Libera Dreams

I saw an article on Yahoo about how the professions in England, judges, lawyers, physicians, MPs, are still dominated by graduates from private schools.

TullyBascombe wrote:I saw an article on Yahoo about how the professions in England, judges, lawyers, physicians, MPs, are still dominated by graduates from private schools.

They are. Money can buy the best education just like it can by anything else. I'm not sure how different it is in the states - how many US presidents have not attended Ivy league colleges?

The thing about an English public school (which is a private school to the rest of the world) is that as well as providing top class education to talented kids it also gives the individual a huge amount of self belief and confidence + it provides you with connections via the old boy network. Even 'thick' kids benefit hugely from the last two!

It is possible to get to the top in the UK without going to private school but it's a damn site easier to get there if you have

Take a look at some of these great public schools - the most famous of them all:-

http://www.etoncollege.com/Home.aspx" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.rugbyschool.net/index.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.harrowschool.org.uk/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.charterhouse.org.uk/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.westminster.org.uk/index.asp" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_sch" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; ... _funded%29

To send your son to Eton would cost something like $45,000 US per year in school fees

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At those types of costs is it really a surprise that the kids up landing the plum jobs in society? Damn, if I was forking out that kind of cash to educate my kids I'd at least expect them to be a brain surgeon!

Histortically most US Presidents have not gone to Ivy League schools: Bush the younger - yes, Clinton - yes ( but on scholarships), Bush the elder - yes, Reagan - no, Carter - no, Ford - no, Nixon - no, Johnson - no, Kennedy - yes, Eisenhower - no, Truman - -no, FDR - yes, Hoover - no, Harding - no, Coolidge - no, Taft - no, Wilson - yes, Teddy Roosevelt - yes, McKinley - no.

Going back further in history you begin to run into a number of Presidents who never went to college.

Yorkie wrote:They are. Money can buy the best education just like it can by anything else. I'm not sure how different it is in the states - how many US presidents have not attended Ivy league colleges?

Yeah, as TullyBascombe said, around 70 percent of United States presidents have not attended Ivy Leagues. But I definitely wouldn’t say that the Ivy Leagues are representative of the U.S. private schooling system in its entirety—there are dozens of other reputable independent universities around the country. Not sure what the statistic is on presidents who have attended state schools versus private schools, though.

Then again, we’re only talking higher education here. Yorkie, are all the schools in your list for pre-college students, or whatever the equivalent is in the U.K.? I don’t think I can name a single private school here for people under the age of 18.

Flora wrote: Yeah, as TullyBascombe said, around 70 percent of United States presidents have not attended Ivy Leagues. But I definitely wouldn’t say that the Ivy Leagues are representative of the U.S. private schooling system in its entirety—there are dozens of other reputable independent universities around the country. Not sure what the statistic is on presidents who have attended state schools versus private schools, though.

Then again, we’re only talking higher education here. Yorkie, are all the schools in your list for pre-college students, or whatever the equivalent is in the U.K.? I don’t think I can name a single private school here for people under the age of 18.

Yes, those schools are all for pre-college students, ages 13 - 18. Did you look at any of the websites to see what you get for $45k a year?

TullyBascombe wrote:Histortically most US Presidents have not gone to Ivy League schools: Bush the younger - yes, Clinton - yes ( but on scholarships), Bush the elder - yes, Reagan - no, Carter - no, Ford - no, Nixon - no, Johnson - no, Kennedy - yes, Eisenhower - no, Truman - -no, FDR - yes, Hoover - no, Harding - no, Coolidge - no, Taft - no, Wilson - yes, Teddy Roosevelt - yes, McKinley - no.

Going back further in history you begin to run into a number of Presidents who never went to college.

Thanks for the heads up. As Flora says next, t would be interesting to know how many attended private schools, which is probably a more direct comparison (although most of the kids that attend the schools I listed go on to the UK equivalent of the Ivy League colleges).

Have a good nosy round those websites, very interesting I think.

hehe i went to private / grammar school for two years (£4000 a term) i must say i didnt see much a diffrence when i left to go to public school, other than the plus of not being call a boffin anymore lol

Okay, I double-checked and counted 10 of 35 presidents who attended public schools instead of private ones—when you include military schools and early educational institutions, that’s only 28 percent! I have to wonder how much of this has to do with schooling in and of itself, as opposed to the financial support it actually takes to succeed in political careers. Kind of depressing, when you think about it. Money makes the world go round.

Yorkie wrote:Yes, those schools are all for pre-college students, ages 13 - 18. Did you look at any of the websites to see what you get for $45k a year?

Yeah, my goodness! And then a good number of Eton attendees go on to colleges like Oxford and Cambridge, don’t they? Unbelievable! I appreciate the diligence of that type of schooling regimen, but it sounds like you’re in trouble if you don’t start at a young (and wealthy) age.

kthomp wrote:hehe i went to private / grammar school for two years (£4000 a term) i must say i didnt see much a diffrence when i left to go to public school, other than the plus of not being call a boffin anymore lol

Haha, that’s not a bad plus, isn’t it?

I just transferred from a community college to a private university, and while there is a huge difference between the two, I don’t know if the costs of the new benefits are academically proportionate to the old ones.

Well, I didn't know that public schools in UK cost as much as 45K a year! That is quite ridiculous i must say. In Singapore, we don't really have such divide I guess, mainly government or government aided schools, the more prestigious independent schools and international schools. Independent schools don't charge more than a $300-$400 a month, as far as I know. And there's a number of them who eventually go to good schools in UK and Ivy League as well.

xsakurax wrote:Well, I didn't know that public schools in UK cost as much as 45K a year! That is quite ridiculous i must say. In Singapore, we don't really have such divide I guess, mainly government or government aided schools, the more prestigious independent schools and international schools. Independent schools don't charge more than a $300-$400 a month, as far as I know. And there's a number of them who eventually go to good schools in UK and Ivy League as well.

There is a whole range of private schools in the UK - many are much more reasonable than $45k. The ones I posted are the elite - the best of the best (well, they are the oldest and most famous). Some of them date back 600 years (that is why we call them public schools. It was only at the end of the 19th Centuary that free schooling was given to all children. Before that most kids didn't get a schooling or if they did their parents hired a private tutor to educate them at home. Schools like Eton were set up to take the kids and teach them -for a fee- and it was open to anybody who could afford it (the public). Of course in reality only the very richest of people could afford to send their sons there, so I guess nothing has changed in 600 years).

Believe me. an education from Eton opens up a lot of opportunitys in the UK.........

Flora wrote:Okay, I double-checked and counted 10 of 35 presidents who attended public schools instead of private ones—when you include military schools and early educational institutions, that’s only 28 percent! I have to wonder how much of this has to do with schooling in and of itself, as opposed to the financial support it actually takes to succeed in political careers. Kind of depressing, when you think about it. Money makes the world go round.

Yorkie wrote:Yes, those schools are all for pre-college students, ages 13 - 18. Did you look at any of the websites to see what you get for $45k a year?

Yeah, my goodness! And then a good number of Eton attendees go on to colleges like Oxford and Cambridge, don’t they? Unbelievable! I appreciate the diligence of that type of schooling regimen, but it sounds like you’re in trouble if you don’t start at a young (and wealthy) age.

kthomp wrote:hehe i went to private / grammar school for two years (£4000 a term) i must say i didnt see much a diffrence when i left to go to public school, other than the plus of not being call a boffin anymore lol

Haha, that’s not a bad plus, isn’t it?

I just transferred from a community college to a private university, and while there is a huge difference between the two, I don’t know if the costs of the new benefits are academically proportionate to the old ones.

You can't really include the presidents educated in the 18th and early 19th centuries because public universities as we know them virtually did not exist. Even the University of Virginia and William and Mary College, both public instutions now, were originally essentially private institutions. Most of the US public colleges were estaqblished as beneficiaries of the Morrill and Hatch Acts in 1862 and 1887. Many of these universities early on only trained farmers and engineers, so their graduates were unlikely to become politicians.

West Point and Annapolis have always been public institutions, so their graduates have to count as publicly educated.

TullyBascombe wrote:You can't really include the presidents educated in the 18th and early 19th centuries because public universities as we know them virtually did not exist. Even the University of Virginia and William and Mary College, both public instutions now, were originally essentially private institutions. Most of the US public colleges were estaqblished as beneficiaries of the Morrill and Hatch Acts in 1862 and 1887. Many of these universities early on only trained farmers and engineers, so their graduates were unlikely to become politicians.

West Point and Annapolis have always been public institutions, so their graduates have to count as publicly educated.

Oh—you’re right! I think I counted all the W&M attendees (and Polk) as public school students, but I should’ve tallied them as “private” to compensate for the prestige of actually receiving a college education in early-America. Thanks so much for double-checking me. I didn’t know about the military academies. I guess the statistic for private school presidents is closer to 80 percent, then?

Flora wrote:

TullyBascombe wrote:You can't really include the presidents educated in the 18th and early 19th centuries because public universities as we know them virtually did not exist. Even the University of Virginia and William and Mary College, both public instutions now, were originally essentially private institutions. Most of the US public colleges were estaqblished as beneficiaries of the Morrill and Hatch Acts in 1862 and 1887. Many of these universities early on only trained farmers and engineers, so their graduates were unlikely to become politicians.

West Point and Annapolis have always been public institutions, so their graduates have to count as publicly educated.

Oh—you’re right! I think I counted all the W&M attendees (and Polk) as public school students, but I should’ve tallied them as “private” to compensate for the prestige of actually receiving a college education in early-America. Thanks so much for double-checking me. I didn’t know about the military academies. I guess the statistic for private school presidents is closer to 80 percent, then?

I don't think so, not if you exclude those who grew up before 1887 simply because the public option didn't exist throughout the country - except for the military academies and 4 states.
If you are going to include that era then you need to also include the presidents who had no higher education at all. You'd also need to take into consideration that a number of those private "colleges" in the 19th century would by todays standards be classified as mere high schools.
I'd wager that government funded public universities didn't exist (to a significant degree) in the UK prior to the end of the 19th century either.

Let's stick to the 20th and 21st centuries.

TullyBascombe wrote: You'd also need to take into consideration that a number of those private "colleges" in the 19th century would by todays standards be classified as mere high schools.
I'd wager that government funded public universities didn't exist (to a significant degree) in the UK prior to the end of the 19th century either.

Let's stick to the 20th and 21st centuries.

I'd be amazed if we had public funded universities in the UK prior to the 20th century to be honest.

The real question was about modern society and that those educated in private schools still dominate the professions in the UK. I really don't know about the US Congress. I can state with relative certainty that most physicians in the US were educatede in public universities. I don't really have any infornation about the legal/judicial professions. There are a lot of private law schools in the US, it costs a lot less per student to run a law school than it does to run a medical school. There are a lot of law schools in the US that are run out just a single small buiilding barely larger than an individual home.