outside the world for a few years, between family orthodoxy and career demands, to contemplate life from a distance. It's a freedom most young people worldwide can only dream of-not something to waste but to use meaningfully.
Learning to think is just the beginning. You must think specifically about yourself. Liberal education isn't just about democratic citizenship-it's about building a self. This isn't quick, easy, or pleasant, but it's necessary. Young people today are taught that a self is something you just have, but there's not much to it when you're young. College provides tools for self-discovery through books, ideas, art, and intellectual pressure.
Changing how you see the world changes how you see yourself. College is where you determine your own identity and values, discover who you truly are beneath others' expectations, and find new ideals. It's where you start answering those venerable questions: what is the good life and how should I live it?
Though I'm not religious, only religious language captures the gravity of these questions. College should be a pilgrimage toward truth and self, a movement toward conversion to beliefs and ways you don't yet know. Ideas become instruments of salvation, helping you avoid living secondhand with others' thoughts and dreams.
True education, like true religion, enables you to stand apart from others' claims on you. The self is a private space of strength, autonomy, and creativity. Without a soul, as D.H. Lawrence noted, you can "go on, keep on, and rush on" on ego and will alone, but you'll be hollow inside-saying "want money," "want mansion," "want Harvard" without the "I" that requires asking "Who am I?"
College should make you interesting-not through impressive achievements or credentials, but through reading, thinking, conversation, and inner richness. Its purpose is turning adolescents into adults. Using these years solely for career preparation is obscene.
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Finding Your Vocation in a Status-Obsessed World
Self-knowledge isn't just philosophical-it's practical because it helps you find the right career. The rush to bypass this reflection is ultimately self-defeating because happiness depends on knowing what you're working for. "What is the meaning of life?" becomes urgent when phrased as "What is the meaning of MY life?"-a question you don't want to face for the first time at forty.
Vocation-from the Latin for "calling"-isn't something you choose; it chooses you. It's the thing you can't not do, that makes more sense of you than you do of yourself. But discovering your calling requires work to become receptive to it. You must free yourself from all you've been taught to care about to recognize what truly matters.
When entering Starbucks, you can choose between menu items or walk out if what you want isn't there. Similarly, elite colleges offer choices between medicine, finance, and consulting, but you don't have to order from that menu either. You can step back and consider alternatives beyond the conventional options presented to you. Moral imagination requires character, not intellect, and demands moral courage to act despite what family and friends will say.
Status is a trap-unlike money, you can never have enough. However high you climb, someone's always above you. You'll end up somewhere in the middle with the rest of us. Learning for its own sake and wanting to be at the top involve fundamentally different motivations. The need for status is an addiction you never fully overcome, but like AA, you can learn to manage it daily.
Of course, there's a large qualification: you are not free to ignore reality, especially financial reality. You need to eat and pay for mortgages, children, and retirement. The economic slump has made everything harder. Student debt makes it difficult to view college as an opportunity for personal development rather than return on investment.
More important than parental approval is learning to live without it-that's what becoming an adult means. A child who never rebels remains forever a child. As psychologist D.W. Winnicott notes, disloyalty within the family is "an essential feature of living," because "it is disloyal to everything that is not oneself if one is to be oneself." Yet families today seem to have signed a pact never to separate.
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The Value of Time Off and Exploration
The most concrete suggestion I can offer is: Take time off. Take time to slow down, gain perspective, break the cycle of achievement, escape constant supervision, see the world outside school, and develop unexplored capacities. This isn't just about rest - it's about creating space for genuine self-discovery and growth outside institutional frameworks.
Consider taking a gap year without the structured "program" part. Too much structure is what you need to escape. Instead of "enriching yourself" in approved ways, try just wandering. Get an apartment with friends, support yourself with a part-time job, meet people you'd never encounter otherwise. Work in a restaurant, volunteer at a local nonprofit, or take on odd jobs that expose you to different walks of life. These experiences often prove more valuable than formal programs because they force you to navigate real-world challenges and interact with people across social and economic boundaries.
Remember that college is only the start. "Finding yourself" means discovering who you are outside the framework of school. Extracurriculars, summer jobs, and internships aren't enough because they lack real stakes and offer limited options. As a professor at Lewis & Clark tells freshmen, "Passion finds you, you don't find it. And it finds you only after a lot of hard work, most of which you will not be passionate about." This truth applies whether you're interested in art, business, science, or any other field - meaningful work often emerges from periods of uncertainty and experimentation.
Give yourself time. Your twenties are what Dustin Hoffman called the "question-mark decade." Some form of wandering is necessary and good. Waste isn't waste if it takes you somewhere meaningful. Out of postcollegiate struggles and confusion, unexpected directions emerge. Consider successful individuals like Steve Jobs, who dropped out of college to audit calligraphy classes, or J.K. Rowling, who worked various office jobs while developing her writing. As Charles Wheelan notes, "interesting, successful people rarely lead orderly, linear lives."
The best advice I received at twenty-two was: Don't try to figure out what to do with the rest of your life. You'll be a different person in a few years with different interests, values, and goals. Just figure out what you want to do right now. This might mean taking a job that doesn't impress anyone but teaches you valuable skills, moving to a new city without a perfect plan, or pursuing a creative project that may or may not lead anywhere. The key is to remain open to possibilities while taking concrete steps forward, even if those steps seem unconventional or risky to others.
Remember that this period of exploration isn't just about career development - it's about developing as a complete person. Travel if you can, even on a budget. Read widely outside your field. Learn practical skills like cooking or home repair. Build relationships with people who challenge your assumptions. These experiences often prove more valuable than traditional resume-builders in shaping who you become and what you ultimately contribute to the world.
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Rethinking Leadership for a Democratic Society
The concept of "leadership" dominates elite education, with students constantly urged to see themselves as future leaders who will "make a difference" and "change the world for the better." Yet what these institutions mean by leadership is very far from anything to do with social good-it's simply about getting to the top, climbing whatever hierarchy you attach yourself to, and winning impressive titles.
Students understand this perfectly. The college application scramble to demonstrate "leadership potential" translates into a race to become head of something-anything-or to start something new just to lead it. The content doesn't matter; the title does. As one Harvard interviewer bluntly asked, "Harvard is for leaders, so what do you want to be the leader of?" The student's answer: "I don't know. Something."
What we need instead of "leaders" are citizens and thinkers-individuals who question those in power rather than competing to become them. The best leaders are thinkers with "resistant minds" who ask questions instead of just answering them, who determine whether goals are worth pursuing, who formulate new directions instead of leading the herd toward the cliff.
The "dissident impulse"-the impulse to say no-once powerful in American culture, is now barely visible on selective campuses. Students no longer make fundamental demands upon society for a different world. Today's students feel pressure to be happy, in what seems like a dystopian regime stamping out discontent. Yet unhappiness is not only normal but indispensable for transformation-of self, institutions, or society.
The Millennial generation's social engagement through nonprofits and social entrepreneurship represents progress from the 1980s-90s, but falls short of genuine social transformation. "Work within the system" is the prevailing ethos, with a technocratic approach of tackling discrete problems rather than questioning the system itself.
The alternative isn't charity but justice; not concern but outrage; not volunteering but solidarity. College should teach students to think critically-to be skeptical in the original sense of the word ("to look"). We need students who can imagine a different world and have the courage to work toward it.
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Finding the Right Educational Environment
The differences between elite universities like Harvard, Stanford and Yale are largely cosmetic-their students, teachers, and mentality are essentially identical. The real question is whether to participate in the system these institutions represent, and if not, what alternatives exist for getting a genuine education.
Liberal arts colleges provide the best environment for genuine liberal education. Their professors devote more time to teaching, are hired and promoted partly based on it, and remain accessible to students. Instruction occurs almost entirely in seminars led by actual professors, not adjuncts or graduate students. With fewer students and no large university infrastructure, the environment becomes intimate and intense.
The best options may be "second-tier" (not second-rate) liberal arts colleges like Reed, Kenyon, Wesleyan, Sewanee and Mount Holyoke-schools that maintain allegiance to educational values rather than competing with Harvard and Yale. Students should consult alternative rankings like "Colleges That Change Lives" or the Washington Monthly guide, which measures institutions by their commitment to social good.
Students should be wary of schools where over 90% of freshmen graduated in the top 10% of their high school class. Students at less prestigious schools tend to be more interesting, curious, open and appreciative-acting as peers rather than rivals. The ideal college provides structure for intellectual exploration, like Lawrence University's two-term "Freshman Studies" sequence that introduces liberal learning through diverse readings from Plato to Einstein, helping students discover unexpected intellectual passions.
When choosing a college, forget the rankings, which drive bad decisions by measuring market position rather than educational quality. Look for schools where it's "cool to think," sit in on classes, and connect with the institution. Once there, actively direct your education by seeking dedicated teachers and courses that humanize rather than specialize you.
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Breaking the Cycle of Privilege
Elite education is reproducing America's class system just as effectively as the old WASP aristocracy did a century ago. It exacerbates inequality, retards social mobility, perpetuates privilege, and creates an isolated elite that's smug about its position.
The meritocratic takeover is evident in our leadership. Since 1988, eight of ten major-party presidential nominees attended elite private colleges, with seven attending elite professional schools. All eight were associated with Harvard or Yale. This contrasts sharply with the 1948-1984 period when only three nominees attended elite private colleges and eight attended state schools.
This pattern extends throughout society: eight of nine Supreme Court justices have law degrees from Harvard or Yale; 54% of corporate leaders and 42% of government officials have degrees from just twelve universities; and prestigious firms now recruit almost exclusively from Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, and Wharton. This "insane obsession with pedigree" produces uniform human specimens making the same mistakes repeatedly.
The solution requires ensuring privilege cannot be handed down. Admissions should use class-based rather than race-based affirmative action, eliminate legacy preferences, weight SAT scores for socioeconomic factors, limit extracurricular listings, value service jobs, and stop rewarding wealth-enabled experiences.
More fundamentally, we must overhaul higher education. The problem isn't just admissions practices but the Ivy League's position and our privatization of leadership training. We need to revive public higher education-the commitment that created great state university systems where everyone could receive a mind-expanding education. Instead, we've slashed state education spending by a third since 1980 and another 18% since 2008, shifting costs to students through loans rather than supporting education through taxes.
Public education isn't unsustainable-it simply isn't being sustained. Beyond higher education, we need genuine equality in K-12 education-eliminating funding disparities nationwide and actually giving lower-income children more resources to balance home inequities, as successful systems like Finland do.
True self-overcoming means giving up advantages so others can have more. We must decide whether to remain a winner-take-all society that maintains artificial scarcity of educational resources, or to mobilize everyone's talent for the greater good. We've tried aristocracy and meritocracy. Now it's time to try democracy.
