This makes more sense when one recalls that a whole lot of powerful people, including and perhaps especially politicians, come from a handful of prestigious schools, and are surrounded by advisors and assistants largely from those same schools.
[edit] and of course the real rabbit hole is private prep schools. Good luck becoming president in this century without attending one. Wonder what their donor lists look like.
> Good luck becoming president in this century without attending one.
Bill Clinton made it last century, and Hillary almost made it this century. I don't think the odds are that stacked against public school attendees even now.
It’s mostly a recent problem, oddly enough. Only one of the last nine big-two party candidates didn’t go to prep school (Hilary, as you mention). Typically more than half the primary candidates “prepped”, over the same period. Most VPs have, too, though it’s been less totally-captured than the big chair (and you’ve got edge cases like Harris who didn’t technically “prep” but had a pretty similar situation) Seems like damn well-stacked odds, considering fancy prep school kids are a small minority of all kids. But maybe this is just a multi-decade weird run of strange fortune, and not a persistent trend.
I'm sure there are social factors both driving prep school graduates to run, and helping them stand out from the crowd. Outside of just family money.
I do wonder if "prep" schools are recruiting more of the socially outstanding non-rich students than in previous years. Even so this can only have so much of an effect, as non-prep schools will always have valedictorians and social organizers regardless of who's pulled out beforehand.
