In The Academic Revolution (1968), Christopher Jencks and David Riesman describe what they call “the university college” as both the instrument of meritocratic sorting and the guardian of meritocratic values. This institution grants the “diplomatic passports” (BAs) that enable students to cross boundaries of race, religion, sex, and economic difference on their way to their socially ordained destinations: the upper-middle classes, where such prejudices and particulars are finally left behind and the management of capital can proceed most efficiently.

Two paragraphs that bring it all together: