Wow. Your underlying thesis is that the schools value and relevancy is only tied to the connections you can make. Which maybe in effect, in a broken system, is true. Just a class divider to try and get to the elite connections and climb status (from what I read about Ivy leagues) but education should not be that. It should about education and forming professionals not perpetuating inequality through unfair pay to win strategies.

You pretend we need the established world order because this is how the world works but the actual world works in certain ways due to policy. The same policies that allow the rich to pay no taxes while the mid and poor do.

I understand your attempt at a pessimistic yet pragmatic view but I think There is an alternative that still works and doesn't actually make universities "irrelevant".

The wealthy unqualified can always be VCs/funders.