12/30/2009: This is a fascinating piece on the history of the ivy league, from the London Times:
Why are American universities on balance so much better than those of continental Europe? And why do the universities of the rest of the English-speaking world fall, on average, somewhere in the middle? The wealth of these industrialised countries is comparable, so the different qualities of their universities cannot be attributed to economic disparities. But a simple empirical overview confirms that university quality grows out of independence: the more independent a nation’s universities, the better they are likely to be. Ironically, though, the leading American universities never wanted to be as independent as they now are: their greatness was forced on them.
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