Unprestigious academia

Recently, I found myself scrolling through a job posting at a prestigious university. For a moment, I imagined what it would feel like to work there only to remember that I already have most of what that job offers: a tenure-track position, engaged students and resources to pursue my research. And yet, the name of that exclusive institution stirred something familiar: the idea that I could still be more if I worked at an elite school.

According to Thomas Spiegler and Antje Bednarek, first-generation students “are more likely to study […] at less prestigious universities.” As a first-generation student myself, I did the opposite. I went to McGill, thinking that its prestige would make up for everything I lacked: the right connections, the unspoken knowledge of how academia works and the sense of belonging. I was determined to prove myself in a place that, I hoped, would let some of its reputation rub off on me.

But I was constantly reminded of the distance between my background and the circles I was now moving in. I remember a professor asking me which private high school I had attended, only naming the most exclusive ones in Montreal. When I answered with the name of my public school, he paused. The assumption seemed clear: students like me didn’t end up here or, if they did, their out-of-placeness was usually obvious. Data from Dr. Spiegler and Dr. Bednarek shows that “[t]he higher the social strata students are from, the more likely they succeed in educational institutions,” so my success as a student could naturally be interpreted as reflective of a better pedigree.

As Ryan D. Ward et al.  noted, “cultural capital includes the knowledge students and their families have about the variables involved in getting into college […] and persisting in college once there,” from navigating applications to finding mentors and maximizing resources. While my experience as a first-generation student at McGill forced me to master these things, my fake-it-till-you-make-it approach was often exhausting, and I still felt like an outsider.

When the time came to apply to doctoral programs, the hierarchy of prestige came into even sharper focus. On paper, the Université du Québec à Montréal was the perfect choice: the most appropriate supervisor for my project was there, and the department was vibrant and innovative. But saying that I was leaving the tradition-steeped halls of McGill for younger, less-celebrated UQAM sometimes felt like admitting failure, as if others might think I couldn’t keep up. In reality, what I found was a place where an extremely diverse student body shared physical, academic and ideological spaces. I discovered the energy of teaching people who were not destined by birth, class, or family background to be in university, but who had nonetheless made their way there.

When I began applying for jobs, I saw how prestige works like an invisible filter. Despite years of going above and beyond to prove my worth as a scholar, interviews came exclusively from public universities (there were no job openings in Canada in my field when I finished my PhD, so I turned to the American market), while elite private institutions did not even seem to consider my application. According to Andrew Nevin in a 2019 article published in the Canadian Review of Sociology, “if institutional or departmental prestige is considered as a signal of competence early in the [hiring] process, it is more likely that qualified low-status candidates are disregarded, which reproduces social closure in the network.” As a result, PhDs from lesser-known universities are unlikely to be hired at elite institutions, or sometimes any institution at all.

Now, as an assistant professor, I work at an open university that exists largely outside the prestige economy. My students include first-gens, student parents, Indigenous learners, people who live in remote areas and mature students. These are not the students that typically appear in promotional brochures, but they are the people for whom higher education can be most life-changing. Because we have been conditioned to equate prestige with greatness, the very idea of calling my university unprestigious feels like a betrayal, but working at a non-traditional institution has shown me the quiet power of inclusive, less-prestigious academic environments: the often overlooked but deeply transformative force that emerges in places where access, experimentation and care are prioritized over reputation.

None of this means excellence and rigour don’t matter. However, if we see prestige not only in reputation, but in inclusivity, we begin to recognize the worth of institutions that expand, rather than narrow, the field of opportunity. While I had the chance to study at McGill because I was privileged in other ways (bilingual white male living in the Montreal region), some first-generation students are less fortunate and need specific spaces where they can grow and learn. Since “first- generation students’ may also replicate the oppressive mechanism” that underpins academic prestige, it is important for first-generation professors to mentor and encourage students who come from similar backgrounds.

Even now that I have “made it” by traditional standards, I still wrestle with how deeply prestige remains entangled in my sense of academic worth. As conversations around equity and access continue to reshape higher education, we must challenge that entanglement and open a long-overdue conversation about unlearning academic elitism. And that will require all of us to look at the values and preconceptions that academia perpetuates, from admissions to hiring committees.If universities truly want to model equity, they need to broaden what they reward: community-engaged research, teaching that reaches marginalized students and scholarship that emerges outside traditional centres of power. Prestige may always cast a long shadow in academia, but we can at least notice when it blinds us to the transformative work happening in the margins. And perhaps, if we listen more closely to the stories of those who find themselves thriving outside its glow, we might redefine what being more really means.