The ‘Missing Middle’ at Ivy-Plus Colleges

Dave_Berry · February 21

"A new report finds the middle class is heavily underrepresented at elite private colleges -- and boosting low- and middle-income student representation at such colleges could increase U.S. income mobility.

Students with similar test scores but different household incomes attend selective colleges at different rates, according to the latest report from Opportunity Insights, a group that has published groundbreaking research on how colleges may affect students' income mobility.

But the results contained some surprises. For example, middle-class students attend elite institutions at rates lower than students from the lowest income quintile." ...

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/02/21/middle-class-heavily-underrepresented-top-private-colleges-report-finds

AlmostThere2018 · February 21

This is interesting to me b/c when we visited Barnard a few years ago, my D attended a class with a friend of a friend who was a freshman and she made this same point anecdotally. She said it seemed most students were either on a full need based scholarship or well off and not much in between.

Her comment stuck with me. Interesting to see the data bear her out...

Eeyore123 · February 21

student representation at such colleges could increase U.S. income mobility.

The absolute number of students we are talking about is so small, it isn’t going to have a macro impact.

1NJParent · February 21

This result isn't surprising and has been known for awhile. The higher income group gets a boost because of legacy, athletic and other preferences, as well as other factors that are much more correlated with income than test scores) in holistic admissions. The lower income group (which has a significant percentage of URMs, 1st gen among them) gets a boost because of those preferences. The middle income group doesn't fare well because there're finite and more-or-less fixed number of available seats at these colleges, and some middle income families were put off for financial reasons and/or by the difficulty of gaining admissions at these colleges, especially for their income group.

roycroftmom · February 21

Hence the donut-hole..

ucbalumnus · February 21

https://opportunityinsights.org/paper/undermatching/ is the actual report. Need to dig through it to find the actual numbers, including the definition of "middle class" (which may not necessarily be the same as how the term and related ones like "donut hole" are used on these forums).

CupCakeMuffins · February 21

For some reason whenever someone tries to point out this reality on CC forum, they get rude and offensive comments and threads get locked.

chb088 · February 21

No surprise here. Middle Class kids don't get financial help, even though their families still can't afford these schools. You either need to be wealthy to afford full freight, or have a really low EFC. Merit scholarships can be difficult to obtain, or even non-existent (Georgetown).

amsunshine · February 21

This is certainly not a surprise -- the middle class has been financially shut out of these institutions.

PetraMC · February 21

Well it's pushing $80K per year to attend my kids' colleges. Real shocker that the middle class can't afford it.

In my state, tuition is free at public universities for those making under $125K. They just have to come up with the other costs of living on campus, or commute.

vistajay · February 21

Some schools are trying to address this issue by raising the financial threshold for FA to reach more in the middle class. Stanford, Rice and now USC come to mind. Princeton has always had better FA. But no doubt there are many, many students from middle class to upper middle class backgrounds who have the academic chops to thrive at Ivies and similar schools, who for financial sanity reasons attend their state flagship or a school which gave them merit aid. And there is nothing wrong with that.

I think the result of all this is a watering down of the Ivy brand. When I encounter an Ivy student or recent grad, I am no longer immediately impressed and assume brilliance. I assume they are bright, but just as bright as lots of other kids, and that their family either has lots of money or little.

chb088 · February 21

@vistajay Yep. I assume they are bright, but not necessarily more brilliant than 99% of kids. That or their parents bought their way in. I think Rob Lowe was talking about how proud he was of his kids (Duke and Stanford?) and I was thinking, yeah, I am sure they got in on their merits.

ucbalumnus · February 21

https://opportunityinsights.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/coll_undermatch_exec_summary.pdf classifies parental income level by quintiles.

Quintl* Range** % attending*
                any***  Ivy-Plus****
1       0-25k   51       7.3
2       25-50k  55       4.7
3       50-80k  57       4.5
4       80-130k 62       4.4
5       130k+   74.5    10.8

* From Figure 1 of https://opportunityinsights.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/coll_undermatch_exec_summary.pdf
** From https://dqydj.com/average-median-top-household-income-percentiles/
*** any selective college with SAT 1080
**** "Ivy-Plus" college with SAT 1400

The forum "middle class" is probably mostly in the top quintile ($130k+), based on common forum conventional wisdom like this:

chb088 wrote: »

No surprise here. Middle Class kids don't get financial help,

Note that the Harvard NPC at https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid/net-price-calculator suggests a net price of $15k for a student from a family of 3 with parental income of $130k. To get no financial aid, the parental income has to be increased to $265k (above the 95th percentile).

vistajay · February 21

@chb088 , I am not quite that cynical, as I don't have any reason to suspect that Lowe's kids did not have great grades and scores and do well at their respective colleges. Perhaps the something extra that got them in was their family name or donor potential, or perhaps they were just full pay, ED applicants who met the academic criteria as well. Students who have the means to be full pay and can apply ED have such a huge admissions advantage at these schools

chb088 · February 21

@vistajay Probably all of the above for his kids...which I couldn't do for my kids. And @ucbalumnus Income is all relative to COL.

ucbalumnus · February 21

chb088 wrote: »

Income is all relative to COL.

There are only 6 metros where $265k is less than the 90th percentile household income, according to https://dqydj.com/income-percentile-by-city-calculator/ . Even in those places, those which have entries in the calculator above on that page have $265k at least at the 84th percentile household income.

chb088 · February 21

Well I am not making anything close to that!

OneMoreToGo2021 · February 21

When I encounter an Ivy student or recent grad, I am no longer immediately impressed and assume brilliance.

Honestly, it's never been about brilliance anyway.

Kids at the T20s are bright for sure, probably the bulk of them fall in the 1.5-2.5 standard deviations above the mean range. Very few truly exceptional kids at the schools, though, even at HYPS. Maybe 5%, triple or quadruple that figure at places like MIT and Caltech. Certainly not more than that.

chb088 · February 21

Well overall, I agree with the article's findings. Middle class kids are choosing to attend elsewhere due to cost. I only see it going more in that direction.

ucbalumnus · February 21

chb088 wrote: »

Well overall, I agree with the article's findings. Middle class kids are choosing to attend elsewhere due to cost.

Cost or non-admission? The paper's presumed middle class appears to be the three middle quintiles of income ($25k to $130k), who would pay $15k or lower net price at Harvard.

chb088 · February 21

Hmm, well I can't speak for everyone, but in our case, applying elsewhere due to cost. And I don't really think only the low and high income are able to gain admission, while middle class kids are not. I think that is the point of the article.

The ‘Missing Middle’ at Ivy-Plus Colleges

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