[rellui]

Artificial scarcity (like diamonds) to keep their rank and prestige. If everybody gets to go to MIT, then it's just another regular college and the prestige of being the "best" in order to get in will be lost. I want to know what rest of the ranks after top 10 look like and how many students they're taking.

[graeme]

The thing is, those top three are quite prestigious in Canada. Maybe not as prestigious, but being a smaller country we have less room for minor shifts in ranking value.

MIT could make 5x the money while still taking in extremely qualified students. But, they're a non-profit, so they don’t really care about money. The prestige has more of a perceived value.

Us top 10 schools have a lot of money. But you’d be astounded to see what they could collect if they were truly profit motivated.

[chillacy]

If US schools are Veblen goods then we can look to luxury goods as a comparison.

Consider Ray Ban/Burberry who at points in the past crossed the line from exclusivity into mass market and suffered a reputation hit, only to go under new management and tightly control the supply.