When Good Education is a Limited Resource, Will Information on It Be Willingly Shared?

Good education is a human right and a public good...so many youngsters are taught to believe. For the youth, it seems to make sense: they go through mostly free compulsory education in which everyone undertakes studies using the same curriculums mandated by local or national governments, often with visual requirements to behave and dress the same way (even if there are some unsavory side effects) on top of learning the same things. For them, education is, more or less, a practice in equalization, providing a largely egalitarian hue on the biggest time-spender of their young lives.

Yet, as these youngsters grow older, they start to realize that education is but no means subject to compulsory guidance toward equality. Quite the opposite, those with more money or better grades end up in more expensive institutions with better teachers, more attention to student development, and counseling to prepare for the real world. The further education goes along, the more exclusive some institutions become. It is by design that the likes of Harvard and Yale only take in a couple of thousand students a year, ensuring that only those with the best grades and most unique backgrounds are accepted.

The exclusivity of the top educational institutions, then, has triggered an arms race among parents to equip their children with the right resources for a leg up. Mentors and tutors can be found for standardized tests, application essays, admissions interviews, extracurricular activities, and everything else that goes into good college applications...for a fee. Those who can afford to pay are rapidly building up strong profiles, many of similar nature, at the expense of poorer students who can only rely on themselves and their public school teachers for insight. The inequality is glaring.

Moreover, this inequality is not just one based on a disparity in financial resources, but information. Yes, money can buy almost limitless outside support, but not all outside support are of the same quality. What is of greater value to the student will require testing out many potential options. And given the limited time and attention span everyone has, getting to the best possible resources money can buy will require a bit of luck as well. One simply cannot test out all the educational consulting firms out there, so getting the right information from the right people will be key.

From this reality emerges a paradox. If top universities are so competitive and everyone who can afford it is paying for the best possible outside support, why would anyone share information about good support with others? If a mother found the perfect tutoring support for her son, it makes logical sense that she tries to keep that information hidden from her son's peers, lest the peers become just as academically advanced as her son and, by extension, credible competitors for a coveted place at Harvard when college application season comes.

Of course, one can say that education is never a zero-sum activity involving individual students battling it out for limited resources. Students become more motivated if their peers also take initiative to learn and do more both inside and outside the classroom. Keeping good information away from peers can end up damaging the self as well, as potential opportunities to bounce ideas off each other and work on team projects do not come to fruition. Students at Harvard achieve great things not just because they are smart; they achieve because they can leverage the diverse abilities of their equally intelligent peers.

But talking about the potential of everyone becoming better together offers scant comfort for those seeking to outcompete others for limited resources. Students may love their friends enough to share educational resources. But they would love to get into Harvard even more. Best that their friends who no equal chances to get in. As long as the demand for good education far outstrips the supply, plenty will jettison friendships in exchange for less competition. If education is assumed to be unequal, any little advantage one can get is surely welcome.

The reluctance to share good educational information will be a particular hurdle for the educational consulting industry. The best potential customers are referrals, but people may only refer those who are unlikely to be in direct competition with themselves. The result is a pool of referrals who are too young, too unready to think about future steps in academic and career development, and all-around lacking in motivation to succeed. There are limited things an external service provider can do, especially if the success of the firm is directly related to the success of its clients. Bad referrals take away from this business model.