The college admissions scandal, while illegal, acted as an equalizer within the top tiers of wealth. It enabled families with hundreds of thousands of dollars to "buy" admission through bribes, a path previously accessible only to the ultra-wealthy who could donate tens of millions.

When government policy protects wealthy individuals and their investments from the consequences of bad decisions, it eliminates the market's self-correcting mechanism. This prevents downward mobility, stagnates the class structure, and creates a sick, caste-like economy that never truly corrects.

China faces a severe labor market mismatch. Over the last five years, the number of university graduates grew by 40% to nearly 12 million. Simultaneously, the economy shed 20 million jobs, creating a surplus of educated youth with limited opportunities and suppressed wages.

A policy at Stanford offering advantages like extra time for disabled students has resulted in half the student body claiming disability status. This illustrates how well-intentioned policies can create perverse incentives that undermine meritocracy.

A study by sociologist Emma Zhang found an older sibling's arbitrary academic advantage (from being old for their grade) boosts the younger sibling's performance. This demonstrates a powerful non-genetic, non-parental mechanism through which family-level advantages compound and perpetuate broader societal inequality.

The Gaokao produces millions of highly educated graduates, but China's slowing economy and the rise of AI cannot absorb them. This mismatch between educational output and job market capacity creates a potential powder keg of youth unemployment and social unrest.

In a truly meritocratic system, failure isn't attributed to bad luck but is seen as a reflection of personal inadequacy. This removes external explanations for struggle, making failure profoundly shameful and psychologically damaging compared to cultures that believe in fate.

The Gaokao rewards rote memorization and test-taking skills over creativity and boundary-pushing. This educational culture could be a long-term liability for China's ambitions to become a global innovation leader, as it doesn't cultivate the imaginative mindset seen in other tech hubs.

While the educational gap between poor and middle-class students is significant, the chasm between middle-class and wealthy students is more than twice as large, as measured by SAT scores. This disparity is driven by massive private school spending and endowments, creating an extreme advantage for the affluent.