Oh yeah, it’s how you get entire families who went to Harvard, even the obviously unintelligent ones.

I have some friends who are professors at Ivy League universities, who also teach in American medium-security prisons on their own time, and they have repeatedly told me that the prisoners are better students.

I’m not saying that’s because of legacy admissions, but it’s also not not because of legacy admissions.

Higher education is truly a scam.

It really depends. From what I hear about the US a lot of it is there. But in some ways that is also the exception.

Compare Germany: By most rankings KIT is one of, if not the top university for computer science in the country. The requirements to get a spot there are literally just that you are qualified to study (aka: have the right high school diploma) and haven’t lost your right to study computer science at a public university by conclusively failing to do so at a different German university. When I was there until 2019 we payed a bit over 100€ per semester in administrative fees and got a limited train ticket in exchange.

The only selection criteria were “did you pass your exams?” that during the bachelors were almost all written exams that were the same for everyone. What you learned was to an extend up to you, it was a university, not an apprenticeship, so there certainly was a significant focus on theory, but especially during the masters a lot just fully depended on what you wanted.

The main cost at the time was just general housing and living costs, which in my case was payed for by my mom, but for those for whom this is not an option, provided that they were either German citizens or legal residents for reasons other than the education, there was BAföG, which comes down to an interest-free loan from which you only have to pay back 50%.

And yes, I definitely learned a lot of useful stuff there.