SANA HASAN
MBA – I
Date: 03-Jan-2011
Organizational Behavior and Leadership
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ADVANTAGES OF ELITE EDUCATION
“Scholars agree that education is a very important source of entering into the ‘elite’ and that access to education must be equally distributed, continue to debate how open access to ‘elite education’ actually is.”
Elite universities are feeders for other institutions: the professions (law, medicine, etc.), academia, and large corporations. These institutions are filled with graduates from elite universities (and college graduates, in general). Within these institutions, the importance of an elite education is usually accepted as irrefutable fact.
People tend to value things that make them look good. When we’re good at something this is what allows us all to be above average in our own minds. It’s natural to value an elite education if you have one. And if you stay within the bubble, you’ll certainly have your belief corroborated. But an elite education isn’t without its drawbacks.
At an elite university (or any college, for that matter), you spend four important years of your life in school learning rather than out in the world doing. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but there are trade-offs. As a graduate of an elite university, you feel a strong urge–almost an obligation–to put your degree to use. It cost a lot of money and took a lot of work to get, after all. The students are trained at prestigious institutions to define themselves in terms of their association to them. They are made to take great pride in themselves, and value themselves as respected citizens of the nation and feel immense responsibility to boast up the morale and esteem of the nation as a whole.
As a rule, students and graduates of elite universities all agree on one thing: Their elite education is very important. They’re not elitists and they may see themselves as privileged, and they may wish others had the same...