&gt; Trampled by what? A stampede of equally qualified candidates? That&#x27;s exactly my point.<p>From my understanding, your point is that people are doing this with malice with the conscious intention of hurting other people. That&#x27;s very different from survival. I still also feel that&#x27;s a baseless accusation.<p>&gt; But give them $50k, $250k, $500k to spend on schooling and suddenly it leads to great differences in outcome.<p>The flaw in your logic is assuming that all or even most education is equal. Of course, because even if you don&#x27;t take into account &#x27;signalling&#x27; not all education is equal. Spending 160k on a technical diploma mill (yes these exist and they target the poor) is obviously going to net vastly different results from spending the same money on an Ivy League institution. In reality, the Ivy League university is probably going to cost a lot less if you&#x27;re poor. (For the record, I attended a public uni). This is even more evident when you start looking at education outside of the US.