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The Disadvantages of an Elite Education (The American Scholar)

William Deresiewicz · 1 Jun 2008

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William Deresiewicz did not write this page.

Every claim below was made in this piece, quoted word for word and numbered in the order the piece makes them, so you can read it there rather than take our word for it. The sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording. Each quote was checked against a stored copy of the page at build time; where the two differ, the quote is the fact.

  1. Our reading

    An elite education can leave people unable to talk to those who are not like them

    Their wordsThe first disadvantage of an elite education, as I learned in my kitchen that day, is that it makes you incapable of talking to people who aren’t like you.

  2. Our reading

    An elite education gives the chance to be rich but takes away the valuable chance not to be

    Their wordsAn elite education gives you the chance to be rich—which is, after all, what we’re talking about—but it takes away the chance not to be. Yet the opportunity not to be rich is one of the greatest opportunities with which young Americans have been blessed.

  3. Our reading

    Being an intellectual is not the same as being smart

    Their wordsBut being an intellectual is not the same as being smart. Being an intellectual means more than doing your homework.

  4. Our reading

    The true purpose of education is to make minds, not careers

    Their wordsThe system forgot to teach them, along the way to the prestige admissions and the lucrative jobs, that the most important achievements can’t be measured by a letter or a number or a name. It forgot that the true purpose of education is to make minds, not careers.

  5. Our reading

    Introspection is the precondition of an intellectual life, and solitude is the precondition of introspection

    Their wordsThe ability to engage in introspection, I put it to my students that day, is the essential precondition for living an intellectual life, and the essential precondition for introspection is solitude.

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