1. You get better prepared people. Any society based on nepotism is doomed to fail.
2. You get different views on how to solve problems. People with different background have different experiences that give a wider view of the world.
3. It is fair. Injustice is a bad way of running a society.
> At least the well-off folks won't have their lives ruined if they fail to get tenure.
Everybody in a society has a right to a good life. That someone does not get a tenure does not mean that their life has ended, there are many possibilities in life and governments have to provide safety nets to help people to get back on their feet.
This may be colored with a US-centric point of view because social safety nets are not great, and if they existed to a greater extent maybe my criticism would be mitigated and it would be fine to push against the market. But without that I think many people are better off pursuing opportunities more appropriate for them.
> At least the well-off folks won't have their lives ruined if they fail to get tenure.
Which I read as pointing to the fact that poor people will have to invest almost all or actually all of their savings and income into their education. Someone with more fortunate circumstances might be able to use half of their savings or let their parents pay for it.
>why should we as a society artificially push anyone else into the arena?
We don't even need to get into the practical reasons that other comments mentioned. This is an inherently unjust way for society to be structured. That alone is enough reason to push for change.
My intention was not necessarily to imply that, but literally ask myself the original question - why push people into this when the outcome for them will likely be poor? Perhaps a good followup is to ask is, what can we do to both get a more diverse pool of academics without punishing those without means? I would think a massive expansion of the tenure track program would be needed, which is kind of what it was created for in the first place, just got too saturated. But that has its own slew of problems.
You have used the word "push" multiple times and I'm not sure what you mean by that. I would frame it as "allow" and not "push" as the motivation at an individual level comes from the individual. The goal should be to remove obstacles that prevent poor people from joining academy. That isn't the same thing as pushing poor people into academia even if the end result is effectively the same at a societal level.
Either way, I simply think the answer to this question is self-evident based on the morals we claim to have as a society. We literally call it the American Dream. The station of one's birth should not eliminate a career like academia.
Sure, one example of what I have in mind are various efforts across the board to advertise "STEM"/"STEAM" careers, teach kids programming, promote STEM competitions, run STEM courses, etc. etc. This presumably "pushes" some fraction of people into these careers that otherwise would not have gone; but there is no corresponding increase in funding or safety nets. It's not a question of allowed or not - of course anyone is already welcome and able to join academia at least in the USA, it's just that the not well-off population probably drops off before the finish line due to financial constraints.
Another comment mentioned that science was a hobby for the aristocracy and I agree. Because of the big wealth inequality it seems to remain so as shown by the study.
Not sure how we can fix any of that within the current landscape though. It really seems to me like it's only really doable with huge systemic changes that will take many revolutions to happen.
The fight is between collectivism and individualism.
Collectivization requires that all sacrifice and all gain, lashed together.
Individualism allows for some to sacrifice and for some to gain, devil take the hindmost.
The questions facing those of us undecided on our allegiance are:
Is our morality objective? Are we willing to die for a stranger? Are we willing to risk being ruled if we are uncomfortable ruling? Do we truely want the same things? Is harm minimization or gain maximization a better long-term strategy?
So the downtrodden shouldn't ever attempt anything. Also why is this a binary between tenure and financial ruin?