A big part of that was that there were simply far less universities in the mid-late 1800s than there are now, so there was a demand - this is particularly true for the West Coast. Likewise, both Cornell and MIT, though private and philanthropist-funded, were also land grant universities, and part of a deliberate policy (starting with Lincoln) to increase the number of US universities, along with providing a more "practical" baccalaureate. In general the post-Civil War era in the US was a period of significant educational reform and expansion at all levels.

don't you think the demand still exists today ? the economy seems to be in ever increasing need of a highly skilled workforce, in addition to reskilling existing ones.

You could argue that we could use better schools or schools that have more of a focus on subjects needed by a modern workforce. But there's no real shortage of colleges and universities. Yes, existing universities come with lots of legacy entanglements (which can be good as well as bad) but for the most part you're probably better off investing in those schools than tearing down and starting from scratch on a prairie somewhere.

When a school rejects qualified applicants because there are too many, doesn't that indicate a shortage of that kind of school?

No, because school prestige is a positional good. This is like saying you can address the shortage of Olympic gold medals by just manufacturing tons of them.

True, but there is also the skills you learn, which are in unlimited supply.

Different fields have different balance between these two things.

It’s not obvious this smallness serves any functional purpose. Two (U of T, Mcgill) Canadian schools have extremely good international reputations and serve more than the entire Ivy League. U of T alone educates more than the whole Ivy League.

http://induecourse.ca/the-bottleneck-in-u-s-higher-education...

People derive value from a higher education beyond just prestige. A 100% prestige item like a medal is different.

But the point of school prestige, at least in tech, is to assess skill. If the available pool of raw talent is larger than can be funneled through prestigious schools, then there is a need for more schools.

Again, just substitute the words.

But the point of Olympic medals is to assess skill. If the available pool of talented athletes is larger than the number of gold medals, then there is a need for more gold medals.

I think the point people are missing is that you don't need more gold medals. Rather, the people "hiring" athletes need to recognize that for many purposes the difference between gold and silver and bronze and first and second runner up to bronze is trivial and possibly arbitrary, especially in situations where outcomes are not nearly as easily quantified as in an athletic competition.

Also gold medals aren't being used as hiring criteria for technical careers.

brilliant analogy

People don't go to these universities for prestige's sake, but for what prestige gets them. It's not really about the gold medal (for the vast majority), it's about being an elite athlete (i.e., being generally healthy and physically capable of impressive feats) and having the security to practice the discipline you love. Knowing that, you would build a network of schools that meet the full need of potential elite athletes, rather than rely on a handful of clubs and coaches. Which is exactly what we (and China, and the Soviet Union) did.

>a shortage of that kind of school

"That kind of school" is (call it) a Top 10 school in a given field. And there is always going to be a shortage of slots at Top 10 schools whether you have 1,000 schools or 10,000. What potentially makes sense is investments in relevant subject areas in schools that aren't in the Top 10 but are in the Top 100 so they're functionally less distinguishable--except in prestige perhaps--though arguably that's already the case. In the US, cost aside, a qualified applicant can already get into a "good" school.

There may be a problem once you look at the social and economic structures that encourage students to apply to these schools.

For schools, like Harvard and Yale, isn't a large part of the value they provide to students derived from the school's network of alumnus and the prestige the school's name holds? If so, don't these schools derive a large part of the value they offer from their exclusivity?

No, it might indicate a lack of demand for that particular qualification.

> the economy seems to be in ever increasing need of a highly skilled workforce

This is a claim I've seen repeated often but have never seen any real evidence to back up. It seems more like "we need skilled workers but don't want to pay them skilled wages." Regardless the problem (in the US) is not an absence of universities like it was in the 19th century - financial barriers to bachelors degrees are significant but that is not a symptom of low supply and high demand.

So no, I don't think the demand exists (in the US) today, at all.

There may be a subtle distinction between a demand for university-trained workers and a demand for universities. The latter produce the former. However, more universities may not be the as efficient a way to train more people as expanding existing universities.

It depends what percentage of a college education you ascribe to "vocational skills" and what amount is "signalling".

The Morrill Land-Grant Act was, in part, a response for the need for new skills of an industrialized economy.

However, if you believe schools are mostly about credentials and signalling, online learning institutes often have a large accreditation hurdle. E.g., it's generally preferred to have an MIT degree rather than a list of MIT MOOCs taken because there is a certain amount of elite signalling that comes with the degree even if the skills learned are the exact same

> E.g., it's generally preferred to have an MIT degree rather than a list of MIT MOOCs taken because there is a certain amount of elite signalling that comes with the degree even if the skills learned are the exact same

From my perspective, it is also much preferable to have an actual degree from Plymouth State University, or even an online degree from Southern New Hampshire University, than a MOOC "degree" from MIT, and I strongly disagree that the "skills are the same" in practice, evne if that might be true in principle. It's not just about elite signaling, there are huge differences in rigor, workload, and personal responsibility with an actual university education versus a MOOC.

MOOCs are fine to supplement a bachelor's education, but if I saw a resume that only had edX/etc, they'd better have good work experience or a great project portfolio.

You are right and thank you for clarifying. Skills may only be equivalent “in theory”.

In my experience, this even holds true for the same degree within the same institution across different timelines. There’s other pressures (financial, political, etc.) that can drive rigor and curriculum to change. That is at least part of why accreditation is important; it’s supposed to provide some third part vetting that the product is meeting minimum standards. (Again, in theory).

I think it will get much more interesting if online courses can fix the quality/accreditation disparity. With colleges no longer having a monopoly on education that’s still their strongest chip to play

It's a federal commission that Schmidt co-chairs.

>haven't built universities like Stanford, Duke, Cornell etc.

I assume the answer is that they generally find that it makes a lot more sense to give oodles of cash to their alma mater or some favored school to get your name on a building and/or really beef up a department than to try to found a new school which would likely take decades to establish any sort of reputation.

You're underestimating the egos of billionaires and how they love winning compared to other billionaires. A name on a building is nice. A name on a university that's mentioned with Duke and MIT...now that's something you can brag about. The owners of NBA teams - all billionaires, most willing to lose money year-to-year in order to win and beat the other billionaires. The women's basketball league in Russia - teams owned by oligarchs who all lose money on the league but spend lavishly to beat each other.

>A name on a university that's mentioned with Duke and MIT...now that's something you can brag about.

That's the rub though, isn't it. I'm not sure even Bezos has money that would be needed to pull that off over, say, a 10 year horizon. MIT has almost a $20 billion endowment to give some idea of the sorts of money flows we're talking about here. To say nothing of the fact that they already have the faculty, physical plant, reputation, etc.

That’s why I think they should donate (ie buy) an existing university and transform it. I’d go for Pepperdine, right in Malibu, near the beach, perfect weather, great architecture.

Stephen A. Schwarzman though.

He is barely 10% of Jeff Bezoz. Not just a name on a building either. A whole new program.

Barely 10% :-)

But I actually agree. Why try to build a university from scratch even starting with an existing "tier 2" (whatever that means) school when you can get your name attached to a significant new initiative at an institution which already has a lot of prestige?

Prestige takes a LONG time to build. You’d basically need your graduates to becomes titans of industry.

Bezos would be dead long before that happens.

I'm not sure that's literally true. Given sufficient money:

- Desired faculty: We'll triple your salary and hire your spouse too. Oh, and give you unprecedented freedom.

- Desired students: Free tuition and board and a great campus environment.

At the least you could jump-start a pretty darned interesting educational institution at least within a certain focus. But I'm not sure the money is realistic, at least at a scaled undergraduate level.

I'm surprised Olin college hasn't come up in this discussion yet (http://www.olin.edu/). They're small, but essentially went with this model, at least for a while. They're more undergraduate-focused though, so I don't know if they'll ever garner the "reputation" of MIT and Stanford's impactful research programs.

I don’t disagree you couldn’t start laying the foundations of a prestigious institution, but to create one that rivals MIT, Harvard, Stanford?

We’re talking graduates who become heads of governments, CEOs of unicorns, etc.

Now you could become “the Harvard of tech” a bit easier, but would Bezos settle for that alone?

Look at this way - if you're going to send your son/daughter to a university and you're trying to decide between MIT and Bezos University (all things else considered equal). Which one is more risky? It's a no brainer. Not to mention many of these tech "gods" notoriously scrap projects when they don't work out in a short term timeframe. There's just very little reason not to send your child to a prestigious university if you have the means.

This is a great point. One reason why college is so popular is because it’s a low risk way of improving your profile.

The chances of people not knowing what MIT is or their reputation going down is very low. And that’s a big reason why people want to go there.

Owning sports teams was cool last decade, now it's about having your own space company to really separate yourself from the other billionaires

These guys have so much money they can own both

I know this is off Topic but you have partly answered the question I have always in had my head about Modern Day Sports Economics.

They have sort of become Billionaires playground.

Yeah, but if you were Jeff Bezos why would you settle for a name on a building or a department, over Bezos University ?

I'm sure there is no shortage of universities which would rename themselves to Bezos U for enough money. It's not even a particularly radical notion. I don't know any examples of entire universities but Cornell's Business School renamed itself after a very large donation and MIT's new computing school is named after a very large donor.

Duke wasn't founded by James Duke, it renamed itself from Trinity College after his donation.

And technically named after his father.

In other words, he's not spending his money, he's spending our money.

(Although that might make sense given the mission.)

Hasso Plattner, one of the founders of SAP founded the Hasso Plattner Institut in Potsdam, Germany in 1998. It’s not a full fledged university, but a part of the university of Potsdam. A lot of the alumni work for SAP.

George Soros built Central European University[0], focused on promotion of (liberalist) open societies.

Hungarian PM recently kicked them out of Hungary, so it moved to Vienna.

[0] - https://www.ceu.edu/

Xavier Niel is a billionaire from France built Free Telecom (big telco in france) and has 42.fr school, whichisnot a unibut kinda?

True. But yes, it’s not an university. I also doesn’t deliver any kind of state recognized degree (IIRC), which can be a problem for visa applications.

I agree with you big-time on this. Many of these guys are concerned about "their legacy" and also philanthropy. Why not create a top university named after themselves that seeks to be at the forefront of technology/medicine/biotech (whatever they choose). Better yet, as some have suggested, why not donate enough to a university to rename it after themselves and take it over, adjust the curriculum to the desired goal, hire the experts in the fields to teach and study, and see results 5-10-15 years down the line.

As a nice bonus, why not turn it into a basketball powerhouse school too, something to help brand the school, like Duke or Stanford. Something MIT is missing.

Yes, we need more medical schools for example. We have way more students interested in medicine than available spots in school/residencies.

Medical school seats are controlled by the AMA, in order to keep doctor pay up.

Maybe because Stanford, Duke, Cornell, etc... still serve them well. It's not that they don't have huge influences into how those institutions work.

Well there's utility and then there's legacy.

In Turkey, the best private universities (that are also up there as best universities in the country) are still held by the corresponding company holdings, i.e. Koc and Sabanci.

By contrast, in Germany there are no universally notable private universities at all (save for some business schools).

The present day mega billionaires have spent their careers building/funding the technologies to make universities obsolete.

What about Draper University in San Mateo?

It's not accredited, and for good reason.

Olin is pretty recent but came from an older trust, less than 1/2 a billion I think.

That's a bit reductionist in terms of Cornell's history.

We got a Trump University. Does that count? /s

Not to point out the obvious, but 2 of your examples never bothered to stay in undergrad university long enough to get a degree and they managed to succeed beyond all of their contemporaries.

Perhaps it says something about our current university system/paradigm that the current wealthy have chosen not to support this route. Or maybe it says more about the Gilded Age robber barons that they chose this route (in addition to the large inheritance fortunes they left).

Marc Andreessen's "Build Stuff" article[1] pointed at the lack of university capacity in the USA (I doubt this is accurate[2]), but leveling up the average university to be closer to the top tier universities would certainly help or at least justify the current cost of university.

[1] https://a16z.com/2020/04/18/its-time-to-build/

[2] https://www.quora.com/How-many-college-students-are-there-in...

Overall I liked the Build Stuff article, but the idea that there's a lack of capacity is incredibly silly. It's not difficult to get into a Cal State school, UC Merced or my alma mater for instance.

Ever hear of Trump University? Granted he isn't a "mega billionaire"...and turns out it wasn't a University at all, in fact it was shut down and resulted in lawsuits Trump settled for $25M.