The United States is no stranger to oppression. In New York, we seem to embody the classist values of our forefathers to a T. Ranked the most unequal state in the country, it’s no surprise that New York also harbors the most Ivy League schools, containing both Columbia and Cornell. When examining the stark inequalities of race, class and income in the U.S., it is imperative to look at education. Despite being one of the most educated countries in the world, the U.S. education system is rampant with discrimination. 

The Ivy League is the gold standard of American higher education and intellectualism at large, earning both domestic and international praise for (supposedly) producing and nurturing only the finest minds. Yet, the Ivy League rests on a bedrock of colonialism and white supremacy, a lasting vestige of the first American class hierarchies. Seven of the eight current Ivy League colleges were among the first nine universities established in the original colonies. 

These schools have also been private universities for the entire duration of their existence — eternally closed to the general public, catering almost exclusively to those who can afford high tuition and supply the school with their “generous” donations. 

These institutions undoubtedly promote a rigorous academic atmosphere and have been responsible for many great American minds, but they have also been responsible for some of the richest and most tyrannical capitalists this nation has ever seen.

These institutions manage to largely avoid the glaring eye of “cancel culture” and growing class resentment because of their reputation as intellectual hubs and places of free expression. But it is these very institutions that directly contribute to the rigid hierarchies of the modern world. While Fordham is certainly not immune to these problems, the Ivy League takes elitism to another level. 

Here, the next generation of oppressors is trained in exclusion and wealth accumulation through strategies such as trust funds and insider trading that are inaccessible to most other students. It is on these ancient campuses where students learn to exploit the systems built for them. It is time to recognize that American education has shifted from a parlay of ideas to a competition for the biggest check. 

What does the modern Ivy offer students that outclasses every other American university? There are campuses just as expansive, facilities just as state-of-the-art, and test scores just as high, but at the end of the day, it is the shiny name of the school on resumes that opens doors for its students. The Ivy League, however, is not the pinnacle of intelligence and does not always produce the best students. 

Ivy League institutions are geographically clustered around historical wealth centers, with every Ivy League school located in the Northeast.

These institutions undoubtedly promote a rigorous academic atmosphere and have been responsible for many great American minds, but they have also been responsible for some of the richest and most tyrannical capitalists this nation has ever seen. Ivy League schools are flooded with students who have guaranteed futures and padded wallets. For every true intellectual to walk the halls of an Ivy League university, there are 10 who stumble through them in a stupor. 

This is the critical flaw of Ivy institutions: Instead of fostering intellectual discussion, these colleges become echo chambers, reflecting their biases back onto the students. Does it make rational sense that eight universities have produced most of the industry leaders throughout the entire lifetime of our country? The answer is no, and the prevailing truth is that these colleges are merely very large cradles for the ever-hungry nepotism babies who flock through their gates every year.

Ivy League institutions are geographically clustered around historical wealth centers, with every Ivy League school located in the Northeast. (The most equitably educated state in the country is Iowa, and yet it houses not a single Ivy League college.) Having long served those with access to generational wealth, these colleges are found in the oldest and wealthiest parts of the country.

The Ivy League remains out of reach for much of the American population. The laurels of the U.S. education system are truly owed to state universities, which are constantly expanding their course selections and are an accessible means of higher education for the American people. Credit is due to state lawmakers who fight to provide college loan assistance for in-state students, and to the community colleges that harbor trade schools and provide alternative forms of education in diverse fields. These are the components of the system that form the real foundation of American education and truly help improve our polarized culture of misinformation, which feeds off of media illiteracy.

The point of education on a national scale is to cultivate minds for progress. We only lose potential by locking it behind a price barrier.

American education is phenomenal because our teachers are phenomenal. Its excellence comes not merely from existing for so long but from the rigorous standards established by Horace Mann for the first public schools. The reality is that an “Ivy” education should be available to every willing student, but the Ivies will likely keep their doors closed no matter what, clinging to the exclusivity that defines them. 

While the Ivy League maintains high academic standards and does not exclusively accept the uber rich, there are still massive inequities that prevail among its ranks. A National Bureau of Economic Research article reported that “children whose parents are in the top 1% of the income distribution are 77 times more likely to attend an Ivy League college than those whose parents are in the bottom income quintile.” Ivy League schools serve as the bassinet for the adult-children of the wealthy elite. Attaching its name to any young student in the country can instantly elevate one from the lower and middle classes to the life of a six-figure professional, regardless of their intelligence or talent. 

There is no class education or equity training that can possibly reconcile the inherently unequal nature of these institutions. As much as we try to address the issue with programs such as affirmative action and equity education initiatives, its resolution requires the Ivies becoming incongruent with the American education system.

The point of education on a national scale is to cultivate minds for progress. We only lose potential by locking it behind a price barrier. American education doesn’t get its prestigious reputation from the validation of foreign countries that go bug-eyed at a name-drop but from the intellectual standards we have defined and cultivated over the years. I would like to claim my nation as one of innovation, yet it is an inequitable cesspool where wealth is power. 

The Ivy League represents nothing but a faux intelligence drowning in gaudy classism. The next Einstein might very well be getting bachelor’s and master’s degrees from a state university or community college right now. Education is what we make of it, and those thirsty for knowledge will always find it. If I know one thing, it’s that to become a genius, one doesn’t need to have the right connections or name — simply the right mind.