Academic elitism is a charge sometimes levied at academic institutions and academic more broadly; use of the term "ivory tower " often carries with it an implicit critique of academic elitism. "Academic elitism" is also related to the concept of "intellectual elitism".
Academic elitism suggests that in highly competitive academic environments only those individuals who have engaged in scholarship are deemed to have anything worthwhile to say, or do. It suggests that individuals who have not engaged in such scholarship are cranks .
Academic elitism is also an ideological belief that only those who attended the most elite or prestigious universities (such as Ivy League schools) are capable of obtaining wealth and power. Proponents of academic elitism justify this belief by claim that this is just a by-product of capitalism .
Academic elitist views and beliefs may come from a variety of sources.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Academic elitism.