2 thoughts on ““Affordable elitism””

1. I think this is an interesting effort, but there may be a definitional problem: in my experience, the definition of elite university has little to do with the quality of the product that a university puts out. Rather, it is based mostly on its reputation. Based on my personal experience, I believe my former peers that will graduate from the University of Tennessee College of Law will be more prepared to practice on day one than I will be graduating from Notre Dame Law School. However, ND Law’s reputation will likely progress my career further, faster. Could UT one day have the reputation of Notre Dame, based solely on the quality of the legal education it is offering? In my opinion, that seems unlikely, fair or not.

2. Interesting point, Alex. To what extent is the public’s willingness to pay ever-increasing amounts of tuition tied to reputation? And if that reception is successfully challenged, what then? That said, I’m not persuaded that our best universities – by reputation and by performance – are going to stand idly by. Universities are more than businesses, and they produce much more than just a “product,” whether one considers that to be education, research, public knowledge, human betterment, etc. We may end up seeing increased diversification of the services provided by educational institutions.