All in the power of a name

"Why am I at Yale?" I often hear people ask. "What am I learning? What am I paying $30,000 for that I couldn't get at a cheaper state school?"

The quality of professors, we answer, the caliber of the classmates, the intellectual atmosphere, the high-level classwork. After a few minutes of discussion, we usually end up with the far more concrete result of four years at Yale: the credentials.

We like to pretend that the purpose of our Yale education is to prepare us better to confront the world, to make us well-rounded, deep, morally enriched persons. But what is on our resumes, top line, in italics? Education: Yale University.

Graduating from Yale will put us in a certain class, a process entirely separate from the stated goals of education. When we graduate, grades--arguably the real measure of what we have learned--will be irrelevant for most of us. It will be enough to have the degree, the name, the label.

This is clear in the job market. Look at recent graduates. Are the ones with the higher-paying, more-interesting jobs of their choice the same students that had the highest GPAs? In large part, at least in the business world, our alumni are chosen on polish: on how well they have taken on the perceived Yale veneer. Do they look Ivy League? Do they sound smart? Will they make clients think "they are of our breed?" A company likes strings of Yales and Harvards on its employee list: the company takes on the prestige of the degree, and the magical credential is transferred.

The society we will join with our diplomas extends far beyond Wall Street. In a crowded room, ten years out of college, you meet a stranger with an Ivy alma mater. There is a silent click of recognition: that person is one of "us." It matters less, then, what they have done since; they are forever members of the exclusive club.

"Hold it right there," says the idealist. "Education isn't about getting a label. It's about improving your mind and gaining skills. Yale is simply a great place to do that." That aspect of our education certainly plays a part--far more than it did a century ago, when Yale was for the most part a finishing school for wealthy young men.

But a great deal of what we learn is from our classmates, as all the college guides explain, and our classmates here are more than study partners--they are future members of the elite. Yale doesn't guarantee us a place in that tight-knit group, but it gives us a huge step up, and it introduces us to contacts who will help us get there.

This raw fact may disgust those among us who contend that education should be an equalizer for a democratic society. In its way, Yale does promote this ideal. Yes, students from private schools enroll here disproportionately. Yes, disadvantaged or poor students will be hard-pressed to meet the qualifications of the admissions office. But when the system functions well, Yale does help to shape a meritocracy, the formation of an intellectual and business class based on talent. Once students make it into Yale, overcoming whatever obstacles they must, the Yale name lifts them into Ivy-league ranks no matter who their parents were. In that way Yale is a fundamentally democratic institution. In principle, at least, it allows members into the exclusive club based on their talents and ability to work. It helps people rise above their previous socio-economic class.

It does this in part by giving us solid educations--at least, for those who choose to concentrate on that aspect of Yale life. For many it provides a place to practice the skills we will need as the philosopher-kings, we hope, of the next generation: we found and lead organizations, perform, debate, write, discuss. It exposes us to different viewpoints, to different characters and personalities, to a mass of interesting and ambitious people. In all these ways, Yale performs the characteristic functions of educator.

But on top of that, it gives us the magic password we will use for the rest of our lives to signal membership in that elite. We may not like that aspect of Yale; we may mutter something about going to school in Connecticut; we may try to avoid the implications of elitism with which the word Yale is saddled. We may also acknowledge and appreciate the tremendous advantage Yale has given us by simply granting us its name.

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