One Small Step For Equality
There's a delicious piece in today's New York Post describing parents of graduates from some elite New York City private schools rending their garments over the inability of their children to get into Ivy League colleges this year. But what's really important about the story comes past all the sorrow and fury, when the article suggests that an important factor might be the new admissions policies that Harvard (and to a lesser extent other Ivies) implemented to enable more students from middle- and lower-income families to attend. Their generous subsidies have encouraged a broader range of students across the income spectrum to compete for slots, with some lower-income public school applicants beating out the prep school grads.
At Harvard, under its new policies, tuitions are waived entirely for families earning $60,000 a year or less. Families earning between $60,000 and $120,000 pay a reduced rate on a sliding scale that rises to a maximum of 10 percent of their income. The Post quotes Harvard director of undergraduate admissions Marlyn McGrath as saying, "Our low-income initiative has repositioned us. A lot of people are starting to think about Harvard when otherwise their state university might have been on top of their list." One example is public school student Lukasz Zbylut, who just graduated from Brooklyn's New Utrecht High School and will attend Harvard in the fall. Lukasz's parents are Polish immigrants, and his father works in construction in Brooklyn to support his wife and three children.
A study by the Century Foundation found that the students at the nation's most selective colleges are predominantly from high-income families. That analysis shows that 74 percent of students at the nation's top 146 colleges come from the highest socioeconomic quartile and just 3 percent come from the poorest quartile. Only 10 percent came from the bottom half. Put differently, one is twenty-five times as likely to run into a rich student as a poor student at the nation's top 146 colleges.
Larry Summers, the former Harvard president, led the effort to open up the nation's leading university to the best students regardless of their wherewithal to pay. His noble effort has begun to kick in, and other universities with substantially smaller endowments than Harvard's have felt compelled to follow suit in some fashion. The playing field is still far from level. But the applause for new Harvard freshmen like Lukasz Zbylut should drown out whatever tears might be shed on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.
This makes me forgive Larry Summers whatever he
said about women scientists.
July 2, 2008 3:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
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January 18, 2011 4:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
I wish they had this type of thing when I went to college. Can you say student loans? Yikes. But in seriousness, it is great that elite schools are opening themselves up to middle and lower income students.
What do folks think about the whole elite schools thing anyway? As someone who went to one I feel a bit conflicted criticizing it. At the same time, I think this country's class structure, and what elite schools symbolize, is a problem that even opening the schools to larger pools of students won't solve.
Would be interested in hearing thoughts on this. Thanks for this great post.
July 2, 2008 4:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
I went to USC, and then UCLA, as an undergraduate. I TA'd undergraduate philosophy classes at UCLA for several years while I was in graduate school there.
I went to law school at Yale, and I TA'd undergraduate philosophy classes there as well. I also coached undergraduate mock trial teams.
I have to say, I wish that I had gone to Yale (or a comparable school) as an undergraduate. It's not that the smart students are smarter, but there are fewer truly stupid students at Yale. But beyond this, the whole school environment at Yale seemed designed to ensure future success for the students after they left school, whereas UCLA was more like a diploma mill. The students at Yale had higher ambitions, and I think that it's very valuable, in your early twenties, to be around people with high ambitions.
When I was younger, I always turned my nose up at prestigious private universities. My parents never had a lot of money, and as a point of pride I never believed that those schools had anything over the UC system in California. I still believe that the UC system gives tens of thousands of students an excellent education every year. But if you are faced with a choice, I would now advocate Yale, Harvard or Princeton over Berkeley or UCLA any day of the week.
July 3, 2008 12:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
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December 20, 2010 8:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
PR to protect its tax status and its zillion dollar endowment?
Them Harvard boys (and girls) are some damn smart cookies!
July 2, 2008 8:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
All's well that ends well.
July 3, 2008 2:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
At long last, some real action on this issue. Congratulations, Harvard.
July 3, 2008 2:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Please, sir, can I have some more," Oliver pleaded.
July 4, 2008 12:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
What do folks think about the whole elite schools thing anyway? As someone who went to one I feel a bit conflicted criticizing it.
As someone who also went to one, I don't have any problem at all criticizing it.
Of course, I also got kicked out. But that wasn't really their fault.
July 3, 2008 2:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
What do folks think about the whole elite schools thing anyway? As someone who went to one I feel a bit conflicted criticizing it.
As someone who also went to one, I don't have any problem at all criticizing it.
Of course, I also got kicked out. But that wasn't really their fault.
July 3, 2008 3:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
Getting kicked out of Harvard, if that's where you went, takes some doing. Congrats.
July 4, 2008 3:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Some people have this silly idea that colleges and universities exist to educate students. They don't. they exist to provide socialization of the future leaders in how to function socially and social networks for them to function in. That has been the main function of the Ivy League schools since the WW II GI Bill students graduated anyway.
It is natural that the families of the upper classes want their children to have all the advantages to follow in their footsteps. Connections and money are the route into the schools that provide the best social networks.
This utterly radical idea that there should be a meritocracy of intelligence and acceptance of students who need education instead of social networks into the upper classes is just a blip on the screen. Random noise. Here today, gone tonight. It won't even wait around for tomorrow.
You don't think the upper social classes want their children to have to actually compete to keep their status, do you? Birth and wealth should be the primary method of entry into the ruling class, not competence. I mean, where would George W. Bush have been if he had found it necessary to actually compete and actually get an education in exchange for his time spent in Harvard? [The University of Texas Law School rejected him.] Or if McCain, the son and grandson of admirals, had had to compete for his slot at Annapolis or to get the very coveted slot in flight school?
[I'm not sure if this qualifies as snark or cynicism.]
July 3, 2008 5:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
I saw the piece in New York Magazine a few days ago. At first, I was genuinely confused as to whether it was satire or not, so absurd did these UES Dalton School Helicopter Parents seem.
The changes at Harvard are a step in the right direction. All we need now is for the Federal Government to recognize that the funding of education is a problem that disproportionately squeezes the middle class, and to match the Harvard funding plan.
July 3, 2008 6:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
Last Time I checked, Barack Obama was not exactly from a priveledged background when he was accepted to Harvard Law School.
I realize that this article is pertaining to undergraduate admissions so the comparison is inexact, but at the time, he was not exactly Ivy League material from a "family" standpoint. And clearly a former President of the Law Review becoming President of the US is not exactly bad publicity for the University.
Seems like a pretty smart policy to me.
July 3, 2008 7:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
This is an interesting and timely analysis of some of the changes announced by major universities, beginning with Harvard, with the goal of attracting more lower and middle income students.
It's a great concept, and it's addressing an issue that this father of three college students at one private college (Northwestern (sans legacy :))knows about all too well. As my son enters the freshman class in the fall, the annual cost inclusive of room and Board now exceeds $50,000. I'm actually at the point in my life where I have to decide whether to cash in all or most of my 401(k) money to pay off college loans, an option I never would have expected to consider when my kids were young.
My children all went to public school, but I can tell you that my sister's son, my nephew, graduated from one of Dalton's "competitors" in Riverdale, and there were still plenty of legacy admission decisions to all of the Ivies (Harvard included), etc. But like my son and his classmates who graduated from public school this year, I think that all seniors applying to "elite" AND non-elite schools faced waitlists and deferrments and ultimately rejections in record numbers, notwithstanding the fact that they had SAT scores and GPAs, and dozens of community service activities, and singing, and football, etc. etc. in excess of their brothers and sisters who graduated just a few years ago.
The bottom-line is that I see little evidence at this point that the parents at Dalton are feeling cheated (slight tongue in the cheek) as a result of new financial policies at Harvard et al. As you note, there is a bumper crop of bright young graduates this year. There are also factors such as the increased use by universities of the so-called "common application", which enables students to apply to a dozen colleges or more with the flick of a computer mouse (and generally just one college essay fits all). At this point, I think that these are the factors that the folks at Dalton confronted, rather than, at this point, an influx of new students from less wealthy backgrounds flooding the hallowed halls of the Ivy League and similarly situated universities.
I think Harvard and other colleges deserve credit for implementing new incentives to attract a broader base of students. But I think we have to wait and see the effects of these programs, and I think the Post was just having a little fun with the grieving parents at Dalton whose kids could not get into their first choice of college this year.
July 3, 2008 7:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
P.S. I am not complaining about my own circumstances by the way. Although I wasn't able to save enough to send my kids to college, I still feel lucky that, unlike most parents in this country, I can commit to paying for my kids' undergraduate educations, even if it means using 401(k) money that most parents in this country do not have, and even if it is probably one of the most economically irrational actions a middle-aged and middle class guy could take. My grandmother, rest in piece, came to this country from what is now Belarus when she was 16 and she always valued education (she spoke seven languages in perfect yiddish with no real formal education), and I like to think that she would have me do it this way.
July 3, 2008 7:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
Still no editing function, darn. For Grandmother's sake, I meant "rest in peace".
July 3, 2008 8:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
What do folks think about the whole elite schools thing anyway? As someone who went to one I feel a bit conflicted criticizing it.
As someone who went to one, I've followed their own policy on financial aid on making donations: one respects quality, but gives on the basis of need. Consequently, I haven't donated in years, choosing to support public universities and other causes of greater urgency.
In short: the Ivies and other elite universities deserve credit for some really good things they do:
1) They do provide a very potent social 'elevator' for the small number of undergrads from non-privileged backgrounds they admit, and they're moderately serious about expanding that number.
2) They enable serious scholarship of truly abstruse topics (like the very biggest and richest of the public universities) that most state legislatures are not willing to support.
3) They make some effort, in their very real role as acculturators of future elites from all backgrounds, to instill a perspective broader than the next quarterly report.
That said, they are not the Holy Grail, and they have their failings, like every human institution. For the last decade, their 'brands' have been grossly overvalued in terms of the actual value they add (though the high value they get, in itself, in a slightly perverse positive feedback loop, increases the value they add). But that's been true in every marketplace, as we move from a class society back to a society of estates. Proving one's 'distinction' is increasingly important in a world where ascribed status is all important, and the elite US universities have thrived as global status-ascribers...for better or for worse, or some of both.
July 3, 2008 9:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
As someone who went to one, I have refused to give them a dime. (OK, so it has to do with the "marching" band.) They are constantly on some multi-billion dollar campaign or another, but I disagree with the way the money's being prioritized. Since I can't earmark it (because I can't give millions), I'll hold off.
Also, they didn't let my sister in which amazed and disappointed me -- she's upper-middle-income, with much higher grades and scores than I had, and a comparable non-school resume. What a difference 15 years makes.
Also, cswartout - that's a fabulous avatar you've got there.
July 3, 2008 10:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
Generous subsidies? Hardly!
Harvard (as well as a number of other over-endowed schools) is desperately trying to maintain their tax-free status.
The government is beginning to look at this schools with 100s of millions (if not thousands of millions) of dollars in endowment and wondering if a "for-profit" label is more apt.
And still, the universities beg for money. Why? Kinda like who wins with the most toys...
I hope in the future that all universities would drop the cost of college altogether -- as tuitions have risen at a rate far higher than inflation for at least 25 years now.
July 3, 2008 2:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
PS When I said "drop", a more accurate word would be "reduce"...
July 3, 2008 2:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
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