Universities Weblog

A new study by a former Princeton president suggests elite colleges should "put a thumb on the admissions scale" for students from poor families. "After race," said William Bowen in an interview with the New York Times, "there is no question that the most serious forms of disadvantage in america today are low income and low education."

According to Bowen's research, low-income students account for only 11 percent of the population at the 19 institutions he and a colleague studied. What's more, the study reveals that substituting income-based affirmative action for current race-based measures would reduce racial diversity. Therefore, he concludes, colleges need to do both.

And why is this a good idea? Well, Bowen thinks it's a matter of equity, and that exposing all students to this form of diversity is somehow educational. How can rich students understand poor students, and vice versa, unless they're sitting together in the same classroom? I buy the "equity" argument, but stumping for diversity as an educational tool has become tiresome.

Yet here's the kicker. When asked how such a policy would affect financial aid decisions, Michael McPherson, a higher education finance expert, said, "If you want Harvard to look more like America, changing admissions policies is going to have much more dramatic effect than changing financial aid." Sorry to say, but Harvard and its fellow Ivies have never looked like America, nor will they ever. They're supposed to be meritocracies, not microcosms.

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