[CharlesMerriam2]

Have a rule.

Our republic, and the California state government, is based on rule of law. One group makes the laws, another enforces it, and a third interprets the conflicts. This works. What we have here is a 'no rules' set of actions.

How about rules that say "we will take any student for $200K/year". This is enough money to supply extra supervision and also give a full scholarship to another student.

[ipnon]

The idea of privilege first entered the public sphere in the prelude to the French Revolution. "Privilege" in Old French literally means "private law".[1] It was the idea that a different set of rules for each of the Estates (Clergy, Nobles, and Commoners) was both fair and natural.

Are we are starting to see similarly different sets of rules for each class in the United States? Is such privilege in accordance with our ideals of liberty and justice for all?

[1] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/privilege

[chaostheory]

Corruption never disappears completely, but it's pervasiveness seems to be cyclical. The 4th Turning is a good read on the subject

https://www.amazon.com/Fourth-Turning-American-Prophecy-Rend...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strauss%E2%80%93Howe_generatio...

[youeseh]

Social classes and economic classes, while they have a lot of overlap, are fundamentally different.

[suprfsat]

Can it be? Are the rich starting to follow a different set of rules?

[nicoburns]

Starting? When has this not been the case?

[ipnon]

Before the 18th century most people could not read. Literacy rates began rising dramatically starting in the 17th century with the invention of the printing press and the proliferation of reading materials that it spawned. By the third quarter of the 18th century, an extraordinary milestone was passed in France. For the first time in history more people could read than could not. The commoners of Paris were obsessed with the plays, novels and essays of Enlightenment thinkers like Voltaire, Rousseau and Diderot. The satire and wit of these thinkers inspired a new form of popular discourse we now call critical thinking. Commoners from rich merchants to petty artisans started examining and discovering the contradictions and injustices endemic to their lot in life. The idea of privilege came from this tempest of new ideas. While the hierarchy of power and its unequal treatment are as old as time, this newly educated population was for the first time able to see this hierarchy of power for what it is: an inherited system of control based on fraudulent claims to divinity that is inherently unfair and unjust.

[TheAdamAndChe]

It's always been there, it's just that social media is making it extremely easy for everyone to see it now.

[kenhwang]

1 for 1 isn't worth it, and the UC system already plays that game with international students where one international pays for 3 in-states. Make the buy-in price pay for 10 and I'm in support.

[gibolt]

1 for 10 seems reasonable, assuming there is also a strict academic requirement for that privileged student. Even more points if it supports their housing and food plan.

[Loughla]

The incentive in that system is to ensure the wealthy student absolutely meets their academic requirements, regardless of ability.

How can you fail out Timmy Upperclass, if 10 students lose their funding next year with him gone?

[kenhwang]

If you fail out Timmy, he has to pay for tuition again thus paying for even more students. Or just charge the 10x upfront + normal tuition/year after that.

[selectodude]

Replace him with Billy Upperclass Transfer student.

[geodel]

Further points if rich kids do household chores, cleaning, cooking etc for less privileged folks. Just strict academic requirement is not sufficient. Rich kids also have to remain in 95 percentile in academics. A further investigation committee need to be setup to investigate every year if rich kids are not using their influence to be among top students in their classes.

[baddox]

You obviously have to balance the legitimate cost against the illegitimate costs people will incur to get kids admitted. I don't know if 3x or 10x is the right value, but it's definitely not "more is better." If you make it cost a billion dollars to legitimately buy your kid into the school, there will still be millionaires utilizing these sorts of bribes.

[minhazm]

Maybe they could take like 5-10% of the slots and just auction them off.

[joshuamorton]

This isn't tenable at this price. Double or triple it, and maybe.

The limiting factor for elite universities usually isn't dollars, but the quantity of qualified tenure-track faculty and physical space. Not at the university, but overall. The number of postdocs and graduating PhD students each year with the credentials that Cal wants to accept isn't huge. Similarly, the number of rooms that the university has is limited, and both of those numbers take time to change.

A certain ticket for 4x the price of Harvard is still a really, really good deal for lots of wealthy people.

[rahimnathwani]

"This is enough money to supply extra supervision and also give a full scholarship to another student."

Imagine there are 10 students for 5 spots, and there is an objective ranking from most-qualified (#1) to least-qualified (#10).

Now let's assume student #10 can pay that $200k. That funds their spot plus another spot. So instead of admitting:

{1, 2, 3, 4, 5}

You can now admit:

{1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10}

Doesn't this seem unfair to candidates #7 to #9, who are more qualified than #10, but will end up with a less valuable credential?

[sobani]

#7 to #9 would never get admitted anyway.

The question you should ask is whether being able to admit #6 is worth it.

If #10 is some trust fund baby who couldn't study himself out of a wet paper bag, then probably not.

But if #10 is merely 'good' it might be worth it to be able to admit just-0.1-GPA-short-of-great #6.

[rahimnathwani]

Consider the degree not as education, but as a signalling device.

If you admit #10, then they will beat out #7-#9 in the job market, increasing lifetime earnings at the expense of the others.

If you don't admit #10, then #6-#10 will compete on an equal footing.

The latter may be the outcome you want.

[grumple]

This is already the way education works. You’ve heard of “needs-blind” admissions? Anywhere they don’t say that, it means the ability of students to pay full price is part of the admission process.

[gowld]

Even "need-blind" admission uses proxies for (non-)need, like "legacy" and "celebrity".

[hatmatrix]

Like first class passengers footing a large share of the bill so economy passengers can pay less.

[robocat]

I think that is a misconception.

The economy travellers make it possible to travel first class. First class travel is for the moderately wealthy. The very wealthy have their own transport.

Economist article on decline of 1st class travellers: http://archive.vn/OQPt2 (2019).

[TimTheTinker]

Completely agreed.

The idea that we have to "tear it all down" and institute Marxism is backward and self-contradictory.

As you said, we need to identify where and how rule of law is lacking and fix it, making sure that representative government and separation of powers remains intact (or is put in place again).

[TimTheTinker]

I know this may be against the guidelines, but does anyone know why the above comment was downvoted?

Do people really favor Marxism, or is something else wrong?

[swores]

It could be because:

a) It's not uncommon these days for the term "Marxism" to be used as a brush to paint anyone "too left wing" (despite not being close to actual Marxists)

b) "Cultural Marxism" has become an antisemitic term https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Marxism_conspiracy_th...

Plus, yes there are still some people in the world who believe in Marxism, although often just in a broad sense rather than thinking everything about it is right. But I doubt many on HN.

And while complaining about downvoted may be against the rules, personally I think it's completely fine in the context of wanting to understand something like your question, rather than "this shouldn't be downvoted".

[TimTheTinker]

Thanks, I appreciate the help.

[sudosysgen]

Do you actually believe that letting people pay for guaranteed enrollment is at all acceptable?

[kenhwang]

There was a study suggesting the strongest social mobility influence granted by an university education is really just the proximity and opportunity to network with the wealthy on even grounds more than the education itself.

So by having a guaranteed ratio of very wealthy mixed into your student pool, it's hugely beneficial to everyone else. It's practically the reason people chase after prestigious MBA educations.

The practice might be distasteful philosophically, but the results are apparently great.

[TimTheTinker]

Not at all!! Not sure where you got that. I think this business of improper admission and bribes violates rule of law terribly.

That's the point -- rule of law means everyone is subject to the same rules, without partiality.

[sudosysgen]

Well no, that's not really what rule of law means. It would be perfectly within the rule of law to allow people to pay for admissions. If this wasn't a public institution, it would be perfectly legal, and I'm not even sure it's illegal here.

Rule of law is not sufficient, power also needs to be distributed correctly for rule of law to lead to good outcomes.

[TimTheTinker]

> It would be perfectly within the rule of law to allow people to pay for admissions

Not if a law exists to the contrary. And that was the point I was agreeing with -- the solution should be to write a law if one doesn't already exist; or to enforce it if it does.

> power also needs to be distributed correctly for rule of law to lead to good outcomes

Agreed, though distribution isn't the word I'd use, as it implies the existence of another human authority to determine how it should be distributed (thus granting that person or group of people improper power).

But if the placement of power is determined by duly enacted law, that's acceptable.

[gowld]

I do. It's absurd that _anyone_ with a high school diploma is refused enrollment at a public college.

[corin_]

But the question is also: which college?

It's a fine view that nobody should be denied great education, but if an entire country's annual cohort of high school diploma recipients all applies to the public college considered to be the best one they obviously couldn't all attend that one.