Wednesday Bites is here folks! And it’s really good. The Upshot posted this fantastic article yesterday about elite college admissions.

There’s nothing new that we haven’t heard already on NPR or your liberal buffet of news sources.

We’re covering 2 things today:

1. Breaking down the Upshot article

2. Doing a clear mental model on why student loans need to be addressed

Skim the bold words and you’ll be fine.

Notes:

We got a reader note this week. We made the WRONG HARRY POTTER REFERENCE in Sunday’s email.

College Admissions at Elite Schools

1. Despite having similar test scores, elite colleges tend to favor students from wealthy families over others.

2. Legacy admissions, athletes, and private school backgrounds contribute to this advantage, perpetuating the concentration of the top 1% in these institutions.

3. The study conducted by Opportunity Insights, based at Harvard, sheds light on the extent to which being very rich serves as its own qualification in selective college admissions. It reveals a clear disparity in the admissions process, showing that even when students have identical SAT or ACT scores, those from the top 1% are significantly more likely to be admitted.

4. Students from private, nonreligious high schools tend to receive higher nonacademic ratings, leading to a greater likelihood of acceptance, even with similar test scores as students from public high schools in high-income areas.

5. Some colleges are considering "need-affirmative admissions," which take into account financial backgrounds for selecting low-income students (sounds like stinky bullshit to us).

6. However, this approach has its complexities and may require the end of need-blind admissions to be fully effective in diversifying student populations.

Student Loans: Addressing Student Debt

A little tidbit on reader demographics of this newsletter: We have readers as young as 21 to as old as 44. So if any two readers who are choosing to have kids, they’re likely going to be born within 10 years of each other. 

There seems to be a feeling out there that we’re going to tackle this issue. But we think it’s unlikely if don’t take drastic action now.

For those of you who are older, remember that this was a hot-button issue dating back 15+ years. And we…kinda haven’t done anything about it?

So, let’s do a mental model:

1. You went to college

2. You graduated, which means you’ve successfully ingested a pill that’s going to make your life better in every way for the rest of your life.

3. You have (or plan to have) kids

4. You want to send them to college too. Because it’ll make their lives better (obvious choice)

5. Average Student loan debt in 2000 was something like 17k, in 2023 it’s 31k.

6. Left unchecked, let’s make a clean assumption that it’s 60k in another 20 years (class of 2043). 

7. Average time it takes for someone with public loans to pay off their debt is 10 years.

8. Clean assumption: Your kid(s) go to school, they rack up 60k in debt, wages are still flat, it’ll take 20 years to pay it off. Maybe longer if wages haven’t risen.

Don’t forget: If your kid is gonna go to a private college and/or grad school, just double these numbers.

A child graduating from grad school and a private college might spend the ages of 24-64 paying off student debt. Say goodbye to any chance of solid generational wealth.

What AI made this week

The images Dall-E made were too good last week. Here’s another one:

Have a great week!

Ahmed and Peter