I don't see how you could eliminate the bottleneck in prestigious universities since if they are widely accessible, by definition they would no longer be prestigious.
IMHO, the best way forwards is for folks to push for the expansion of the size and power of the middle class by any means possible (government policies as well as simply patronizing small businesses with our money). We don't need a ruling elite that holds power partially by their common participation in 'prestigious' educational institutions. Those institutions demonstrably do not provide the best education, they should not serve as gatekeepers to power.
ya I agree that they shouldn't be the gatekeepers to power. My thought was to make elite universities more competitive against each other. That way maybe the distinction between the top 0.001% and the top 1% matters a lot less because there are lots of elite schools that are all roughly equal. Maybe making more universities or encouraging other schools to step up to compete so that the bottle neck is less so would work. But it's still an education bottleneck.
I am kind of disgusted with the whole thing though. I don't like all this zero sum competition over a name on a piece of paper.
I think in some other countries they have a system where if you make it past a threshold you have a guaranteed spot in their top tier school system. We should do that. We should educate people who have the talent and want to be educated, the specific name should be less important. I think this would ease a lot of tension, make things more fair, and provide the best outcome. But I don't even know if people would want this because the appeal of a super elite degree seems to be pretty enticing.
I have to think about the expansion of power of the middle class. Buying from small businesses would lessen the incentives to have these degrees to some extent. But I have to think about how to apply that to tech. The exact pedigree of a CS degree seems to be extremely important for example even if this is probably meaningless.
IMHO, the best way forwards is for folks to push for the expansion of the size and power of the middle class by any means possible (government policies as well as simply patronizing small businesses with our money). We don't need a ruling elite that holds power partially by their common participation in 'prestigious' educational institutions. Those institutions demonstrably do not provide the best education, they should not serve as gatekeepers to power.