Sure, but the article, backed by a study[1], is rather trying to make the opposite point—that attendance (or really admittance, i.e., permission to attend) is often directly attributable to higher earnings by the family of the admitted:

> By comparing two groups of waitlisted students — those who are admitted to Ivy-Plus universities and those who are rejected — they note that the successful are much more likely to reach the top 1% of the income distribution, attend an elite graduate school and work for a prestigious firm[...] One in six students at Ivy League schools has parents in the top 1% of the income distribution. This is not just because the children of the rich are more likely to apply to elite colleges. Nor is it because the children of the rich have higher academic scores than middle class applicants: Children from the top 1% of the income distribution (more than $611,000) are 55% more likely to secure admission than a typical middle-class applicant with the same SAT or ACT scores, and children from the top 0.1 percent are more than twice as likely to get in. It is because elite colleges deliberately discriminate in favor of the rich.

Neither chickens nor eggs need be harmed to see that this prima facie has something wrong with it.

1. <https://opportunityinsights.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/C...>

The kind of people who can get into an Ivy League university would probably outperform the other group even without ever actually going to the university: statistically (stereotypically?), they come from a rich and stable background, have strong network of rich and influential friends and acquaintances already, have access to capital, they don't color outside the lines, and when they do, they know how to cover their a.. legally speaking, and of course, they are probably not dumb, either.

Yes, going to these universities probably makes some difference, but it probably doesn't explain all the difference, so if you take poor but talented kids and have them go to these universities, I expect the salary difference is much smaller.

> Yes, going to these universities probably makes _some_ difference, but it probably doesn't explain all the difference, so if you take poor but talented kids and have them go to these universities, I expect the salary difference is much smaller.

Sure, we can debate the exact earnings multiplier endlessly but it still stands that attending an Ivy League institution is better than not attending one. And attendance of those institutions is artificially gated.

But this doesn't constitute gating of social mobility. The US has only one gatekeeper of social mobility: money. And elite universities are not gatekeepers of money.

I don't understand the point. Elite universities lead to higher salaries (by whatever factor) which means... more money.

You don't understand that "leading to more money" isn't the same thing as "gatekeeping access to more money"?

There is more than one way to make more money.