Original conclusion which was challenged -
Interesting rebuttal draws distinctions between flagships and regionals.
At least at my top public U, my only response is “duh.” (Not to you, to the title.)
Not surprised with the states taking funding away for so many years.
Classic: Wisconsin’s Scott Walker, a college drop-out himself, took several hundred million out of the jewel of a state U system, and basically funneled that towards a stadium in Milwaukee for a professional team. Apparently Wisconsinites thought this was an excellent use of funds. Because he’s still governor.
And then! Scott Walker got rid of tenure except in name only. Any professor can be gotten rid of now if a team of Scott Walker’s appointees decide they have to go. The result? The professors who could leave left immediately. The ones who can leave continue to do so.
Wisconsin is dropping in the rankings. Coincidence???
I’d be interested in digging into the data a little deeper to test certain hypotheses before deciding that increased higher education funding would address this issue.
My guess is that the decline in students from the bottom 40% of the income scale attending top colleges results from a combination of factors. From 1999 - 2013, the “selective” colleges became increasingly selective, requiring applicants to have ever increasing GPAs, test scores and varied ECs. At the same time, the quality and outcome of many public K-12 schools declined, producing fewer graduates that were adequately prepared to have the GPAs, test scores and ECs necessary to gain admittance to the top schools. The bottom 40% of the income scale attends primarily public schools and is at the mercy of the declining quality of public education. As the quality of public K-12 education declines, fewer and fewer children who attend will be qualified to be admitted to the top schools. If this is the reason for the decline, then additional funding or change needs to be addressed to the K-12 school system to make a difference.
Another guess (not my top guess, but a possibility that is suggested by certain trends) is that there is some link between culture, ability, intelligence and income. If that’s true, as our economy moves away from manufacturing and physical jobs to more skilled jobs, the jobs that provide the highest income will require increasing levels of intelligence, cultural attributes and ability. Conversely, people without the intelligence, soft skills and/or ability to do complex jobs will be increasingly concentrated in low wage jobs or even unemployed. In 2013, income more closely aligned with key cultural attributes, ability and intelligence than in 1999. So it isn’t the income of the bottom 40% that’s the issue, it’s that fewer of the 40% have the cultural attributes, ability and intelligence they’d need to do the work to be admitted to the top colleges. This is a theory that will never, ever be tested because the potential answers - no matter what data supported them - would be culturally radioactive.
@milee30 Culture and income absolutely do NOT affect a child’s intelligence. What CAN affect the child’s ability to learn effectively are issues of unnaddressed language barriers, hunger/malnourishment, exposure to learning from a young age, and parent involvement. All of which are issues that disproportionately affect students from lower socioeconmic status, but no child is inherently less able or intelligent simply due to cultural differences from the “norm” and how much money they were (or were not) born into. This is why the “acheivement gap”, better labelled as “opportunity gap” exists; NOT because of race, ethnicity, or culture, but because lower income students end up at schools in lower income neighborhoods that do not have enough funding or support to help those students succeed and overcome the barriers to education that their middle class suburban peers do not have to worry about.
Oh, absolutely agree that income and culture do not necessarily cause a child’s intelligence to be a certain number. And to be clear, when I use “culture” I mean in the context of attitude and habits surrounding work and education.
My point is that the underlying assumption in the original post and in the referenced article is that intelligence and ability is evenly distributed across all income groups and that if a lower income group is increasingly less represented at college, that is an issue with the college admissions or funding process. As you mention, there are issues that are more likely to be present in lower socioeconomic groups - from environment to norms. As our society and economy changes, I suspect the trend for fewer students from the lowest income segment going to top colleges will continue. Intelligence and ability is not evenly distributed across all income levels and trends in our economy will continue to stratify the segments.
Some of the barriers to education at the K-12 level are due to funding; there are also issues with how effectively the education system is designed, the culture of the families regarding education, the safety and security of the overall environment and many other factors that are outside school control.
“Children living in low-income households who endure family instability and emotionally distant caregivers are at risk of having impaired cognitive abilities according to new research from the University of Rochester.”
I haven’t read the article since it is not free, but the title suggests the issue is with “top public universities”, not top colleges in general. Increases in FA during the period you listed have resulted in students in the bottom 40% income families you mentioned having a net tuition/R&B/books… cost of ~$0 at HYPSM type colleges. However, top publics are a different story and are usually not as affordable for lower income students.
There are a variety of reasons for this trend. One of the reasons is that a good portion of top publics have being increasing the portion of students in higher tuition groups, such as out of state and international. This strategy can help meet the college’s budget, but is expected to decrease the portion of lower income students.
While there are some correlations between achievement and income or cognitive defects and income, there are still plenty of high achieving lower income students. For example, the study at https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/2013a_hoxby.pdf found 39% of high achieving students (by combination of GPA + scores) had below median US income. Yes, 39% is less than the 50% that would occur in a random distribution, but it is still a huge number of students. The study found this group generally did not attend selective colleges because “the vast majority of low-income high achievers do not apply to any selective college.”
You can look at how many state flagship universities use legacy preference in their admissions criteria to see an example of a practice that supports the article’s claims.
Google the title of the article, to find a link that bypasses the paywall.
First, the author moves the “goal post” by changing his criteria from selective public colleges to “the most prestigious public universities” (=whatever colleges the author picks). Then it all somehow becomes a plot by Trump and those darn Republicans.
What could cause such a drop? Perhaps an increase in enrollment (from 12,000 undergrads in 1999 to 21,000 in 2013)? The % of OOS students has gone from 14.5% to 48.7%. If I had to guess, the actual number of lower SES students is about the same, but UA is seeing an significant increase in OOS students (who can afford OOS tuition cost).
URM enrollment has gone from 9.4% to 12.3%.
Looking at the CDS info, the school hasn’t gotten significantly more selective.
1998-99
Percent in top 10th of high school graduating class 31.7%
Percent in top quarter of high school graduating class 60.7%
Percent in top half of high school graduating class 86.3%
Percent in bottom half of high school graduating class 13.7%
Percent in bottom quarter of high school graduating class 1.6%
2013-2014
Percent in top 10th of high school graduating class 28%
Percent in top quarter of high school graduating class 57%
Percent in top half of high school graduating class 88%
Percent in bottom half of high school graduating class 12%
Percent in bottom quarter of high school graduating class 1%
SAU is significantly cheaper, and it’s also seen a huge jump in enrollment, which is most likely in-state students.
I don’t doubt that at some “of the most prestigious public universities” that the % of lower SES students has decreased. However, I would think most of that has been due to increases in enrollment and a focus at some of these schools to recruit OOS students. One factor would be decreases in state level funding, hence the need for more full pay OOS students.
No, I think the author wants to focus on the biggest trees and ignore the forest…
Now I can’t get this song out of my head 
“Wisconsin is dropping in the rankings.” ~ Dustyfeathers
Reports of Wisconsin’s alleged “demise” are greatly exaggerated.
Wisconsin dropped from 44th to 46th overall in the 2018 U.S. News rankings. Big whoop - elite private Duke dropped also.
From article dated 12 September 2017:
Washington Monthly rankings: Wisc ROSE 2 places from last year.
Times Higher Education World University rankings: Wisc ROSE 2 places from last year.
Times Higher Education World Reputation rankings: Wisc ROSE 3 places from last year.
https://news.wisc.edu/uw-madison-ranked-12th-best-public-college-by-u-s-news-world-report/
"While there are some correlations between achievement and income or cognitive defects and income, there are still plenty of high achieving lower income students. For example, the study at https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/2013a_hoxby.pdf found 39% of high achieving students (by combination of GPA + scores) had below median US income. Yes, 39% is less than the 50% that would occur in a random distribution, but it is still a huge number of students. "
Since the study analyzed only the students who chose to take the SAT or ACT (about 40% of students everywhere), it’s reasonable that this is a self-selected population. Interesting data. Wish we had similar analysis for the same time period referenced in the original study 1999 - 2013.
From this second study, the authors conclude that of the 40% of students who take the SAT or ACT in 2008, there were high scoring students at all income levels. Unfortunately, it can’t tell us how achievement was distributed for the income levels of all students (including the 60% who didn’t take the SAT or ACT at all in 2008) nor did it cover 1999 - 2013. If we had the data for all students and for multiple years, that would let us know what percent of the bottom 40% income group had test high test scores in 1999 - 2013 and we could see if there was a change over that period of time.
Without knowing the scores for the overall population of students in the bottom 40% income group and without knowing if those scores changed from 1999-2013, it’s hard to know how many of the bottom 40% students were even candidates for selective colleges during any of those years. Could be that more bottom 40% students were candidates for selective colleges in 1999 but fewer had high enough test scores to be candidates in 2013 which would explain the trend noted in the first study… no way to know without that information.