If getting into top (TOP!) universities correlated with education/aptitude alone, the wealthy would pay more to get thier kids educated but the best teachers. But they don't do this, they pay to dollar for their children to get educated by the "best" schools. But what makes them the best schools is their ability to get more kids into better universities. If education were the critical component of these schools, they'd pay premium rates for the best teachers, but often the teacher salaries at these private schools are lower than those at the public schools they compete with in the area. That suggests that it isn't the education provided by the teachers that's the most important component of these schools. There's a whole stew of other factors that these schools rely on to get kids into top placements that had nothing to do with actual education.