The School You Go To Does Not Make You Any Smarter Or Better Than Anyone Else

You would think that would be common sense, but some people apparently didn't get that memo.

I don't know at what point Michael Medved went from reviewing movies to having his own column, but I felt like if I didn't comment on this stupidity that I was going to explode.

His whole argument in the column is that people should stop harping on people's education in the political arena. However, who he argues for in this case is not for us average monkeys who couldn't afford to go to an Ivy League school, but for those who go to Ivy League schools who are considered "elitist" in their attitudes towards us peasants.

Former White House speechwriter David Frum (another Canadian-born U.S. citizen with Ivy League credentials) makes the interesting point that "American populism has almost always concentrated its anger against the educated rather than the wealthy." He classifies contemporary politics as "a class struggle between those with more education than money against those with more money than education."

Medved misses the point, though.  You are not "elitist" based on your education.  You are "elitist" based on your attitudes towards having that education. Those who graduated from these schools who work in politics tend to make it a point that they graduated from these fancy schools as if it impresses the general population.  They're downright snobby about it, actually.  And the press plays into it by making it seem important that they graduated from these schools.  But all it does prove is that you paid a lot of money for a degree

In fact, with this article Medved makes my point very clearly. He graduated from Yale University, and has that condescending tone that some people who graduate from these Ivy League schools have towards those who don't have the same education that he had.

To get into my own educational background, I have a Bachelor of Arts degree from Keene State College in Film Studies, and am finishing up my coursework to obtain a Masters of Education degree in English Education from Plymouth State University.  I chose to go to KSC because it was the only school that I knew of at the time that had the film program that I was looking for, while I chose PSU primarily because of distance after I got married, but also because their Masters program had the English program that I was looking for.

So why should someone look their nose down at me just because my degrees aren't as "fancy" as theirs?  So what if I didn't go to Harvard or Yale or any of these other Ivy League schools?  I still obtained an education. And I'm not the type to look down at those who decided not to go on to college.  It isn't for everyone.

So to Medved, I say this.  If some of those who graduated from Ivy League schools weren't so snobby about it, you wouldn't be called "elitist."  It's the attitude that makes you that way, not the degree you obtained.