# On elite colleges *A response to the NYT article on Harvard absenteeism* By [Minerva](https://paragraph.com/@x0minerva) · 2026-01-07 --- [Harvard Students Skip Class and Still Get High Grades, Faculty Say](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/06/us/harvard-students-absenteeism.html) So students at Harvard aren’t going to class, and they are still getting good grades and going on to make 6 figure salaries. I’ve been waiting for this one. This is not news to me, I swallowed that pill when I realized only a few of my fellow Stanford students actually wanted to learn. I have two trains of thought. Elite institutions are a signal and exclusive club more than a training ground. I learned a lot at Stanford and I value my time there, but I use very few of the skills I need for my job I learned at Stanford. After about freshman year, I could go and write the software I do now. The benefit I get from Stanford at work is the ability to leverage the network. I have helped us land clients and make key hires with the friends and people I met at Stanford. I’m in a club flush with wealth and social influence and wherever I work gets to use me as an in for that. I got into Stanford in the first place because I had wealthy parents who had the cash and wherewithal to get me into a fancy private high school, where I was forced into extra-curriculars to talk about in an application and counselors who helped me write my essays. When I got an average score the first time I took the SAT, my parents spent thousands so I could spend hours with a tutor learning the tricks of the test. I was a bright kid, but I would not have gotten into Stanford without this direction from my parents. So more than anything else, my Stanford degree is a signal of who my parents are, how much time and capital they invested in me. It’s not like Stanford students are God’s chosen children, destined to do great things in the world with a quick pit stop at a fancy school. I don’t know if these schools were ever the center of intellectual engagement they claim to be today. I think about Eton in England. These types of institutions have always been more exclusive clubs than anything else. Then my second thought is if we buy into the idea that elite colleges function more as a signal than as an actual education, then what are students actually doing there? Skipping class, apparently. But maybe instead of trying to shame students for being lazy, we should trust their instincts that maybe what they are learning in their classes is not useful to their futures. Maybe it really is a waste of time. For the record, I really enjoyed the random intellectually indulgent classes I took in college. Social psychology gave me a new lens on how to view human behavior (and how to manipulate people) and human behavioral biology scrubbed any belief in free will out of me. But most Americans are going to college to be trained for a profession, and these classes had little tangible impact on me being a better software engineer. I don’t want to feed into the fascist rhetoric that no one should be going to college to learn critical thought. I think the MAGA crowd’s crusade on higher education is bad for the nation. But I believe there is a kernel of truth in every statement; maybe the elite class needs to turn a critical eye on higher education institutions. There are more useful things these schools could be teaching us. Basic financial literacy is a big one, which I was fortunate enough to learn from my parents but not many are so lucky. I have met too many highly productive alumni without a basic understanding of the economy and market. Civics and how our government works is another major miss. College graduates should have an understanding of the political and economic system they go on to lead. We also should remember that you do not need a college degree to be a contributing member of society. Only about 30% of jobs require a liberal arts college degree, some professions need tradesmen who would be better served by vocational school. I think college educated people undervalue that labor. We will always need nurses. My Harvard friends have this saying that the hardest part of Harvard is getting in. High school students grind to gain admission, but once you have the stamp on your resume, the expectation is you can just coast. At Stanford, a common sentiment among the students was “I did not deserve to get in” and while I think we should all try to fight our imposter syndrome, maybe there is a kernel of truth in that no one deserves the outsized resources, privilege, and access afforded to Stanford students. Students who got into elite institutions do not walk on water. My skin crawls when I tell someone I went to Stanford and they look at me totally differently; it’s not the most interesting thing about me. I was just a little precocious at age EIGHTEEN and had parents who imposed structure in my life to channel me into these institutions. I am very grateful for that, but we should build a society in which every person can succeed, regardless of who their parents are or at what age their prefrontal cortex developed. Maybe we need to change how we talk about these institutions, as if the great minds within them can do no wrong. Maybe the status quo is productive and we should have some inequality in the way we train the intelligentsia. I don’t really know where we go from here, but I know the way we talk about universities is more a symptom of wealth inequality than anything else, and ends up hurting students. We put way too much pressure on a small subset of young people and seemingly leave everyone else behind. --- *Originally published on [Minerva](https://paragraph.com/@x0minerva/on-elite-colleges)*