Less than 1 percent of college students attend Ivy League colleges and equally selective schools, like Stanford and Duke. But these schools have an outsize influence on American life. Practically every Supreme Court justice of the last 40 years, 25 percent of the U.S. Senate, and one in eight Fortune 500 CEOs went to these schools. A new study on their admissions programs finds that they are heavily biased toward children from rich families. For applicants with the same SAT score, kids from families in the top 0.1 percent were more than twice as likely to get in compared to the average student. A coauthor on that paper, Harvard economist David Deming, talks to Derek about what his landmark study tells us about college, fairness, and the American Dream.If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. Host: Derek ThompsonGuest: David DemingProducer: Devon Manze Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode is all about education and technology, a topic that’s especially top of mind this week as students in much of the country return to school—virtually. The intersection of learning and technology has been accelerated by the pandemic, but the debate around education's "disruption," and what that means for educators doing the hands-on work of teaching, has been swirling for years.In this episode, a16z general partner Connie Chan and host Lauren Murrow are joined by educators and experts Josh Kim, the Director of Online Programs and Strategy at  Dartmouth College (whose most recent book, Learning Innovation and the Future of Higher Education, was published earlier this year), and David Deming, Professor of Education and Economics at the Harvard Kennedy School and the Harvard Graduate School of Education.We explore the complicated issue of online education from a variety of angles: Can the quality of online learning stack up to an  in-person education? What improvements have we seen over the past decade and what improvements are we likely to see this fall, compared to the COVID scramble last spring? And might this moment be the push we need for educators and technologists—sometimes at odds—to collaborate more closely?We discuss and debate the research behind online learning, the dual impact of tech and COVID on the future of higher ed, and tech's potential in everything from curriculum to access to structural inequality.

David Deming and Raj Chetty discuss their research on legacy admissions at elite colleges, highlighting how these policies favor wealthy students and perpetuate power and prestige. They explore the implications for social mobility, the disparity in admissions based on parental wealth, and the importance of diversity. They also reflect on their personal backgrounds and the role of education in providing opportunities.