Who Has Been Running Wall Street Anyway?
While rereading Malcolm Gladwell's description of Ivy League admittance policies (earlier discussed here), I noticed the following passage on the effects of athletic scholarships at “elite” universities:
Male athletes, despite their lower S.A.T. scores and grades, and despite the fact that many of them are members of minorities and come from lower socioeconomic backgrounds than other students, turn out to earn a lot more than their peers. Apparently, athletes are far more likely to go into the high-paying financial-services sector, where they succeed because of their personality and psychological makeup.Hmmmm… Preventing this kind of nonsense in the future might be as simple as abolishing athletic scholarships. (Also see this analysis of “Chet.”)
1 Comments:
Actually, what I think this shows is the obvious -- a college degree is not required, nor even particularly helpful, for success in business.
The conclusion that follows is that demanding college degrees of new business hires is, at best, misusing the universities as a sifting mechanisn; and, at worst, using the universities to create an artificial scarcity of businessmen.
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