People from elite backgrounds increasingly dominate academia, data shows
This story is decidedly anecdata, even personal, but I think it's illustrative of what's going on in certain fields.- Had a friend who has multiple graduate level degrees in architecture related sub-specialties e.g. architecture criticism etc- HN being what it is, I will mention that the pay for most of the jobs you would get with the above is zero or near zero.- There is also a dramatic oversupply of candidates for available positions- That being said, certain jobs can be prestigious e.g. curator at a museum etc- Most places that would hire someone with these degrees will ONLY hire the children of very wealthy individuals- Why? The thought is that a museum hires the child of a hedge fund manager, there is a non-zero chance the wealthy parent will give or leave money to the institution when they die- This means a steady stream of unpaid internships for everyone else for, essentially, the rest of their livesIt's therefore not surprising that only wealthy/elites would go into these particular fields and, in turn, causes people to not even enter the academic subjects to begin with.This isn't necessarily a criticism since everyone here is acting rationally from an economics perspective. I do wonder about the poor kid from a bad neighborhood who could have become the next great museum curator if not for the fact that his parents aren't wealthy.