Can everything be learned at Harvard and Yale?

My alma mater, the University of Texas at Austin, has an unseemly connection to last week’s admissions scandal. A tennis coach was fired after he allegedly accepted $100,000 to facilitate the admission of a non-tennis-playing but well-connected student. The coach is pleading not guilty.

Similar eye-opening scams occurred at other “elite” universities, as well. It turns out that rich people are willing to commit crimes to ensure that their children are admitted to the most prestigious universities. And— equally eye-opening—some coaches, administrators and admissions officers are readily willing to admit otherwise unqualified students. All it takes is money.

The scandal also provides a reminder of the more-or-less legal ways in which unqualified students are admitted to exclusive universities on the basis of well-timed donations by wealthy parents. For example, Charles Kushner’s $2.5 million donation to Harvard at about the time young Jared was applying for admission has come up several times.

But the backdrop for all of these shady activities is the extent to which many colleges and universities—by design or in effect—are set up to generate a self-perpetuating cycle. The parents of rich kids want the best for their progeny and are willing to expend considerable effort, cash and integrity to enroll them in prestigious universities.

In turn, universities work hard to enhance their attractiveness by providing well-appointed dorms, lush recreational and social facilities, good football programs, fraternities and sororities, fine dining, lavish amenities and the highest-possible rankings from the organizations that produce such lists.

Somewhere in this mix of prestige, luxury and networking a certain amount of education occurs, as well.

But in many respects what I’m describing here is a misleading caricature of American higher education.

My career in academia began when the University of Texas’s aspirations to elitism were probably less intense. (Hey, they let me in!) But after several years of teaching college writing as a graduate assistant at U.T. and then as an adjunct at San Antonio’s Trinity University, I spent the greater part of three decades teaching freshmen at Del Mar College, a community college in Corpus Christi, Texas.

There was nothing elite about our 12,000-student institution. The facilities were excellent and constantly improving, but there were no luxurious dorms or gourmet dining halls, no fraternities, no football team or well-connected alumni. In short, no one is going to confuse Del Mar College with the University of Texas.

Nevertheless, a significant portion of American higher education takes place in community colleges— around 40 percent of all students attend them—as well as in less-elite colleges and universities. And American academia as a whole is perhaps better characterized by what takes place in those classrooms rather than at Harvard or U.T.

For example, there’s a certain kind of education that was more likely to occur in my classes at Del Mar College than in the more homogeneous classes I taught as an adjunct at more exclusive—and expensive— schools.

Many of my students were smart and capable and could have succeeded at U.T. or any other university. But they lacked the academic background and financial resources. And they didn’t have parents with the money and motivation to tip the scales in their favor.

Other students were less capable and motivated, of course, but they never became a drag on more talented students, who often served as role models for the rest. My students’ average age was 27. Many were Hispanic or black or Asian. Some had been in the service, in Iraq or Afghanistan. Some had been in prison. Others were working full-time; their distractions were jobs and children, rather than keg parties.

But everyone was there for a reason that had nothing to do with prestige or having a good time or making connections. And the diverse mix of capacities, backgrounds and experiences created, I contend, an environment where students learned things— besides how to write—that they would never encounter at Harvard or Yale.

That’s worth a lot. And nobody has to bribe anybody to get in.