an/(one's) ivory tower

A place or a social circle that is characterized by effete academic intelligence and thus is out of touch with or aloof from the realities of life. I don't put much weight in the advice of a bunch of economists living in their ivory towers who've never worked a real job in their lives. It seemed easy to solve all the world's problems when I was living in an ivory tower. Now that I'm out of college, I realize things are so much more complex than I'd imagined.

Common Names:

Name	Pronounced	Usage
Totty	TAHT-ee	English
Mirko	-	Serbian, Croatian, Slovene, Macedonian, Italian
Tovah	-	Hebrew
Niklaus	-	German (Swiss)
Porter	['pɔ:tə]
Alf (3)	-	Swedish, Norwegian, Danish