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.
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.