alt Hacker NewsThe ones that aren't competitive don't have the ultra-competitive dynamics described above. Not sure what your point is.
That still doesn't mean they're not "for the elites." Universities are for people striving for upward mobility, i.e. to get into or maintain membership in the elite tiers of society. Also there is (obviously) significant variation in the upper end of the elite and the lower end.
More than a third of the US population has a college degree. [1] When you consider the fact that 20% of the US population are children [2] that means that roughly half of the eligible US population has a college degree. If “half” is elite, then I’m not sure what “elite” means, because it’s not very exclusive.
> Not sure what your point is.
Well, you said
> All universities are for the elites.
And then I countered that, actually, many are not selective. I am asking you to reconsider your statement. In reality, many college programs confer _skills_, not _status_. This narrative that colleges are for the elites is demonstrably untrue, runs counter to the founding mission of many of them, and strikes me as sour grapes. I know because I was one of the kids who struggled to afford college, went to a public one where I learned _skills_, which I then leveraged into a satisfying career.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_attainment_in_the_...
[2] https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/visualizat...