http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/15/opinion/sunday/how-and-why-you-diversify-colleges.html
The article was interesting though it didn’t discuss a lot that will be new to anyone who hangs out here. But the comments…I wasn’t expecting that much anger. Especially as the article is about efforts to achieve socioeconomic diversity, not race based diversity.
If there were that much anger about limited SES diversity in highly selective colleges, there would be a lot of pressure to eliminate legacy preferences in admissions and otherwise generally alter admission criteria and processes to avoid overly favoring applicants from high SES backgrounds.
But most people look to visible aspects like race and ethnicity, not SES, when “diversity” is mentioned. Because SES diversity mostly stays under the radar, and because most colleges have limitations on their financial aid budgets, most colleges with good financial aid need to admit only a small percentage of high need students to avoid overrunning their financial aid budgets. This does not mean having to be need-aware in admissions, but they certainly can and do design their criteria and processes in ways that favor high SES applicants.
Completely agree about the harsh realities of college admissions, ucbalumnus. But that’s an unfortunate thing. Perhaps this is nothing new. Elite-level private higher education has always been in part about perpetuating class privilege across generations. That model was challenged for a time by the rise of mass public higher education in the post-WW II era, the development of some truly great public flagships, and the turn toward meritocratic admissions standards (and the concomitant de-emphasis on traditional “old-boy” networks) at the elite privates beginning in the 1970s. All of that tended to democratize higher education and create ladders of upward mobility for large numbers of students. But we seem to be reverting to older norms. Public universities are being defunded in a way that pushes inexorably toward higher tuition and more SES-based exclusion. And private colleges and universities have defined “merit” in a way that clearly favors high SES applicants—perhaps not the traditional Yankee bluebloods of the past, but the sons and daughters of high-SES doctors, lawyers, engineers, college professors, and business executives, to the systematic disadvantage of the less advantaged.
It’s heartening to see a few institutions like Amherst making serious efforts to buck these trends, with some success. But I fear few schools will have Amherst’s combination of resources and institutional commitment to make it happen. Kudos to Amherst nonetheless for having the moral commitment, vision, and courage to chart an alternative course.
Pell grant percentages at the schools named as finalists for the JKCF award, based on http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-liberal-arts-colleges/economic-diversity-among-top-ranked-schools and related pages:
24% Amherst
18% Pomona
17% Rice
15% Stanford
13% Davidson
Other highly selective private schools not named for the award:
30% Columbia
25% USC
24% Grinnell
24% Vassar
23% Smith
21% Emory
20% Williams
However, probably close to 50% of families have income levels that would make their kids eligible for Pell grants (though not necessarily the maximum amount), based on trials with FAFSA4caster.
Not sure you can determine the will and efforts of top colleges based on which kids choose to matriculate.
Sometimes, in an effort to make and prove a point, they have to posit that the right efforts simply are absent. Strikes me as a bit too simplistic. On one hand, they cite need blind as if it were empty and miss the holistic aspect. On the other, they admit these kids are often not applying. If what they’e advocating is better mentoring and advising from earlier ages, I’m all for it.
And anyone know which colleges are using academic indexing for other than athletes?
No, without affirmative action they will be more Asian and more female.
@OHMomof2 But the comments…I wasn’t expecting that much anger.
Exactly! I too was surprised by the vitriol of some of the responses. I get that people have different opinions regarding college admissions, but isn’t moving the lower class up something everyone can get behind? Mobility of the lower class certainly benefits the economy and the country in so many ways. And education is a key component of mobility. I was particularly surprised to see the comments suggesting that the students given these opportunities were likely not to be successful. As if being poor, means you can’t also be smart?
Ii think the reactions were based off the assumption that if these kids get spots at Amherst, then there will be fewer spots for my kid. Would be interesting to see if the college profiled was a school a couple rungs below the elite.
I do take exception to Levy’s “outrageous” comment, however (and I speak as someone who’s parents’ income was solidly in the bottom quartile when growing up).
If admissions is by some objective measure, would the ratios be that different?
Is there no reason to believe that ability/potential/talent (however you define it) is not spread equally across the socioeconomic spectrum?
While improved class mobility is generally good for society as a whole, including in allowing talent to flourish regardless of whether it was born into a rich or poor family (instead of being wasted due to birth into a lower class that is “locked in”), lots of people may be only looking in terms of their own kids having to face additional competition from talented kids from the poor families. I.e. helping talented kids from poor families go to college is positive-sum for society and those who live in it in the long run, but zero-sum when looking narrowly that this year’s college admissions competition. But the latter is more immediately visible to many people.
You mean schools like (with Pell grant percentage):
60% CUNY City College
64% UC Merced
66% North Carolina A&T
67% UT El Paso
68% Florida A&M
73% CSU Los Angeles
79% North Carolina Central
We were strictly looking at colleges that were known for the Merit awards. So, because of this one criteria, all the Diversity based on the socioeconomic situation was not considered as Merit scholarships are “socioeconomically” blind. This type of approach also eliminates practically all Elite colleges. Also, this criteria eliminated ALL “reach” school on D’s list, it had safeties only.
Vassar won the award last year, which was the first year it was given.
I think that is exactly where that anger comes from.
Also some of what often comes up on CC - the “donut hole” families feeling left out.
The comments are ugly and mostly from frustrated donut hole families that don’t really understand financial aid. At the top schools that offer generous financial aid, donut hole families are not paying for lower income families to attend. Everyone is getting subsidized to some degree, including “full pay” families. Its funny how they ignore the advantages they were able to provide their children growing up that lower income families were not.
"Its funny how they ignore the advantages they were able to provide their children growing up that lower income families were not. " - OK, this is telling us that somehow if you are not a lower income family than you were provided by the manna going down in your direction from the heaven, correct? I thought that America out of all countries allow everybody an opportunity, but I was sooo wrong, you got to belong to some “chosen” class I suppose. I wonder if poor Asian families with parents barely speaking English also belong to this “chosen” class as I have seen many of them among my D’s medical school classmates, that happened to be one of the most pricy private med. school in the USA. OK, got it, you got to be Asian to be chosen from the poor to join not poor group. I know I am a racist if I can produce such a statement.
@MiamiDAP, to children, being born upper/upper-middle class certainly is manna from heavan. Or are you going to try to make the claim that some kids deserved to be born rich and some deserved to be born poor?
This is exactly the type of misunderstanding I was asking about. Of course they benefit from policies to bring more low income kids to elite colleges - they’re low income, right?
" children, being born upper/upper-middle class certainly is manna from heavan. Or are you going to try to make the claim that some kids deserved to be born rich and some deserved to be born poor? "
Not just “donut hole” families - all “regular” families
From 2015 CDS:
https://www.amherst.edu/amherst-story/facts/common_data_sets/2015
(B1)Total freshmen - 226+251=477 (total undergrad - 1,795. Attrition?)
(H2) Have need - 259
Full pays - 477-259=218 (45.7%)
% of total on Pell Grant - 24% (seems to be 2013-14 data but let’s use it)=477 x 0.24=114
(H6)Non-resident aliens on finaid - 159. Let’s assume 40 freshmen. They do not receive Pell Grants.
Total number of freshmen at Amherst from the “regular” families: 477 - 218 - 114 - 40 = 105
So roughly 100 students per year from the “regular” American families matriculate to Amherst
Re: #16
By “regular” American families, you mean those in the top half of the income-wealth distribution (i.e. not Pell grant) but not in the top 2-3% of the income-wealth distribution (i.e. not ineligible for any financial aid)? I.e. from approximately the 50th to 97th percentile income-wealth?
Basically, it looks like Amherst has about half of its students coming from a broad income-wealth cross section, but with the other half (with no financial aid) coming from the top 2-3% of the income-wealth distribution.
Most obvious explanation is ignored: Lower and middle class kids rarely dream about going to these “elite” colleges. It’s like Bruni doesn’t talk to real people. If he visited an average middle class high school in the Midwest I’d bet maybe 1 or 2 students and teachers in the building have even heard of Amherst or Vassar College. Ditto an inner city hs.
If you can’t even be bothered to google the top colleges in the nation or find college confidential on your iPhone how are you a “match” for these colleges?
Yes, like my kids’ family that is not poor but cannot pay anything close to $65K/y. It seems NYT wants to completely diversify us out.