I agree. Most “elite” colleges make weak attempts to seek and enroll low income students. I would like to see private schools with large endowments try a little harder to increase efforts in that direction, but I accept it is their decision to make. After all, they are private institutions, and as long as they are not breaking any laws, they should be allowed to cater to the customer base they choose.
I think every state should be mandated to have their enrollment demographics roughly correlate to their population demographics. Not a quota, but an opening of the system to all corners of the population.
If the state is failing to educate all k-12 students equally, those populations should not further suffer by being shut out of the state’s public university system. States have a moral obligation to ensure all segments of the state’s populations have the opportunity to be educated equally. When the state is failing to ensure all segments have an equal opportunity, that is a failure of the state, not the students. At what point does the public hold states responsible? If we recognize that certain categorized students are not “college ready” in wide swaths, public universities have two options that should be enacted concurrently.
First, admit these students to the state’s public college system and either work hard to ensure resources are available to make the students “college ready” on the fly, or accept that lower graduation rates will result.
Maybe, just as colleges have Honors Colleges to cater to mostly upper income high stats students, public universities (including flagships) can roll out Horatio Alger Living Learning Communities for the population segments currently underrepresented in those colleges. Instead of a 4-year program, put these students on a pre-planned 5-year or 6-year plan that includes more prep classes so they won’t be set up for failure – and ensure that the financial aid stretches for those 5-6 years. But the university system’s first obligation is to offer admission to the entire state equally, not just certain demographics. To begin, maybe states should agree to admit as many Horatio Alger students have they have in their Honors Colleges?
Secondly, work harder to improve the k-12 outcomes across the board. Once all k-12 students are educated to equal levels, those state university systems can enjoy the higher graduation rates that some states so desperately seek, without shirking the state’s obligation to offer college education fairly to all student demographic bases.
The public universities’ obligation is to all segments of the population.