MIT has, predictably, become a cesspool of corruption. People called this about two decades ago.

The problems are:

1) Ambitious people are drawn to such institutions

2) There are $40B swishing around

3) Incentives align for fame and impact, but not for honesty or positive impact

Maintaining alignment would require checks-and-balances and transparency measures, which no one cared to put in. MIT -- much more so than competing schools -- relied on NDAs and non-disparage agreements to cover up scandals.

Incentive structures and market dynamics played out, as no one cared to act.

As a curiosity, MIT was not well-known to the public prior to Good Will Hunting, and did its best work while it was still a fairly niche institution, prior to 2000.

It was exceptionally well-know in specific communities (computer science, physics, electronics, etc.), and was at or near the top in most hard fields, but that didn't translate to public recognition. If you asked a random waitress or sales-person, they'd typically confuse MIT for ITT (which had ads running all the time).

For public opinion, the undisputed #1 university in the US was Harvard, followed by Yale, Stanford, and Princeton, followed by the rest of the Ivy League

For universities, public reputation follows performance by several decades.

Previously

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49031321

Because I remember commenting on it. Angrily.