If you went to Yale, for instance, and never miss an opportunity to remind people that you went there, and you’re the sort of person who can’t talk to their plumber or mechanic, then this article is about you.

Here’s what I’ve noticed about my friends who can cross class barriers. Their houses are filled with books and tools to the maximum point of affordability, and their dress clothes have stains from fixing things. In other words, nothing is foreign to them, except an attitude that paying large sums of money for something you could get for free in a library is, like, rilly rilly smart.

Just thought of something about my cross-class friends. They’re impossible to embarrass. If we’re out for a walk and I decide I need to lie in the gutter to take a picture or look in the storm drain, they’re perfectly fine with that. This must mean something, that they’re home in any situation. Hmmm….back to trying to get this stupid GPS talking to the phone…

I have an education for one reason, and one reason only: my parents encouraged me to read and break things, ideally in ways that involved both. Can’t beat that, despite some scars.

Lizzy – right on.

-Lynne

I suspect that none of us would accept this kind of sloppy writing if it were on the subject of trans issues. But I don’t think the subject should make any difference.

On another forum I sometimes post on, there was a 253-post thread about this article several months ago, for anyone who’s interested in getting a different perspective than that of the author of this article: http://talk.collegeconfidentia.....ation.html.

My own post was #14 on the thread. One thing I couldn’t say there is that I suspect that I’m far better at talking to people now than I used to be. Many of you know why — and it has nothing to do with the kind of education I received! Imo, the ability to talk to and relate to people one meets has a lot more to do with one’s personality, and what one does with one’s life outside school, than it does with the type of school one goes to.

Finally, I admire autodidacts too. But they do have a famous tendency to be a little too sure of their own opinions. If there’s one thing that education at an “elite school” taught me, it’s to be aware of the limitations of my own knowledge. About anything.

Donna

I know I got a hearty kick into touch for mentioning Joe Bageant’s book “Deer Hunting with Jesus” on the Forum – ouch that was sore -but he does raise exactly the same thing.

To be honest it’s not all that much different in the UK. It is interesting though for a UK person looking in at the US – which is supposed to be classless – that this whole thing is starting to get more headlines. The big vote for the numero uno undoubtedly gets people thinking.

“The tyranny of the normal must be very heavy in their lives.”

Isn’t it the truth?

I went to public NYC schools, including a high-end public HS, and am a graduate of CUNY. My parents each went both to public schools and to Ivy League graduate schools. I have a sibling who went to the same public schools, and then to an Ivy. I sent my children to NYC public schools through 8th grade, then one to private school who is now in a Very Good College. The other tried private school, hated it, and dropped out completely. We can, all of us, talk to everyone. I’m convinced that the mix of common and elite can work as long as the common comes first. It’s rare — very rare — for all elite-educated people to be able to deal with the infrastructure of their own lives.

I’m hoping that my upbringing, my realization to how socially elitist it was, my current struggle with obtaining my own much sought after education, and my respect for you keep me from ever believing that my education brings me any sort of righteous feeling of entitlement or privilege.

Thank you for sharing this article.

That Yale graduates make a lot of money does not mean that Yale made it possible for them to make a lot of money.

Similarly, if the author thinks Yale students are elitist, perhaps Yale is admitting elitists, not creating them.