Writer: For Next 10 Years Top 100 Colleges Should Only Accept Students from Families That Make Under 100K
“This is a time for proposals that shift paradigms and maybe even policy (‘defund the police’), so let me advance a radical vision for higher education”
This would basically be an experiment in the progressive concepts of social justice and privilege, so many on the left would probably sign on to the idea.
Eboo Patel writes at Inside Higher Ed:
A Radical Proposal for How Elite Higher Education Can Change America
This is a time for proposals that shift paradigms and maybe even policy (“defund the police”), so let me advance a radical vision for higher education: from the year 2021 until the year 2030, the top 100 colleges and universities should only admit students with family incomes under $100,000. Furthermore, their population of Black and Latinx students should mirror the demographics of the nation.
Higher education will be massively disrupted this next academic year anyway — might as well turn the full somersault and create a big win for American society in the process. And make no mistake about it, a move like this would rank up there with the Morrill Land-Grant Act and the GI Bill as among the most historic actions higher education has taken for the benefit of the nation.
And it’s based on sound reasoning. Here are some things all of us know about elite higher education in the United States:
– It was built by and for white men (with certain obvious exceptions like Wellesley, Morehouse and Spelman). The student culture on elite campuses has obviously changed, but if you look at the black-and-white photographs on the wall of the alumni building or the Student Union, the ones that depict the “good and great academic leaders of yesteryear,” you will undoubtedly notice that they have some things in common. And if you walk into a meeting of the president’s cabinet, or the college’s Board of Trustees, or the people who have achieved the rank of full professor, you’ll think that those photos have come to life and taken up seats in the conference room. In other words, the white male history is not so far in the past. Many of the people who run colleges today look an awful lot like the people who ran colleges a generation or two ago.
He goes on to suggest that lower tier colleges will be improved by the admission of more qualified students and everyone will benefit from this.
an idea so stupid that it is almost guaranteed to be adopted by the Biden Administration's Education Department https://t.co/hukgq6zNRc
— Alex Joffe (@DrAlexJoffe) July 20, 2020
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Comments
Call my cynical but i suspect by taking students from families with “less than $100,000 income”, they don’t mean the white kids from the families of coal miners, Amazon delivery drivers, or the shuttle driver for the local Ford dealer.
I agree, this less than 100k sounds like a “code word” or “dog whistle”, or whatever the cool kids are calling these days.
The “rich” Leftists would just arrange for athletic scholarships via Lori Laughlin, et al. No worries.
Actually I think this is a great idea. The “top 100 colleges” — as defined right now — should deliberately turn down the best students, if their families happen to be well off. As he says, “lower tier colleges will be improved by the admission of more qualified students”. Indeed they would. Anyone but this idiot can see what the result would be. Those colleges would improve and become the top colleges, while the formerly top ones that would be deliberately harming themselves would sink to a well-deserved third or fourth tier, if they even stayed in business at all. Indeed, as he says, everyone (except those formerly “top” colleges) would benefit.
It would take a lot of time for that to happen. First off, the resources at the top colleges dwarf the lesser colleges. The brightest of the wealthy would have significantly hindered progress and advancement towards careers where they can do the most good. The brightest of the mid to lower middle class would benefit at their expense; however, collectively, U.S. society would suffer from significantly reduced meritocracy in its developmental education system.
This is a terrible idea for more reasons than one.
Oh, and the quality students from less well-off families, who would still be eligible for admission to the formerly “top” colleges, would choose not to go there, because they’d want the quality education they could only get at the formerly “non-top” colleges that would not be deliberately crippling themselves.
I’ve read this book; I believe it was called “The Sneetches.”
You gonna pay the tuition for that, Booboo?
Define “income”. Rich people have numerous ways to shelter income, so I would expect a large market in programs to defer “income” in a way that makes the “means test” irrelevant.
Interesting that the article doesn’t address the graduate school component, which is where your top tier students tend to step ahead. (MD, JD, MBA, etc.)
Many of those top schools are where our engineers, doctors, and lawyers come from, among other non-liberal arts graduates. While there may be talented “underprivileged” students out there, are they interested in those professions? Are they capable?
Are the “second tier” schools capable of providing professional education at a level (and volume) that would be required when all those budding engineers need a place to go? And what happens to the kids who wanted that professional education from the second tier state school, but get bumped by the rich kids?
How do foreign students fit in to this mix? What is the “means test” for them? (Keep in mind that many state schools offer little financial aid for foreign students, so they are a big part of income for those schools.) Might also then be big business for some countries in providing passports / citizenship of convenience for students. Under Irish law, I qualify for an Irish passport because my grandparents were born in Ireland.
Those same people should stop sending donations to those same colleges. They should underwrite the loans themselves.
Why not just take the smartest? Let’s give aome incentive to those in the cities to make education a priority. But so much better to have the US educational system sink lower. Liberal’s really think they are a sucess as they provide a failibg product
You could just take the smartest, but since IQ isn’t real and merit-based admissions is racist you can’t do that.