Why are we subsidizing the creation of a ruling class?

It's no secret how elite schools and universities get 'elite'.  They do so by obsessively recruiting the cognitive and financial rich. The little "eagle eggs" (that is what the Vice Principal at my kids posh grammar school called them, honest) start their school or university life on third base (sorry about the US sports reference, I can't do cricket analogies, it's my lousy education). When they score a run, the school or university proudly claims that they were instrumental in helping the little tyke 'hit a home run' when all the brat did was take a base.  

This is rather funny because I think many elite schools actually deliver low levels of value add because their raw material is already fairly refined. Does anybody seriously believe that the entering class at Chicago would suffer any serious economic or social harm if they didn't get to Hyde Park?  And some absolutely dreck public schools may actually add more value because the delinquents are so far down. Just looking at which school has the cleverest students really tells you nothing about how good they are at improving a child's life chances. Although I'm sure there are a lot of crap public schools just like there are a lot of crap public anythings.

The real obscenity (and perhaps this is more US than elsewhere) is that elite schools and universities spend huge sums helping the cognitively super rich get richer while molding them into an elite social class in partnership with the financial super rich. Mind you, these are charities that are given massive tax subsidies to increase inequality and concentrate power in our society. 

Don't get me wrong, I believe Harvard and Eton and the rest of them can do whatever the hell they want - they're greedy little sows so they'll probably just go on gobbling up more power and status and wealth until they burst. However, the government shouldn't be subsidizing this profoundly elitist enterprise.  Let the Richie Richs' - both cognitive and financial pay for their own finishing schools.

Either that or let them take on a real challenge:  adding value at the bottom of the cognitive barrel.  Now that takes brains.