<p>I am not sure there is much in this article that most parents on CC don't intuitively know, that the middle class and lower are being priced out of college education.</p>
<p>Again, not sure that anything will happen till the bubble bursts.</p>
<p>I don’t think that was really the point of the article. I thought it was more about getting more low income students to “elite” colleges. However, in this article, it seems that elite was defined as the 193 most selective colleges. For example, University of Texas, Georgia Tech, and University of Michigan were considered elite. Most CC parents seem to consider the top 20 colleges on the US News rankings as elite.</p>
<p>To me the most interesting point implied is that this so-called “need-blind” college all of sudden is able to find 50% more perfectly well-qualified low-income students while maintaining its need-blind mythology.</p>
<p>The very first paragraph out undercut the whole premise by talking about how well graduates of GA Tech, U Texas and U Michigan did, and then riffed on Amherst. Those first 3 are all fine schools, but in an article about making elite education available to the masses, they don’t quite tell the right tale.</p>
<p>The problem here is simple: Most colleges just don’t have the money to offer a lot of poor or lower-middle class kids the funds they need to attend. Even after the financial meltdown Amherst has a big endowment, plus the wealthy alumni to add to it. Same is probably true at Harvard, Yale, Princeton , Stanford, and a few others. But most top publics don’t have those resources and few other top privates do either. Since we are long past the time when an ambitious kid could work his way through a top school, unless something drastic changes the doors will be closed for a long time for a lot of kids at a lot of schools. </p>
<p>Finding the poor students who are smart and ambitious isn’t really that difficult. Amherst has shown that, especially with its emphasis on recuriting from community colleges. But being able to pay for those kids to attend is an option limited to school with a lot of cash.</p>
<p>Solution:
- Lower the importance of SAT, ACT.
- Lower the importance of EC
- Focus on GPA.</p>
<p>^but then you have to count for grade inflation in schools. some schools are harder than others</p>
<p>Then add ranking within school as #4.</p>
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<p>That’s silly, though. For all the faults of the SAT/ACT, at least everybody took the same test. How can you possibly compare the A earned in Mrs. Smith’s French class at AverageSuburbanHigh with the A earned in Mademoiselle Whoever’s French class at Fancypantsprivate? For all you know, Mrs. Smith gives credit for watching Jerry Lewis movies and bringing in croissants, whereas Mademoiselle Whoever’s class works at a really high level and those kids speak French like nobody’s business. Schools are completely different, and I’m even leaving aside grading differences such as schools that give A,B, C and schools that give A-,B+ … schools that weight honors or AP and schools that don’t … schools that are in districts that require other types of courses for graduation (consumer education, gym, etc.) and schools that don’t. You simply can’t compare and have it be a meaningful comparison. All you can do with GPA’s is squint at them.</p>
<p>^The apparent squishy meaning of letter grades notwithstanding, there is significant evidence that high school GPA is much more predictive of college success than, for example, SAT scores. See for example, [this</a> Berkeley paper from 2007](<a href=“Publications | Center for Studies in Higher Education”>Publications | Center for Studies in Higher Education):</p>
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<p>No doubt that’s part of it, but IMO it’s more complicated than that. The Amherst experience, coupled with the data on the percentages of top SAT-scoring kids from lower income backgrounds who end up in community colleges, suggest there’s also just a plain lack of effort/indifference on the part of most elite colleges when it comes to recruiting highly qualified lower income kids, as well as a huge information gap regarding what it takes, and what opportunities may exist, at elite colleges. </p>
<p>One of the greatest advantages affluent kids have in life is the information and coaching they get on how to get into the elite colleges that will then operate to reinforce their privileged status for a lifetime. Even the smartest, most motivated, and most academically successful (as measured by GPAs, class ranks, and test scores) kids from lower-income backgrounds often don’t know what it takes to get admitted to an elite college, much less to spend their HS careers grooming the kind of resume that will be attractive to elite college adcoms the way affluent kids do. Their parents don’t know, their teachers and GCs often don’t know, and many of these kids just assume, or are told, that these schools are beyond their reach academically, socially, and/or financially. If they scrape together the necessary few dollars, they may end up in a community college, or at the high end a local branch of the state university system, and that may well be considered a huge success by their families, teachers, and GCs–even though with better information and encouragement some of them might have been highly competitive for slots at colleges with generous need-based FA. I think it’s a tragedy, not only for these kids but for our entire society because it means elite colleges tend to operate not as vehicles of upward social mobility but as barriers to social mobility and perpetuators of class stratification. I applaud the outgoing president of Amherst for recognizing that and actually doing something about it—thus proving it can be done. But despite token efforts to give preference to a few “first-gens” coming in over the transom, and the occasional half-hearted recruiting tour through a few urban schools with low-income demographics, the other elite colleges don’t seem to be clamoring to follow Amherst’s lead.</p>
<p>As has frequently been pointed out, SAT scores are a better predictor of household income than of academic success in college. Weighing SAT scores heavily in the admissions process is itself a form of affirmative action for the affluent.</p>
<p>Problems in the K-12 education system can remove a lot of students from lower income families even before they get close to the time when they may consider applying to go to a university. For example, consider a K-12 school system which does not offer algebra, trigonometry, and precalculus math that is what non-accelerated students take in 11th and 12th grade if they are intending to attend a university. Only the students with the highest motivation would try to find a local community college to take these courses, even though students with average motivation in other schools would take them because that would be the normal thing to do.</p>
<p>This isn’t a new thought here on CC…I can’t even claim it as my own. The problem isn’t with the colleges, it’s with the elementary and secondary education. Fix that. I don’t have a solution, but that’s where the changes need to be made. Much, much earlier.</p>
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<p>Well, not entirely. Amherst has apparently had some success just going out and finding and recruiting qualified low-income kids, bringing them in, and successfully transitioning them to life in the academic fast lane. If Amherst can do it, others could, too. If they wanted to.</p>
<p>I agree that there’s plenty that needs to be fixed in K-12 education, but for colleges to use that as an excuse is pretty lame.</p>
<p>I thought it didn’t make a very big difference (in terms of future income or most other metrics of success) if you were educated at a top elite college or a state flagship or even a non-flagship but good state school. So shouldn’t the focus be on strengthening public universities and improving opportunities for low income students to attend these institutions? </p>
<p>Is it so important for a low income student to be educated at Amherst as opposed to the University of Minnesota or the University of Alabama?</p>
<p>“Even after the financial meltdown Amherst has a big endowment, plus the wealthy alumni to add to it. Same is probably true at Harvard, Yale, Princeton , Stanford, and a few others.”</p>
<p>They aren’t all the same because they CHOOSE not to be all the same. None of these schools are in danger of not having enough room for rich kids (those who can pay full freight.) But H., for example, has fewer than a third the percentage of Pell Grant students that Amherst has - at Y. and P. is roughly half, and it is not for lack of qualified applicants. (As Gordon Winston already proved.) If they don’t have 'em, it’s simply because in their “need-blind” process (doesn’t exist) they don’t want 'em.</p>
<p>Hey, it’s their money, and they can do with it what they please.</p>
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<p>If I recall correctly, low-income and “URM” students were exceptions to Dale and Krueger’s main finding.</p>
<p>That’s correct.</p>
<p>“I thought it didn’t make a very big difference (in terms of future income or most other metrics of success) if you were educated at a top elite college or a state flagship or even a non-flagship but good state school. So shouldn’t the focus be on strengthening public universities and improving opportunities for low income students to attend these institutions?”</p>
<p>"If I recall correctly, low-income and “URM” students were exceptions to Dale and Krueger’s main finding. "</p>
<p>I recall that as well, but to me, it still seems to be such a small percent of the college age population that might “miss out” by not attending. Maybe re-assessing the benefit of “elite” schools will be a welcomed outcome from the financial forces at play. Maybe it’s a chance to shift the focus .</p>