> Online courses (and before that, public libraries) rendered institutions of higher learning unnecessary for, you know, learning. But the idea that massive open online courses, or MOOCs, will replace colleges is a complete misunderstanding of the purpose of a university degree.
I think the author misunderstands as well. Classic "if it's in a book then the class is worthless".
Information is not the teaching. The idea is that a teacher can instruct better than a mere textbook. YMMV, but there's no denying that having a pre-planned curriculum with instruction and 1:1 Q&As inherently supersedes walking into a store and hoping you can find and understand the right books in general. Never mind that books don't grade or provide feedback on homework, etc.
The problem is that university became a requisite for people who didn't want to attend. Standards for what the teaching we expect of universities has plummeted. That's why they work so hard to keep their brand. For the self-motivated and good learners, MOOCs and libraries can replace big parts of university. That's not for everyone.
> Despite being an intellectually rigorous institution, Caltech does not graduate many future elites. Alumni go on to be successful in their academic fields, but don’t tend to dominate finance, tech or politics.
A school exclusively for technical competence doesn't produce as many social elite [citation needed] as a school that's not focused on technical competence? I wonder why. How many of the financial elite came from mechanical engineering background at all? It's a silly comparison.
Side note: Don't forget it's an order of magnitude smaller, CalTech has ~2,200 students in contrast to Harvard's ~22,000.
> Successful parents in the upper middle class can leave money to their children, but that doesn’t guarantee entrée into the social elite. The more reliable way for powerful parents to buy power for their children is through a name-brand, exclusive education.
> Jared Kushner’s father famously secured Harvard acceptance for his son with a $2.5 million charitable contribution.
When did people making $2.5m donations become "upper middle class"?