经济与社会科学2017papers.ssrn.com
兄弟会成员身份的经济与学业后果
Economic and Academic Consequences of Fraternity Membership
进阶 · 约 40 分钟读完前置知识：基础统计学、计量经济学入门、选择偏差与因果推断
导读
这篇论文利用数据考察加入兄弟会（fraternity）与大学学业表现、毕业后收入之间的关系，结论倾向于存在一种权衡：限制兄弟会可能提高学术表现，但可能以毕业生未来收入下降为代价。评论中提到的具体结果是，被兄弟会拒绝的学生尽管GPA更高，收入却比被接受者低约36%。
HN 关注点：兄弟会经历究竟代表能力与社交资本，还是富裕阶层复制优势、把平庸者推上高位的机制。
HN 评论精选
这几条评论里：质疑 2 补充 1 亲历 1
质疑质疑作者把收入差距解读为政策权衡，认为这更像精英特权复制的证据。
Kevin Drum指出这个结果偏弱，但如果成立，他怀疑作者是否得出了正确结论。作者说：限制兄弟会的政策可能显著提高学业表现，但会以毕业生未来收入为代价。Drum认为恰恰相反：兄弟会是社会精英不论实际表现如何都维持自身顶层位置的又一种方式；被兄弟会拒绝的人GPA更高，收入却低36%。因此大学管理者在限制兄弟会时几乎没有什么权衡。
Steko查看英文原文
Kevin Drum notes it's a weak result but if true, wonders if the authors draw the right conclusions: suppose it’s true. Here’s what the authors say: Our results indicate that college administrators face an important trade-off when they consider policies designed to limit fraternity life on campus: while such policies may significantly raise academic performance, these gains may come at a significant cost in terms of expected future income for their graduates. I’d argue exactly the opposite: ... Allow me to reframe the authors’ conclusion: Our results provide empirical evidence that fraternities are just another way for social elites to keep themselves at the top regardless of actual performance. Those rejected by fraternities, even though they have higher GPAs, earn 36 percent less than those accepted by fraternities. This is further evidence, if any were needed, that college administrators face few trade-offs when they consider policies designed to limit fraternity life on campus. http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/09/new-report-fraternities-help-mediocrities-succeed/
质疑收入优势可能来自家庭富裕和特权，而非兄弟会本身。
我认识的兄弟会成员家里都很有钱。单凭家庭背景，他们本来就会比别人赚得多。被特权、派对和想找有钱男生的女生包围，当然会拉低成绩，但这不重要：他们毕业了，有人多读一两年也无所谓，最后都混得不错。当王子就是有优势。
danjoc查看英文原文
All the frat guys I ever knew had well off parents. They were going to make more than everyone else due to that alone. Of course, being surrounded by privilege, parties, and sorority girls eager to score a rich boy hurt their grades. That doesn't really matter though. They graduated. Some even took an extra year or two to do that. It didn't matter. They did fine. Being a prince has advantages.
亲历亲历者认为兄弟会有严格筛选和管理训练，收入优势可能反映能力与组织经验。
不意外。我参加过兄弟会，我们没有欺辱新成员。除了各种活动（不到三分之一是派对），维持组织运转也让人学到很多现实技能。首先是选择偏差：我们只招真正善社交、比较努力、有竞争心、成绩不错的人，多数兄弟会都这样。“兄弟会男”都是有钱蠢货是迷思；我们挑的是学校最聪明、最有前途、最合群的人，钱和肤色不是因素，我所在的分会约40%是少数族裔。我们的兄弟会GPA比全校男生平均高0.6，辍学率不到一半。兄弟会确实精英主义，我为此自豪，科技公司也一样。我们只收最好的。我们喝得更多、派对疯狂，但也聪明、努力、朋友多。其次，兄弟会的权力结构很像商业世界，即使中等规模分会预算也超过50万美元，大分会每年数百万，由民主选出的学生执行委员会管理。兄弟会基本是学生运营的非营利公司，做起来比听起来难，尤其学校本身还敌视希腊系统。
forgotpw2017查看英文原文
Not surprised. I was in a fraternity, and no we didn't haze at all. Between all the events (of which less than a third are parties) and dedication it takes to keep the thing from barreling into the ground you learn a lot of real life skills. First, there's selection bias. We would only take guys that were really sociable, somewhat hard working, competitive, and with decent grades. Most fraternities were the same. "Frat bros" being meathead rich retards is a myth. We would pick the smartest, most promising, and sociable guys in the school. Money wasn't a factor. Neither was skin color, my house was probably 40% minorities. But we had a fraternity GPA a solid .6 above school mens average and a dropout rate of less than half. Fraternities ARE elitist and I was proud of that. So are all the tech companies.... We only took the best. Yeah we drank more than most students and had crazy parties but we were also smart, hardworking, and had a lot of friends. Second, the power structure closely resembles the business world, complete with budgets of over a half million even in a modest sized house. Bigger houses have budgets of millions a year. These budgets were handled by the "exec board" which was just democratically elected student members. A fraternity is basically a non-profit company run by students. Harder to do than it sounds, especially with all the hate towards Greek coming from the school itself. At many schools the Greek system is actively shunned by the administration. Then there's the connections. Being in a fraternity/sorority means you automatically know over 50 people pretty well, sometimes hundreds. I was vice president for several years and I knew hundreds. Maybe 20 really well. I knew people on the school board. I met the president of the University enough times that he knew me by name. The president of the student senate was a great friend that lived across the hall. I got my first job from an old friend from the house and another was kind enough to help me move across the country to a tech hotspot. We're all still friends to this day and we joke about how wedding are largely a fraternity reunion. Everything in my life today exists largely because I joined a fraternity 8 years ago.
补充呼吁用不带欺辱的现代社交组织替代兄弟会的社交资本功能。
亲爱的硅谷：请创办一个公司或项目，让成年人（年轻和年长）都能轻松加入大型、真实的现实社交网络，帮助他们建立职业联系，也建立友谊和恋爱关系。兄弟会会创造独特的文化（传统、握手礼、歌曲、习语等）把人绑在一起，请记住这一点。也请不要把欺辱新成员包含进去。
baron816查看英文原文
Dear Silicon Valley, Please start something (company or otherwise) that will make it easy for adults (young and old) to become part of a large, real world social network. One which will help them form good career connections, as well as platonic and romantic relationships. Fraternities create their own unique culture (traditions, handshakes, songs, idioms, etc) to tie people together, so keep that in mind. Please leave hazing out of it too. Kindly, Baron
历次讨论
- 2017Hacker News 讨论帖165 分 · 118 评
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