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Comment by ceejayoz | Hacker News Reader

> Harvard has a duty to increase the relative difficulty of their coursework UNTIL a certain percentage fails.

Why? What benefit is there to the world to making students flunk out of a school when that same student would have passed with flying colors elsewhere? "Sorry, you've got a great grasp of engineering that any firm would benefit from, but you'll work at McDonalds now, because Bob got one more question right. Thanks for the $100k and four years of your life!"

The goal of education is to educate, not to flunk a certain percentage of people.

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> The goal of education is to educate, not to flunk a certain percentage of people.

No. The purpose of normal college is to educate.

The purpose of Ivy league school is to separate the exquisite from the mediocre. If you aren't exquisite then why are you going to $100k college? Because your parents can afford it.

There is some low income kid who actually is exquisite who should get that seat in the exquisite class.

You don't deserve to pass just because you're not an idiot. If you are even a little bit of an idiot you should not be able to get a Harvard education. You should flunk out, lose your parents money, and try again in community College.

You are not entitled to pass because you are average and your parents are rich. College is not risk free.

> You are not entitled to pass because you are average and your parents are rich.

You should be entitled to pass if you can successfully demonstrate your understanding of the subject matter in question. Proposing to curve passing grades down "UNTIL a certain percentage fails" is just... nutty.

> You are not entitled to pass because you are average and your parents are rich.

Yes, which is why grades should be based on "did you learn?", not "do the grades look like a proper bell curve?"

> There is some low income kid who actually is exquisite who should get that seat in the exquisite class.

A low-income kid is the least likely to be able to take the risk of going to a college that's intentionally trying to flunk people out even if they're competent at the subject matter.

Right, because nothing shitty and unforeseeable ever happens to low-income kids in the middle of a semester, because kids who definitionally have fewer resources aren't held back in any way by their environment, and because the people setting the standard are unbiased angels. Dollars to donuts you've never actually taught a class.

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