While I respect the perspectives presented in this article, I believe it overlooks a critical issue impacting American higher education today: the erosion of true meritocracy in favor of bureaucratic expansion and politically driven decision-making.
In many universities, the focus has shifted away from scientific innovation and academic excellence, becoming entangled in administrative power plays and diversity mandates that sometimes prioritize optics over outcomes. This trend can sideline talented students and researchers who are dedicated to advancing human knowledge, regardless of their background.
Personally, I have directly encountered this shift. I was advised by professors and career advisors against pursuing a Ph.D. because, I was told, I would face disproportionate competition from foreign students, making it an uphill battle. When applying for jobs, I have been explicitly informed that my race and gender alone could be a barrier, not because of my skills or work ethic, but because of the current political and hiring climate.
This is not just my experience. Many Americans share this frustration, feeling alienated by institutions that seem to prioritize social narratives over individual merit. This disconnect has fueled broader public skepticism about the role of universities, especially as their endowments swell to levels comparable to the largest corporations while their core mission appears to drift.
If universities truly want to regain public trust, they must refocus on rewarding excellence, supporting open inquiry, and embracing a genuinely meritocratic approach to education and research. Otherwise, they risk losing the critical support of the very people they aim to serve.
resoluteteeth · 5h ago
> Personally, I have directly encountered this shift. I was advised by professors and career advisors against pursuing a Ph.D. because, I was told, I would face disproportionate competition from foreign students, making it an uphill battle. When applying for jobs, I have been explicitly informed that my race and gender alone could be a barrier, not because of my skills or work ethic, but because of the current political and hiring climate.
I think you are lumping together two completely separate things in a way that doesn't make sense: 1) policies to try to encourage hiring of women/minorities and 2) the fact that Americans often don't have what it takes to compete with much stronger foreign grad students (isn't this in fact meritocracy)
DarkWiiPlayer · 5h ago
What you need to understand is that what you are frustrated about isn't you being treated unfairly, it's something that was given to you unfairly in the first place now being yanked away again.
That "disproportionate" competition from minorities you are noticing now is an attempt at artificially offsetting a lack of competition from those minorities that might have allowed you to even get to that place in the first place.
Does this suck? I'm sure it does. But it's not as unfair as you're portraying it. And while dressing your complaints up in fancy words like "meritocracy" or "excellence", the core of what you're saying is still just that nothing should be done to correct injustices that have already taken place.
To use a metaphor: Someone gifted you $10k and now the police is telling you that was from a bank robbery, and you don't want to give it back.
And as for outcomes: the assumption with this strategy is that minorities aren't inherently inferior, and therefore excluding them from the talent pool is anti-meritocratic in the long term. Partially suspending meritocracy to correct these demographic problems is a strategy to, in the long term, gain access to as many talented individuals as possible, so that universities can really pick the best, and not just the best among white men.
So it's fairness + long term efficiency vs. short term meritocracy
Universities are picking the first option. And why wouldn't they: they can do the right thing and gain accent to a larger talent pool. None of this is a "social narrative"; it's all just very simple decisions based on what we know reality to look like.
I think the problem has more to do with the inflationary process of universities turning into glorified trade schools and more of more jobs requiring a degree as a proxy for effort and social status rather than because of any actual skills one needs a university to develop.
In a world where everyone needs a degree, universities will streamline the process of producing degree-holding workers, and the inevitable cost will be their ability to produce "excellence", in any meaningful sense. If you don't like this, the solution is to strengthen "lesser" forms of education, so they are enough to qualify people for jobs. Then Universities will go back to being places where people pursue science and inovation rather than a 9-5
In many universities, the focus has shifted away from scientific innovation and academic excellence, becoming entangled in administrative power plays and diversity mandates that sometimes prioritize optics over outcomes. This trend can sideline talented students and researchers who are dedicated to advancing human knowledge, regardless of their background.
Personally, I have directly encountered this shift. I was advised by professors and career advisors against pursuing a Ph.D. because, I was told, I would face disproportionate competition from foreign students, making it an uphill battle. When applying for jobs, I have been explicitly informed that my race and gender alone could be a barrier, not because of my skills or work ethic, but because of the current political and hiring climate.
This is not just my experience. Many Americans share this frustration, feeling alienated by institutions that seem to prioritize social narratives over individual merit. This disconnect has fueled broader public skepticism about the role of universities, especially as their endowments swell to levels comparable to the largest corporations while their core mission appears to drift.
If universities truly want to regain public trust, they must refocus on rewarding excellence, supporting open inquiry, and embracing a genuinely meritocratic approach to education and research. Otherwise, they risk losing the critical support of the very people they aim to serve.
I think you are lumping together two completely separate things in a way that doesn't make sense: 1) policies to try to encourage hiring of women/minorities and 2) the fact that Americans often don't have what it takes to compete with much stronger foreign grad students (isn't this in fact meritocracy)
That "disproportionate" competition from minorities you are noticing now is an attempt at artificially offsetting a lack of competition from those minorities that might have allowed you to even get to that place in the first place.
Does this suck? I'm sure it does. But it's not as unfair as you're portraying it. And while dressing your complaints up in fancy words like "meritocracy" or "excellence", the core of what you're saying is still just that nothing should be done to correct injustices that have already taken place.
To use a metaphor: Someone gifted you $10k and now the police is telling you that was from a bank robbery, and you don't want to give it back.
And as for outcomes: the assumption with this strategy is that minorities aren't inherently inferior, and therefore excluding them from the talent pool is anti-meritocratic in the long term. Partially suspending meritocracy to correct these demographic problems is a strategy to, in the long term, gain access to as many talented individuals as possible, so that universities can really pick the best, and not just the best among white men.
So it's fairness + long term efficiency vs. short term meritocracy
Universities are picking the first option. And why wouldn't they: they can do the right thing and gain accent to a larger talent pool. None of this is a "social narrative"; it's all just very simple decisions based on what we know reality to look like.
I think the problem has more to do with the inflationary process of universities turning into glorified trade schools and more of more jobs requiring a degree as a proxy for effort and social status rather than because of any actual skills one needs a university to develop.
In a world where everyone needs a degree, universities will streamline the process of producing degree-holding workers, and the inevitable cost will be their ability to produce "excellence", in any meaningful sense. If you don't like this, the solution is to strengthen "lesser" forms of education, so they are enough to qualify people for jobs. Then Universities will go back to being places where people pursue science and inovation rather than a 9-5