Anyone who doesn’t realize that, whether for their attenders or their conductors, colleges and universities are the current equivalent of salons and levees and courts should look harder. If no other institution here confers the titles of nobility forbidden by the Constitution, they do. Or something very much like it.

Paul Fussell (1924-2012) American cultural and literary historian, author, academic

Class: A Guide Through the American Status System, ch. 6 (1983)