The Real College Admissions Scandal
Everyone knows that admissions procedures at top universities are rigged. They increase income inequality because they are biased in favor of very wealthy applicants. The promise of large financial donations – either now or in the future – facilitates the admission of the children of the super-rich. These admissions allow the younger generation of privileged people to forge the social and economic bonds that allow for elite continuity. Student selection is a principle mechanism for the creation of a permanent upper class.
This self-reproducing selection process has contributed to the fact that the quality of leadership in this country has deteriorated to the level of the individual who currently occupies the White House. Pay-to- play is not a way to achieve wisdom in governance.
Of course, there are exceptions to this pattern of elite privilege. But it is hard not to notice that one of them – affirmative action – is the aspect of university admissions that is under the most serious legal attack.
But it is the larger problem of elite reproduction – not the stupidity and greed of individuals caught up in the current scandal – that should be the center of attention. After all, gifts to institutions differ little from pay-offs to coaches when the result is the same – preferential admissions. Jared Kushner’s family donation of $2.5 million preceded his admission to Harvard. And it seems likely that Trump’s son-in-law will make a similar future “charitable” contribution in support of this own child’s college application. Not a murmur will be heard in protest. But the $400,000 paid to the head women’s soccer coach at Yale – with the same objective – seems certain to result in the imprisonment of both the donor and the recipient.
Inequality is intensified not only because of what is happening at the elite educational level however. It is also growing because of what is occurring at the other end of the higher education spectrum – at state and local colleges and universities. While the elite schools flourish financially, politicians are starving state schools of funds. The burden of these political cutbacks falls on non-elite students and their families, in the form of increased tuition.
The destructive impact of public higher education’s austerity is made clear in an annual publication of the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association. Adjusting for inflation, government appropriations for each full-time college student in 2001 was $9,540; in 2017, the last year for which data are available, appropriations were $7,642 – about 20 percent lower. Over this same period, the cost of tuition per full time student almost doubled, from $3,966 to $6,572. In combination, these trends mean that tuition provided less than a third (29.4%) of college revenue in 2001, while in 2017 payments made by students accounted for almost half (46.4%) of school income.
Most students are unable to support the heavy tuition burden that has been imposed on them. Their need to borrow money has produced sky-rocketing student debt. Between 1996 and 2017, the average debt of graduating seniors more than doubled, from $12,750 to $29,650. And at the same time, other low and middle income students have been forced to shift to less expensive two-year associate and certificate programs.
In short, the children of the wealthy are accommodated by elite institutions, whether or not they are academically qualified. But our dysfunctional politics has imposed increased financial obstacles to higher education on everyone else.
This is a problem with a solution. Not much can be done to stop members of the elite from using their wealth to secure advantages. But for state public institutions, political power can reverse what has been going on. And in this regard there are grounds for optimism.
Below the surface of the political circus in Washington, a democratic agenda is taking root at state capitols throughout the country. There has been a groundswell of reform that promises a sea change in the legislation and policies adopted in many states. A case in point is what is about to happen in Albany New York. The Governor and both legislative houses have agreed on a sweeping set of reforms that include a system of matching public funding for candidates for state offices.
Once implemented, New York will have a governance system that, more than ever before, makes room for people with limited wealth and connections to compete effectively with the power of rich special interests. It is very likely that a new cohort of publicly funded legislators will see to it that public higher education is generously funded, and that the financial pressure on students thereby reduced. A renaissance of public education could be in the offing.
If all goes well, elites coming from privately endowed educational institutions might find themselves competing for power and influence with equally well-educated individuals from public universities and colleges. And that would be an important step in the direction of income equality.