Not having explicitly legacy is probably often better, but I think it could frequently be effectively the same. If any non-rigourous scoring is done by people who know about legacy and whose bosses can be contacted informally by legacy parents to pass along complaints I'd wonder if it could be effectively just as bad.

To be sure, it's not a panacea and there are more subtle ways to work the same influence networks.

I liken it to Jim Crow: systemic racism didn't end the day that Jim Crow laws were struck down, but a world without those statutes is undeniably a step in the right direction. So too here: it's not perfect, it doesn't solve the issue once and for all, but it's unquestionably better than the alternative.

The door revolves on upon graduation as it does on admittance . MIT seats are scarce because so many want access to the influential network of MIT alum, as MIT students might be favored in highly sought after jobs. MIT maintains the scarcity by not increasing enrollments thereby giving seats only to the remarkably well prepared or well resourced high school students.

Bur it makes me wonder 1) Why must the brand MIT be such a ticket to supposedly meritocratic job market? And 2) why must college attainment be seen as the only way of passage into the middle class?

Jim Crow effects persist today because of the dearth of social capital for many black Americans that both prevents entry into a highly selective launchpad into gainful careers and only has such power for the outsized role social capital plays in job prospects.

Slight nit: in the case of MIT and other "IT"s the story is slightly more complicated. Shockingly few students who graduate with Bachelors degrees in the USA make it through even a watered down Calculus I, let alone MIT's multivariate calculus course (required for all majors). In fact, many students need to re-take high school algebra for their college math distribution, and need multiple attempts at that. If they needed MIT Calc I to get a BA, they wouldn't graduate. Let alone multivariate (which is required at MIT). And that's just the gen eds. Having seen the CS curriculum at some less selective colleges and universities, I can say with certainty that only the top 5% or so would be able to get passing grades in required CS courses at MIT.

The rigor of coursework varies greatly. College degrees in the USA are not interchangeable.

None of this is meant to contradict the fact that elite institutions have lost their way and are artificially scarce. Obviously, there are far more students capable of excelling at MIT than are admitted. And there are tons of faculty who could teach to MIT standards in pretty much every subject. So in that sense MIT seats are definitely artificially scarce.

I just think the fact that there ARE real differences in the quality and rigor of education within US higher ed is often lost in these discussions.

Anyways, to your questions:

> 1) Why must the brand MIT be such a ticket to supposedly meritocratic job market?

Because meritocracy is a lie. Alumni networks are just one example of corruption in the job market. Church networks function the same way. Even high school networks matter. Nepotism is rampant. The world isn't fair.

> why must college attainment be seen as the only way of passage into the middle class?

The only people who see it like that are members of the upper class and upper middle class who fetishize these institutions.

There are many paths to the middle class. Almost all of them start not with "college", but with "don't live in one of the ten most expensive cities in the country". You can get a house in the midwest for very little, and accessible healthcare and trades jobs that don't require a college degre pay quite well in that part of the country.