Read the full article: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/15/us/a-push-to-make-harvard-free-also-questions-the-role-of-race-in-admissions.html
Mr. Nader Goes to Harvard!
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Ralph on the board will prove rather entertaining (if you’re not a Harvard alumnus).
Bless Ralph Nader. As much as I’m still annoyed by his short-sighted choices during the 2000 election, there are moments when I remember why he had a following. The man can be relied upon to stop worrying about good PR and say things the university doesn’t want to hear.
Side note: his consumer protection museum (opened last year) is worth a visit, and more interesting than most of those I’ve known.
Asian & South Asian students really need to raise their voice. They shouldn’t be punished in the name of diversity.
Of course, the biggest beneficiaries of making Harvard free would be those from upper income families, since they make up the bulk of students (non-financial-aid students from the top 2-3% income families make up nearly half of the students, and most financial aid recipients are in from the higher income ranges). The main group of non-upper-income students who would benefit are those from divorced parent families. But other students from non-upper-income families currently get great financial aid.
If the goal is for Harvard to serve students from a wider range of backgrounds, the admissions process and criteria need to be changed to reduce the tilt that strongly favors those from upper income families.
Its called holistic admissions. The group being short changed are the Caucasian applicants and the lower socioeconomic groups
Lower socioeconomic groups don’t apply to H in large numbers.
I’m sure there are plenty of colleges that would love to see Harvard ‘free’…I would suspect it would totally change up the type of student that applies…but it’s changed so much since the 70s anyway, I’m not sure there is much to gain for Harvard.
Rather than spending it on free education for rich kids, why wouldn’t they consider spending some money to gradually expanding their enrollment?
All of the top 10 endowed schools should be able to do that. They are all great schools, and with admission rates so low, why not give a few more kids a chance?
That would seem to be a great way to spend some of that money. Good for the kids, good for the school, good for America.
“Rather than spending it on free education for rich kids, why wouldn’t they consider spending some money to gradually expanding their enrollment?” It’s an urban campus with many historic buildings. Where would they house all these new students? Also, maybe they don’t want to be a huge undergraduate school.
You may as well ask, why don’t all the LAC darlings of CC expand their enrollment? They could offer a lot more opportunities to their students if they were bigger than a high school. Why don’t the women’s colleges admit men? Give more kids a chance.
Harvard is currently expanding, its urban campus and historic buildings notwithstanding. I doubt that lack of space would ever be a problem that couldn’t be solved given the wealth of this school.
“the biggest beneficiaries of making Harvard free would be those from upper income families”
Exactly. This is foolishness. Handing out freebies to the children of bankers and hedge fund guys is not a better use of charitable funds.
Harvard can and should do a better job of publicizing the fact that it is effectively free to the bottom half of US households. Giving more away to rich kids is a silly way to achieve that goal.
Some people keep pushing for Harvard to expand. Why should Harvard be obliged to expand? What “problem” will expansion solve? If it expands only modestly it won’t solve anything. It will be just slightly larger and more unwieldy version of itself with all the same “problems.” If it expands a lot to really change things it won’t be Harvard any more. It will become just another giant university more akin to say Ohio State than to people’s idea of Harvard.
Same can be said for any small school. Should Caltech be required to expand from its current ~900 undergraduates to say 10 or 20 thousand? Of course not. If it did it wouldn’t be Caltech any more. If Harvard wants to stay Harvard that’s its business.
What would this do? Raise the acceptance rate from 5% to 7%?
The issue is affordability. Harvard does an incredible job to make its education affordable to everyone who qualifies. Maybe it can do a better job of marketing to lower income students but Harvard is not the problem.
I think the average person on CC hasn’t a clue that the average person in the country has no idea that H provides such generous aid. They think of it as a school for rich people, not a school that a smart-but-poor kid could ever attend.
of the top 10 endowed schools should be able to do that. They are all great schools, and with admission rates so low, why not give a few more kids a chance?
That would seem to be a great way to spend some of that money. Good for the kids, good for the school, good for America."
Ignoring the obvious - that beds for those kids and the resulting infrastructure - don’t come out of thin air, that’s still only helping a very minute sliver of kids. If you really want to help kids in America get college educations, it’s through making state schools and comm colleges more accessible, not kidding yourself that 100 new kids in H’s entering class is going to make a difference.
The real problem is not for the kids who can get into the Harvards of the world, which are incredibly financially accessible to the poorest kids. The problem is for poor kids who don’t have 600+ SATs. They can get into perfectly fine state schools or privates, but can’t afford them because those schools don’t have generous financial aid to dole out.
Right. We only care about the “poors” if they are Harvard-level smart, apparently. The rest of them? Let them eat cake.
Why can’t both things be done? Expand the enrollments ever-so-slightly of all these hugely-endowed schools and make college affordable for the vast majority of needy students?
I think there is an oversupply of college graduates in this country already. Look at the many unemployed and underemployed college graduates now. I believe public universities should be free, as in most advanced countries, but make the entrance more selective.