Well, you have given a rather book-length reply here (LOL) so I will comment in one reply on all three.

Vast swaths of generalizations are (as I know you know) dangerous. When we talk about "the elites" or any other such convenient category term, we are missing all the varieties, sub groups, not to mention the aberrant ones who defy all rules of a category. Probably would be more helpful to do a deep-dive analysis of particular individuals.

But anyway... one thing I have wondered about is the present state of education in America. What precisely is going on in classrooms, both in K-12, but now, more urgently to my mind, in colleges and universities? Methinks it ain't what I experienced.

Being 57 years old, and having attended college before even computers were ubiquitous (computers were there, but in my day it was still entirely possible to get through college without ever needing to touch one... and I made sure not to, as I hated them, but that is a long story why).

I went to the University of Utah (I had an invitation from Harvard, thanks to my PSAT score National Merit Scholarship, but I passed on Harvard). I chose a major in Poli Sci only because it had the least clearly defined course requirements, i.e., I could elective my way into just about any subject area I wanted and I did. But the U of U also required all students to take at least some classes far outside their field. Thus art majors found themselves in Biology 101 (and flailing around, but trying), and physics majors found themselves in Great Works of Social Science class reading lesser-known works by Karl Marx and Max Weber. Economics majors found themselves in the Survey of Greek Mythology class. As a Poli Sci major I took all those classes and more, plus of course a few Poli Sci classes and stuff on Constitutional Law and history, etc.

Not exactly job training (technically, I was supposed to go on to law school, but chose not to) but I didn't care cuz I just wanted to stuff my brain with stuff.

Soooo, I imagine my experience and what I describe from the late 1980s at the U of U is NOTHING like what it is like in universities and colleges today? Or perhaps some institutions still cling to that idea of a well-rounded education?

I do wonder what is going on in present-day American education. I suspect I would probably be deeply depressed to find out. *sigh*

I have rambled on about this since, even though I was being a bit sarcastically facetious in questioning the "intelligence" of elites, perhaps really the truth is that ALL of the problems right now in America can be traced to a royally messed up educational system over the past two or three decades (or more, I guess). A system which in turn has been driven... as you probably rightly point out... by economic elites more interested in churning out workers to employ (or exploit, same difference) rather than have education be education.

I still assumed, though, that the elites reserved real education for themselves and their kids... but maybe they drank their own Kool-Aid and think this entirely utilitarian version of education is the best education? Even for their own little rug rats? Hmmm.

I will tuck this all away in my head as another topic to write about on Medium someday.