It's not what you know, it's who you know. Do you really think there are that many strata of education quality? A "good" school has almost nothing to do with the subjects taught and almost everything to do with the other students attending.

Case in point: Yale is in the midst of putting its classes online, available to anyone. Is this because they have some sort of special genius to impart, the answers to the universe, that only those Yale students have been getting all these years? Of course not, their textbooks and lectures are around the same level of any decent state university, if presented a little more liberally. They know that. Will it cause attendance at Yale to plummet? No, because the students of Yale will still be getting what they always got for their money: a passable education, and great connections with like-minded people.

It already is an educational feudal system. Rich districts have better schools. What does it matter if they get to tell the government to butt the hell out about what warning labels they must put on their textbooks?

Well, it IS what happens now, but the government doesn't demand that we lower our standards. Public schools in upper class suburbs are far superior to ones in the ghetto. Its a matter of local funding. I attended a private school in the 8th and 9th grade, and the education it provided was inferior to what was available in the public schools at the time.

And speaking of Yale, private colleges and universities have tuition rates that are through the roof. I went to both the University of Denver (private) and the University of Colorado (public). The big difference was the class size in the lower division courses. But I feel I got an excellent education in my junior and senior years at CU, when I was taking upper division courses in my major and some of my professors were nationally acclaimed. DU was frightfully expensive. I went there only because I got a scholarship. But there are only so many sholarships available. And the reason I transferred from DU was because back then it was the biggest party school in Colorado, and I got sick of it.

When the purpose of a company is to make money, then eventually the company does not make profits and its products are some of the world's worst. The examples are so numerous that only people who believe propaganda, who rationalize using sound byte, would believe that profit myth.

When HP was most profitable, profit was not its objective. Even HP's corporate statement made that fact obvious and blunt. Bill and Dave stories are legendary and define a company driven by its product - serving it customers. GM has no profits because GM will do anything to make profits - including short its pension funds, stifle the 70 HP per liter engine, refuse to even use overhead cam engines 30+ years after the technology was standard, stifle the McPherson struct for 34 years, and pocket $million from the government intended to develop a hybrid.

Current situation from HP goes right back to what I reported here after the Compaq HP merger meeting. (BTW, I always wondered the relationship between Fiorina and Ann Baskins). Pam Dunn is a continuing symtpom of Fiorina, a classic example of what happens when a person has no idea how work gets done and believes the MBA school lie about profits being the purpose.

I have worked in locations where I often thought about tracking down members of the local fire department and tell them to be educated about that chemical. In other locations where people mostly came from where the work gets done (ie California), same safety problems did not exist. Therefore those CA companies were also more profitable.

When the purpose of a company is its profits, well, that was the mentality of that BP executive whose cost control mentality eventually causes massive corrosion of the Alaska pipeline. He was classic of one who lied; thought profits rather than the product were more important.

When profits are more important than product, we also have actions very much common to communism. If your roof is leaking, for a communist organization, then it is not until the government official tells you otherwise. If your roof is leaking in a company so concerned with profits, then it is not until the corporate officers say otherwise. If your roof is leaking in a company concerned about the products, then you have discretion to make the decision and authorize its repair. Nothing new in that story.

The way to make money on any sort of long-term basis is never to cut corners, you end up paying back all your profits to cover the damage you cause. There's no point in saving $100 on something if it costs $300 to fix it in a month. The weakest point of the American business system is that everything depends on short term profits. If a company puts lots of funding into programs that will make them the most competitive in a few years but eats all their profits now, then their stock drops and the banks start screaming. Google the term keiretsu for information on how things work now.

Uh oh, does this mean I'm agreeing with tw? I think I'm gonna pop a few asprin and lie down for awhile...

The wealthy will always have access to the finest education. But, as Clodfobble illustrates, educating the wealthy in no way crowds out the unwealthy from receiving the finest instruction available.

Not only are Yale classes online but MIT has open-sourced its courses as has Cal Berkeley and many other top-tier institutions of higher learning.

My best childhood friend and I grew up in the lower-middle class deep south and graduated from a pitiful excuse of a public school. He, without any connections whatsoever, was granted a full scholarship to Harvard based solely on his academic achievement.

In America, the people that work the hardest get the rewards. It almost never fails that those who object to this are the ones who failed to capitalize (pun intended) on the opportunity that was as available to them as it was to those who passed them by.

There will always be a privileged class. But no nation in the world has made it easier to join that class than America. The job of government and law isn't to punish ambition and reward the lack of it, its to ensure that those who are willing to do what it takes are not held back in any way, shape or form.

It is a well understood principle in development. The last 10% is often where 50% of its value is found. When cost controls get instituted, that last 10% somehow gets eliminated in cost controls. The Pontiac Fiero was one example.

My take on Clodfobbles post was that you really don't necessarily get "the finest education" and I agree with that. What happens is that you pay a huge sum of money to have the name of a prestigious institution on your diploma, and while you are at the school, you get to make connections with others who control wealth. After graduation, it's the good-ole-boy network, where someone hiring (they are in that position already because they or a relative control wealth) hire those with whom they have a connection (made in college). And so the money stays in the same hands, it rarely goes to someone who shows extraordinary talent or results.

Thank goodness for college quotas, eh? This rarely happens.

Or they can put out a poor quality product, and when the problems start, they can fold up and move to the next poor quality product. After all, the owner has made a big salary, so what if the "corporate assets" are taken throught litigation. Or they can lie about the product (Viox, anyone? Pinto?). Or they can beg the government for protection. After all, if company X goes out of business because of the flaw in product Y that kills people, think of all the jobs that will be lost!

My point was both: there's no difference between a "good" education and a "great" education at that level, so there is room for anyone who wants to work for one to get educated. In addition, there will always be "good ol' boys clubs" no matter how level you make the playing field, so for the most part government efforts to do so are wasted.