Harvard versus Yale - The Ivy League versus the World - The Presidency of the United States to the Winner

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Will the Yale and Harvard Streak End?

Now average Americans are going to have a hard time accepting this because average Americans consider the Ivy League to be something found in the history books, movies, or maybe in prose or fiction books.  The Great Gatsby comes to mind.

When it comes to power, the Ivy League is IT but normally in terms of the dominant Ivy influence over Wall Street, the international banking community, and the engines of commerce.

Where did the following Latin phrases come from?

In Deo Speramus - (In God We Hope)

In lumine Tuo videbimus lumen - (In Thy light shall we see the light)

Quisquam qui ars  - (Any person -Any study)

Vox clamantis in deserto - (The voice of one crying in the wilderness)

Veritas -(Truth)

Dei sub numine viget - (Under God's power she flourishes)

Leges sine moribus vanae - (Laws without morals are useless)

Lux et veritas - (Light and truth)

Those are the mottos of the eight venerated Ivy League schools.

Brown

Columbia
Cornell
Dartmouth
Harvard
Princeton
Pennsylvania
Yale

It seems we understand the power and influence of the Ivy League in terms of commerce but we really do not when it comes to national politics.  In fact, the attitude of the general public, in terms of the Ivy League in politics, is rather bleak.

According to recent Rasmussen polls, only five percent (5%) of American Adults think it is better for America to have presidents only from Ivy League schools.  A recent Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 85% believe it is better for the country to have presidents who come from a variety of schools.

Try this!

There have been 43 men who served as US President including President Obama,  It is often said that President Barack Obama is the 44th President of the United States of America. However, President Obama is only the 43rd different person to serve as President of the United States. This is due to the fact, that President Grover Cleveland served non-consecutive terms and so is often counted as both the 22nd and the 24th President.

• Fourteen out of forty-three presidents have attended one or more Ivy League schools.

• Twenty-five out of one hundred U.S. Senators have attended one or more Ivy League schools.

• Fifty-seven out of one hundred and nine Supreme Court justices have attended one or more Ivy League schools.

All considered, more than a third of all U.S. presidents, Supreme Court justices, and currently serving U.S. senators have attended an Ivy League school for undergraduate or graduate study.

It gets better.

When Obama completes his 2nd term next January we will have had 28 straight years of presidents from Yale and Harvard alone, consisting of Bush 1, Clinton, Bush 2 and Obama.  In fact, in the 227 years we have elected presidents, remember George Washington first took office in 1789, the Ivy League has held the presidency 85 of those years, or 37% of our history.

Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump will be the 15th president from the Ivy League and that may be a bit much for a nation in which the Ivy League represents just 8 out of 4,140 institutions of higher education.

For those of you into decimals the Ivy League makes up under two tenths of one percent (.001932) of our institutions yet controlled the presidency 37% of the time.

Public 4-year institutions        629
Private 4-year institutions   1,845
Total 4 year                            2,474

Public 2-year institutions    1,070
Private 2-year institutions      596
Total 2 year                            1,666

Total 4 and 2 year                 4,140

Money talks and legacy institutions prosper but you may be surprised when it comes to the costliest universities in America, long thought to be dominated by the Ivy League.

A recently compiled list of the 20 Most Expensive Colleges in the country shows prices, which include Tuition, Fees, Room and Board, range from $63,750 to just under $67,225 per year.

   #1  Harvey Mudd College $67,255
   #2  Columbia University $66,383
   #3  New York University $65,860 
   #4  Sarah Lawrence College $65,630
   #5  University of Chicago $64,965
   #6  Bard College at Simon's Rock  $64,519
   #7  University of Southern California $64,482
   #8  Claremont McKenna College  $64,325
   #9  Oberlin College $64,266
 #10  Scripps College $64,260   
 #11  Bard College $64,254
 #12  Haverford College $64,216    
 #13  Duke University  $64,188      
 #14  Dartmouth College  $64,134  
  #15  Northwestern University $63,983
 #16  Trinity College $63,970  
 #17  Pitzer College $63,880
 #18  Southern Methodist University  $63,840  
 #19  Amherst College  $63,772
#20  John Hopkins University $63,750

Source: Business Insider and U.S. Department of Education

To my amazement only two Ivy League schools, Columbia and Dartmouth, made the list.

Compare that to a list of the best colleges and universities in the world for 2016.

1. California Institute of Technology - United States of America
2. University of Oxford - United Kingdom
3. Stanford University - United States of America
4. University of Cambridge - United Kingdom
5. Massachusetts Institute of Technology - United States of America
6. Harvard University - United States of America
7. Princeton University - United States of America
8. Imperial College London - United Kingdom
9. ETH Zurich – Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich - Switzerland
10. University of Chicago - United States of America
11. Johns Hopkins University - United States of America
12. Yale University - United States of America
13. University of California, Berkeley - United States of America
14. University College London - United Kingdom
15. Columbia University - United States of America
16. University of California, Los Angeles - United States of America
17. University of Pennsylvania - United States of America
18. Cornell University - United States of America
19. University of Toronto - Canada
20. Duke University - United States of America

Source: The Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2015-2016

Sorry rest of the world, but fourteen of the top twenty are from the United States, including six of the top ten.  Harvard is the top ranked Ivy League school but six of the eight Ivy League schools are in the top twenty in the world.  

What does this all mean?  Here in the colonies it seems the more other schools catch up with the Ivy League in terms of the number of schools and the cost of education, the stronger those dastardly Ivy League schools get control of our presidency and political processes.

Harvard was the first university in America founded in 1636.  By 1800, six of the first 16 universities in America were Ivy League, 37%.  Now the Ivy League represents less than one percent of institutions of higher education.  In spite of that we are completing 28 straight years of presidents from just two Ivy League schools, Harvard and Yale, and now Hillary or Donald assure an extension of that Ivy stranglehold on the presidency up to 36 straight years.

Isn't it about time we give someone else a chance like The California Institute of Technology, Stanford, MIT, Slippery Rock, or even The Pennsylvania State University New Kensington Campus of the Commonwealth College, (the longest college name in the USA)?

My goal was to attend Yale for undergraduate and Harvard Law for graduate school and I went through the multi-year application process, but fate had other plans for me and I wound up at the University of Arizona in Tucson.  Though I retain my Ivy League loyalty, even I think enough is enough, give someone else a chance.

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