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I mean sure. But it’s also true that such kids are unlikely to benefit from getting educated at a level at sigma above what a kid in that situation can achieve. And most of the fallout will harm the kids pushed into that situation.
A kid whose background and intelligence make him unlikely to stand out after university starts out kinda fucked. He was basically conned into thinking he could go to university and get a degree and get a 100K a year job doing high level office work. He owes a mortgage on the education he bought at 18 under that impression. Worse, those skills he learned are mostly worthless to him, as he’s too dumb to trade on the skills he was taught at university, but lacks education and experience on jobs he could easily do well in. Worse, years of the education system blowing sunshine up his ass have convinced him that the kinds of jobs that would be at his level.
Imagine a society that basically highly values baseball. We judge a kid on his ability to play baseball, we have every kid trained to play baseball from 5 onward. Every kid is told that he should aspire to become a professional baseball player. Then we tell the kids who suck at baseball that they can do it too. We cheat them through, maybe with a designated hitter, designated runners, etc. the kid honestly believes he’s going to play for the Mets. So he spends thousands on baseball academies, who also want him to keep buying lessons, so everyone is telling him that baseball is his ticket, that he’s good, etc. and other paths are never discussed. No “hey, maybe you should try to be an usher.” He tries, he fails, and has nothing else.
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