Editorial: Don’t blame colleges for Generation Y’s self-importance

Countless academics have characterized our generation as narcissistic, snobby and… Countless academics have characterized our generation as narcissistic, snobby and self-important. But according to one New York Times commentator, university officials might only have themselves to blame.

In a recent op-ed, Columbia University professor Andrew Delbanco argued that Rick Santorum’s disdain for college “elitism” isn’t entirely unjustified. High-ranking universities do indeed foster a sense of superiority, he claims. At many Ivy League schools, administrators assure each successive class of freshmen that they’re the “best and brightest ever to walk through the gates.”

Until schools place a renewed emphasis on “humility and charity” — the original tenets of Protestant-founded universities like Harvard and Princeton — Delbanco believes the GOP’s attacks on higher education will continue to resonate with a broad swath of Americans.

Although we’ll be the first to acknowledge that the members of Generation Y could stand to gain some modesty, we’re not sure colleges should bear the blame for inflating their egos.

Most young adults, regardless of whether or not they attend four-year institutions, aren’t lacking in self-esteem. A 2010 Pew Research Center report characterized a majority of 18- to 29-year-olds as “confident,” and numerous reports, including a 2011 San Diego State University study, have found that students enter college already convinced of their intellectual prowess.

A more likely culprit for our generation’s self-importance problem is secondary-school grade inflation. According to the same study, 48 percent of 2009 college freshmen earned an A or A- minus average in high school, as opposed to 19 percent in 1966.

In any case, the notion that universities once instilled more “humility and charity” in their students seems suspect. Protestant or not, Ivy League schools have long been associated with exclusiveness and elitism — Harvard, for instance, catered to Boston’s social elite throughout the 19th century, producing generation after generation of wealthy scholars. And since 1956, there have never been fewer than three graduates of either Harvard or Yale on the Supreme Court. If anything, the increased accessibility of college educations might have lessened Ivy Leaguers’ elitism.

Humility is an important virtue for young people to possess, especially when they owe their achievements as much to socioeconomic circumstances as innate intellectual abilities. At the same time, universities shouldn’t bend over backward to temper our generation’s inflated egos — by the time students enroll in college, it might already be too late.