Written by James M. Patterson |
Thursday, February 15, 2024
Prestige relates to money in that prestigious schools attract more grants and donations, because of their excellent students and also the eagerness of wealthy donors to have their children admitted. As a result, these institutions can spend money on fine arts programs, more faculty, better student services, and better facilities. Low-prestige universities often have to focus on budgets, which may mean opting for low-prestige signals like merging departments or relying on contingent faculty.

No doubt many conservatives, especially those in higher education, have been clinking glasses at the news that Claudine Gay has resigned after a short and undistinguished presidency at Harvard University. Gay was responsible for the mistreatment of conservative scholars at Harvard and rose through the ranks of higher education by trading on her identity while putting out plagiarized scholarship. There has been plenty of analysis of the specific instances of plagiarism and their relative severity. What is interesting, however, is that none of this seems to have anything to do with being a good president of a university.
What does a university president do? First, the president raises money. Second, the president is the face of the university. Whenever there is a problem, she is the one who appears on television, meets with faculty, and takes calls from donors and important alumni. Presidents are not the final authority on most things, and they almost never handle student or faculty controversies the way some conservative commentators seem to think they do. A university president is doing her job when she is raking in the cash and representing the university well. In the end, Gay was doing neither. While Harvard was never going to close, she had upset enough donors that she was, on balance, a problem rather than an asset for fundraising. She had put on a bad face for the university, starting with her December 5 appearance before the Committee on Education & the Workforce alongside Liz Magill, former president of the University of Pennsylvania.
Magill stepped down a mere six days after the appearance. Only a few months before, Marc Tessier-Lavigne resigned from Stanford University after the discovery that he had misrepresented his research. All these resignations have two factors in common: money and prestige.
The Prestige Economy
Money and prestige are the two currencies of higher education. They are related but distinct. For a university, money is not just tuition revenue, but also grants, donations, and endowments. A university that relies entirely on tuition is poor and, in this climate, likely to close. Grants are discrete allocations of money for particular research or teaching roles, such as those given by the National Science Foundation or the Ford Foundation. Donations are usually from wealthy individuals with specific intentions attached to them, such as to pay for a new dormitory or fund a new music school. Endowments are collections of funds that the university invests that can be used for a rainy day or a major expansion.
Prestige is difficult to define, but it requires a good reputation combined with highly selective admissions. Universities can acquire good reputations by graduating excellent students, but they can also acquire them by attracting the sons and daughters of elites. The latter often wins one the title of a “finishing school,” but finishing schools still deal with elites in ways that less prestigious institutions simply do not. Contemporary elite universities do both—mixing incredibly talented students with scions of the upper crust.
Prestige relates to money in that prestigious schools attract more grants and donations, because of their excellent students and also the eagerness of wealthy donors to have their children admitted. As a result, these institutions can spend money on fine arts programs, more faculty, better student services, and better facilities. Low-prestige universities often have to focus on budgets, which may mean opting for low-prestige signals like merging departments or relying on contingent faculty.
Over the past few years, I have become increasingly baffled at how little of this conservative commentators understand. Conservatives often joke about the irrelevance of higher education by quoting Sayre’s law, “The politics of the university are so intense because the stakes are so low.” Nothing could be further from the truth. Universities house scholars, whose work is both in research and the formation of students. If conservatives have no place in higher education, there will be no conservative scholarship and very few conservative students. Indeed, the falsehood of Sayre’s Law is evident in the intensity and coverage of the Magill and Gay fiascos. Conservatives understand that there is something at stake here, but they do not understand what it is. Let me explain.
Car Dealers vs. New Dealers
The source of this ignorance is what I call the “Car Dealer vs. New Dealer problem.” Most American conservatives are middle class or aspire to the middle class, and, as a result, share a “car dealer” view of the world. The car dealer is a successful business owner. He is usually one of the wealthier people in town, and he makes other people rich too—by advertising on local media, hiring employees, and investing in local enterprises. To ensure success, the car dealer must constantly manage finances by finding new investment opportunities and cutting losses. That means gathering market data, firing underperforming staff, and seeking out innovation for increasing sales. The car dealer provides for the common good of those around him because of self-interest, and he assumes that others do the same. This worldview could not be worse for succeeding in higher education. Why is that?
Car dealers cannot commit to anything in the long term. Short-term losses are signals to the car dealer that it is time to pull up stakes and minimize losses, and the costs imposed on those affected are simply part of how the world works. This mentality is what often prevails among American Christian higher education institutions. If we view higher education through the car dealer paradigm, education becomes a service for sale, while students are the consumers, administrators the management, and faculty the labor. Under this model, the primary source of income is tuition, so tuition dictates low-prestige education that diverts the college away from its mission. Meanwhile, faculty in prestige-generating majors are sidelined, encouraged to retire, or downsized.
Most conservative colleges are Christian liberal arts colleges, many of which are struggling to stay afloat. At these struggling American Christian colleges, the majors in greatest demand are primarily in education, business, and nursing—the fields that appear to have the readiest application to real-world employment. Hence, car dealer administrators will divert ever-dissipating resources toward these high-cost programs, often at the expense of the core liberal arts disciplines that are central to the stated mission of the college. Because leaders at Christian colleges do not coordinate decisions, they all make these same decisions at the same time, meaning that they are now fighting over the same students, which in turn means no one gains the enrollment bump they expected. Moreover, students in these majors often graduate into fields with solid employment possibilities and lower salaries. (A notable exception is nursing—although nursing is in greater demand outside of the areas where most Christian liberal arts colleges are.) I am regularly surprised by how little incoming students and their parents know about the demand for conservative graduates to work in prestigious, high-earning positions that would enable them to live religious lives.
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Perhaps you think you are better off living a private Christianity outside of the local church. Christ’s church is a messy place, full of saved sinners who will rub each other the wrong way, sin against each other, ignore each other, or try to control each other. While you may feel you get some benefit from walking in nature, practicing yoga, serving at the food bank, private devotion, etc., God has promised that it is in Christ’s church where you will grow up into love and be spiritually strengthened. No other activity can make that promise.

A while ago I was listening to a podcast about Jessica Buchanan, a humanitarian aid worker who was kidnapped and then rescued by SEAL Team Six. Such stories are filled with bravery and courage, not only by the person being rescued but obviously by those rescuing. The interesting thing was that Jessica had no idea that a seal team was going to rescue her; she had no idea what was going on for her behalf. The book of Ruth is similar in one particular way: The story focuses on a small Hebrew family that needs spiritual rescuing. God sets about rescuing them, and they don’t even see it coming.
In Ruth 1 we find both a nation and a family in spiritual disarray.
The story of Naomi’s family is set in the time of the Judges. If there is anything that is obvious about that time, it is that the people of Israel were continuing to fall away from God on a deeper and more tragic trajectory. Israel’s allegiance to God weakens more and more as the book of Judges progresses.[1] Elimelech and his family’s actions follow the mindset of life during the time of the Judges:

In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. (Judg. 21:25)

When faced with difficulty, Elimelech, Naomi, and their two children, Mahlon and Chilion, leave their home in Bethlehem and go to Moab to find sustenance. This is not just a normal move across town. As theologian Iain Duguid points out,

Elimelech’s choices were not equal choices, theologically speaking, in the way that the choice of city in which to live might be for us. God had called Elimelech to live in Bethlehem. He therefore had no business leaving there to go anywhere, least of all Moab.[2]

The land of Israel was God’s chosen land for his chosen people. God had given this land to Abraham’s descendants as a fulfillment of a promise to Abraham, and it was a land that was part of a special covenant between God and his people. Turning away from this land signaled a turning away from God who had given this land. Possessing the land was a special privilege, and having part of this land symbolized having a part in the people of God—a part in a life blessed by God. The Moabites, enemies of God’s people, ruled over Israel for 18 years during the time of the Judges. They had caused the people of Israel to sin grievously during the Exodus; therefore, God placed a curse on the sinful Moabites.
Elimelech’s family found weakness and death away from God and his people.
So while Elimelech, whose name means “My God is King,” and Naomi, whose name means “Pleasantness,” should have stayed in the land and cried out to their King for help to restore the pleasantness of the land of Israel, it seems that instead they looked with their eyes to find more pleasant fields of life in Moab.

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We are not our own because we are bought with the precious blood of Christ. (1 Cor. 6:20) So let us live for God; our rightful Owner; our righteous Master; our all-wise Creator. And as we joyfully live for Him and sacrificially live for others, we know deep inside our hearts that there is where our utmost joy can be found. 

Apart from the transforming grace of God, it is natural for us to live for ourselves. We want to pursue our dreams, desires, and plans without due regard if God is also pleased as we pursue these things in our lives. As we pursue these things for ourselves, we realize deep inside our hearts that there is always something missing. We also realize that it is tiring to live for one’s self. We are not meant to live for ourselves. Our selves will always fail us. Our selves will just want more and more and more of what we pursue. It’s a never-ending vicious cycle of wanting more and being empty in the process.
We are meant to live for Someone bigger than ourselves. We are meant to live for the One who created us; the One who made us for his purpose and design.
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