Evan Mandery, a professor at the City University of New York (CUNY) published an excellent book in 2022 titled Poison Ivy. It merits a brief review because it provides a very compelling critique of the role played by elite universities in American culture. Mandery specific focuses on the economic role that elite universities, what he terms the Ivy-plus, have in reproducing our ruling class.
For clarity, the Ivy-plus refers to the most elite universities in the US, basically the Ivy League as well as universities like Stanford, Duke, MIT, and the University of Chicago.
Here, in Mandery’s words, is the “basic premise” of the book: “That, whatever they may say to the contrary, elite colleges are engines of class stratification.” (preface, xi). Much later in the book he sums his thesis again: “the fundamental mission of elite colleges remains class reproduction.” (224).
What is Mandery’s point? Why did he write this book? His argument is that, when you dive into the data as he does, you see that America’s elite universities primarily admit and graduate only wealthy, elite students. In other words, although they may claim to promote diversity and mobility, they primarily funnel America’s elite teens through their doors and out the other side into America’s elite jobs on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley. In one telling statistic, he shows that for every poor student Princeton graduates they also graduate nearly 50 rich students. What do elite universities do? As those numbers illustrate, they reproduce and maintain the elite class in its position of power.
And this means in turn that America’s most elite institutions, from Wall Street banks to IT firms to media are populated by the highly credentialed children of the wealthy. This makes them increasingly disconnected from those who have not attended such elite institutions, let alone those with no college degree whatsoever.
To illustrate this point, Mandery asks “why should someone from Appalachia trust journalists if they’ve never met one? By the same logic, why should they trust scientists, academics, and elite colleges in general if neither they, their children, nor their neighbors have any chance of ever attending such an institution? Democracy depends in part on elite colleges democratizing access to the elite.” (preface, xvi).
Now consider how things work in practice: the average salary for Harvard grads at their tenth reunion is $200,000 per year. There are more Harvard students from the top 1% than the bottom 50%. The average family wealth of a Harvard student was over $500,000 last decade and is likely even higher now.
Why does this matter? Because, as Mandery rightly points out, “the story is the same at every elite college. Their core business isn’t lifting poor kids out of poverty. It’s keeping rich kids rich.” (from Introduction, xxv). I’m listing some emblematic quotes but it is worth noting that Mandery provides abundant data to back up his claims. Indeed that is part of what makes it such worthwhile reading. It is engaging, enraging, and full of data. Mandery is also great at summarizing his key findings in pithy quotes.
As he points out in an argument that resonates with William Deresiewicz’s equally good Excellent Sheep, “it would be one thing if elite colleges turned affluent high-school graduates into do-gooders. They do the opposite. They steer them into careers in finance and consulting, further exacerbating inequality. Elite colleges are essentially the only means of access to the most elite jobs—at Goldman Sachs, Mckinsey, and the like.” (intro, xxvi). Much of the book shows how elite universities actively steer idealistic or aimless undergrads into careers in finance and consulting.
Why are things like this? A fair question. Mandery notes, for example, that “what’s so confusing is that elite colleges are populated almost exclusively by liberals. Yet these institutions are conservative in every sense of the word—their policies favor rich white people, and they have invested a fortune in protecting the status quo.” (intro, xxvi). Indeed. After all, these institutions could dramatically expand enrollment or work to recruit large numbers of under-privileged teens in the cities where they are located. They do not do this because it would undermine their actual mission—to provide credentials for ruling class individuals and to network them and shepherd them into ruling class jobs. This is why the Ivy-plus exist.
But how can anyone believe in a game that is so rigged? Mandery tackles this question in a chapter on the role of the SATs that is both informative and funny. The history of the SAT and the institutionalized interests behind it also makes for useful reading. In perfect summary he notes that “tests like the SAT convert the natural advantages of birth and wealth into a neutral score, which has a veneer of scientific validity that makes it feel fair, or at least not grossly unfair.” (68). Unfortunately, as the author notes, colleges that go “testing optional” generally aren’t any better. All the non-testing options for admissions also reflect class inequality, sometimes even worse than standardized tests do. And thus middle and upper class suburban kids compete in a rat race for access to these institutions that they have been led to believe are meritocratic.
This is a problem, for “belief in meritocracy changes the very nature of education. It places emphasis on who wins the education beauty pageant over what is learned. It treats intelligence as static, instead of something that can be nurtured.” (138). This of course takes all the hope and idealism out of education. Instead of a place where you learn and grow, colleges are a place where the supposedly already smart and talented meet their fellow ruling class members before moving from Cambridge or Princeton to Manhattan. This is because “elite colleges convert advantages of wealth, like high SAT scores and extracurricular opportunities, into a tradable currency—a prestigious diploma.” (168).
In a later section of the book, Mandery notes how most professors lean liberal. Among sociologists studying elites this is especially so. Therefore he asks, rightly, “how can a system run by liberals be so conservative?” (176). One could push back and say that a bloated bureaucracy of administrators actually runs the universities.This is in many respects true. But Mandery’s point remains relevant because the elite university administrators identify as liberal in similar numbers to the faculty. This especially poses a problem for credibility in a highly polarized country that is also deeply populist. Yes, conservatives will doubt the credibility of elite university leadership but so will ordinary citizens.
On this exact point Mandery asks,“how can anyone be expected to continue to follow the academy’s leadership when the nation’s top colleges and universities have been so thoroughly exposed as bastions of inequality—when the average Harvard professor makes over $250,000 per year, and the average Harvard student comes from a family making more than twice that?” (286).
Is there any positive takeaway from this admittedly depressing critique? Thankfully, yes! As Mandery repeatedly points out, many public universities do the hard work of mobility that the Ivy-plus only claim to do. His own system CUNY, as well as the State University of New York System (SUNY), the Cal State system, and the University of California system, for example, provide world-class education to working and middle class kids and produce genuinely dramatic upward mobility. It is public institutions like this that produce a deep dose of service to the public good, opening new pathways for first-generation college students and opening doors for those who were previously excluded.
Mandery presents considerable data for this claim and then sums it up evocatively: “The CUNYs and Cal States of America produce our nation’s teachers and public servants. The Ivy-Plus colleges produce investment bankers, management consultants, and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs.” (123). One of these serves democracy in America and the other undermines it.
For related reading I can recommend Matthew Stewart, The 9.9 Percent, Richard Reeves, Dream Hoarders, and Anand Giridharadas, Winners Take All.