> Your parents income level, and their ability to prioritize what income they do have to make sure you're in a good neighborhood. The second thing is what's being de-valued.
So, you're saying that people who have the misfortune to have parents who can't do those things for them should suffer a handicap, right? How well you are able to compete for a slot in college should depend on who your parents are?
> So, you're saying that people who have the misfortune to have parents who can't do those things for them should suffer a handicap, right?
Yes, for the reasons that I outlined. If you don't reward kids for their parents investment, their parents won't invest, and that will be worse for everyone.
If you spending 1 hour or 10 hours teaching your kids at night makes no difference to their life outcomes, which will you choose?
This line of argumentation falls flat to me because the kids that are better educated by their parents will undoubtedly have better lifelong outcomes, regardless of what college it enables them to get into.
There's a lot more to success in life than what college you go to. Going to Harvard is pretty worthless if you haven't even been set up with the skills to be able to graduate, for instance -- which the kid with highly invested parents is more likely to have.
> This line of argumentation falls flat to me because the kids that are better educated by their parents will undoubtedly have better lifelong outcomes, regardless of what college it enables them to get into.
Sure that may be true in relative terms. But at the margin, decreased reward -> decreased investment.
> There's a lot more to success in life than what college you go to. Going to Harvard is pretty worthless if you haven't even been set up with the skills to be able to graduate, for instance -- which the kid with highly invested parents is more likely to have.
That sounds like something that could be true, it just isn't. A Harvard degree is mostly about signaling. Once you are accepted to Harvard, you're nearly guaranteed to graduate (the graduation rate is 97.5%). Once you've gotten in, you're set. A huge number of jobs care more about marketing their ivy league staff than the actual skill output of that staff. You can do extremely well with zero talent and a Harvard degree. Obviously having both is better, but the Harvard degree itself confers tremendous value on anyone who has it, even if that person has no real skills or intelligence.
Now suddenly having dedicated parents and high-quality education is not a reward in itself. Why be king of a minor gold hill, if it cannot entitle you to rule a mountain, am I right?
So, you're saying that people who have the misfortune to have parents who can't do those things for them should suffer a handicap, right? How well you are able to compete for a slot in college should depend on who your parents are?