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Comment by rougka | Hacker News Reader

Just something I am curious about, privilege tends to mean an unfair advantage given to a group if I get it right. So how is an Ivy League education a privilege? Doesn’t it require a lot of hard work to get into or finish such school? Isn’t it something rightfully gained?

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Disregarding the general reality that socioeconomics broadly has an impact on academic performance as a result of the resources people have throughout their development, there are only so many scholarships an Ivy League school will offer. So regardless of your hard work you are potentially or primarily limited by your ability to pay to begin with.

Being able to afford an Ivy League education is a position of privilege. Both for tuition and also everything else someone needs to live.

Yes that is correct but that is of course correct for any higher education school be it Ivy League or not. Even public school education is restricted to some by economic situation and the quality is highly variable across locations.

By that logic community college is also a privilege granted upon those with enough money for tuition and enough time to attend

This is of course taking one facet of Capitalism, calling it by a scare word (privilege) and forgetting about at all the other identical parts

Having the right pedigree, a network of people encouraging and helping you, teachers who have the resources to help, and people who believe in you are all factors mostly outside of a minor's control. As are adequate nutrition, safe and secure housing, and a host of other privileges.

Edit: Read minority instead of minor

My point being is that barring any proof of cheating, merely graduating from an elite university does indicate some level of competence. It requires some very hard work which in STEM not just anyone could do, and therefore it is unfair to say this is some god given privilege

Also, you cannot say how many of these graduates had access to the advantages you’ve listed above, and how much of the general population as a whole does

I feel like we've seen this issue discussed a lot with the recent Harvard lawsuits but higher-education is not a meritocracy. If it were, the legacy system wouldn't exist.

I didn’t really follow these, does that mean that graduating a CS degree in Harvard does not indicate some kind of ability and perseverance? Is it completely rigged so I can safely assume that Harvard CS in a CV is a bad signal?

Legacy admission. Be born in Palo Alto vs. South Central LA.

Yeah, “they” have to work hard, but not as hard as some people to get even halfway there. That’s what privilege means.

Legacy candidates might be some kind of privilege, however that does not exist in most schools and is only something that got you there. There is no privilege in graduating from higher education where people don’t cheat, as this is not as if you’ll take a random sample of the population, rich or poor, enroll them into a CS degree and get a high percentage of graduates.

You cannot call something that takes skill and hard work a privilege. Privilege is something you’re born with, such as gentry. It also completely excludes these that are not born with that privilege, which is not the case here

Did you get shot at in high school or have to fight off gangs everyday? Did you eat everyday?

Having a higher odds of getting something is privilege. Rich people’s kids have a much higher likelihood of being rich wouldn’t you say?

There are externalities that you seem to be simply ignoring - it is not a level playing field for all. And to work your way up is way harder based on your starting point in society. I have watched some very smart people wind up in very bad places due only to life circumstances.

I find it odd that some people can’t see how obvious this is - or maybe they just don’t want to.

By the way, I am not saying graduating from an Ivy League school is easy (or any school for that matter), or detracting from how much effort people put in to better themselves. Just that where some people start isn’t where everyone starts - therefore the heights one can climb to aren't the same.

What you're describing is true for the absolute majority of the US population. We're living in a capitalist system which restricts access to resources to different people.

Consider this, how much of the world population has access to running water? a computer? medicine? English is their first language or has a US visa? So how many of these can realistically study at one of the world’s top universities?

Consider this and you will understand that even this one kid that studied in the high school with gang violence is so called privileged, and so is any citizen of the US.

Think about it and you’ll see this is just a way to shift guilt to some magical top 1%, while anyone born in a western country has a significant advantage, and the way Capitalism is structured, anyone has an "unfair" advantage on some other person

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