Hacker News Reader

Comment by akhilcacharya | Hacker News Reader

This was a good article and despite the location of CSLA a good look outside of the coastal elite education bubble.

Far too often the focus is only on the elite students at the elite schools when its clear upward mobility, just in sheer quantity, is better created at less elite public institutions like the CUNY schools or the CSUs. Hell even the culture war aspects are overstated - the "campus free speech" pearl-clutching is based on the experiences of maybe 5-7 elite institutions, and the entirety of the "Asian discrimination in admissions" controversy is based entirely on the superiority of 3-5 elite schools.

Far more needs to be done to extend upward mobility to everyone in this country and that isn't going to happen by focusing energies entirely on the HYPSM.

Relevant - https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/shut-up-about-harvard/

View on HN

There's a reason why California has the CC/CSU/UC system split up. Each system and tackle different missions within public education.

The CC system works for adults with many weekend/night offerings and a huge emphasis on usable skills and trades. The CSU system is the budget/value offering to young adults with a good blend of trades/liberal arts with a focus on practical applications. Both of these systems are excellent for high volume upward mobility when they're functioning.

Then there's the UC system which serves as the halo product that's supposed to draw in or retain the best and brightest. This mostly serves to keep the middle class from leaving California, or when that fails, draw in upper-middle class from elsewhere.

Are California's "elite public institutions" doing less for upward mobility than the CC/CSU system? Probably, but that's not it's main mission. It's trying to preserve the existing middle class, which is arguably just as important as raising the lower class.

"The CSU system is the budget/value offering to young adults with a good blend of trades/liberal arts with a focus on practical applications."

They also provide a cheaper way to get the bulk of your first two years' credits in place before proceeding to a "four-year" university.

No, that would be the CC system - Cal States are 4 years schools.

Not sure where my copy/paste went awry, but "they" should have referred to community colleges.

(I have degrees from both the CC and CSU systems.)

CSUs and UCs are both four-year (plus, as both offer graduate as well as undergraduate education) schools.

You may be thinking of California's not public community college system.

There's a not-public system? The one I'm aware of is very much public: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Community_Colleges_...

The “not” was spurious; I'm not (and I mean that one) sure of how it got there.

building on this. much of the gender discrimination argument happens at the same level. it’s usually white women from elite universities and privileged backgrounds at places like Google.

CSU LA has had one of the most notable campus free speech problems. California's public universities try to discriminate by race but are hindered by Prop 209.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com