What does the meaning mean?

Question

Could you tell me the meaning of the last sentence of the followings? Thank you.

There was, of course, an explicit message in the Shengda students' actions as well: a diploma from the "right" university is incomparably more valuable than just any old degree. Meritocracy be damned: pedigree counts.

(Shengda is a university in China)

Answer 1

it means if 100 applicants are up for a job at a law office 99 of them were on the deans list of a community college and 1 has so so grades at Harvard....the person from Harvard would be picked because of where he studied

Answer 2

A diploma from the "right" university is incomparably more valuable than just any old degree is talking about people's perceptions of different schools - for example a degree from Yale or Harvard is worth more than one from East Podunk U in the eyes of 95% of possible employers,
Meritocracy be damned: pedigree counts says that how ever much a degree merits attention to the work needed to get it & the over all education it signifies, the pedigree of the university counts for more with most people. Example - a degree from Oxford gets a lot more attention than one from Anystate U no matter if he just scraped through Oxford & you were validictorian at Anystate.
Hope this helps.

Answer 3

It means that the students thought getting a degree from a prestigious university by any means necessary, is more important than having to work hard to obtain one from a good university that is not as respected or well-known. In other words, it is better to say they graduated form say, Harvard even if they have to cheat, rather than graduate from an "unknown, small town college" in China.

Answer 4

Prestige is more important than knowledge. A degree from a prestigious college means more an degree from an ordinary college.