>I'd think that the true measure of membership in the ruling class is
>to be able to found a university
That's a measure of being rich, but being rich isn't the same as being in the r.c. That awful reactionary Catholic who founded Domino's, Tom Monaghan, has started a uni or law school or something on reactionary Catholic principles, but that's not going to have much influence on mainstream education policy.
>There are some powerful individuals and families who are members of
>both the power elite and the ruling class, but the former and the
>latter are not the same. The ruling class do not have to legitimate
>their wealth themselves; they generally delegate tasks of management
>and legitimation to the power elite and their hirelings.
>Prestigious universities' raison d'etre, I think, is to select and
>school sons and daughters of the low bourgeoisie, the petty
>producers (doctors, lawyers, etc.), and ambitious members of the
>working class into service to the ruling class.
My experience of Yale was that it had a hybrid function - in part doing what you say. "The better a ruling class is at absorbing the natural leaders of the oppressed class, the more solid & dangerous its rule," as Marx said (or something like it - I'm doing it from memory). But there are also lots of serious ruling class kids there too, and the place is drenched with the images and histories of their ancestors. They're part of the temptation - admission to a joint like Yale is like an invitation to try out for the r.c., even though your surname might not be on a building for a generation or three.
Doug