School for Sale: The Economic Inequities in America’s Education System
By LEYDN MCEVOY ‘20
All I’ve been seeing in the headlines lately is the recent college admissions scandal (and how ironic is it that I am writing about it), but more importantly the scandal reaffirms how the college admissions system is deeply corrupt and classist. The growing weight of extracurriculars has made me, and I’m sure many of you, sometimes question “Why am I even at this club?” The cost that standardized testing requires from all the SAT/ACT tutoring fees makes you wonder, “Was it worth thousands of dollars in tutoring to raise my SAT score fifty points?” The biggest question in my head is “why should we even have to be asking?” Over the years, universities across the country have become undeniably more selective. Though bribing coaches and cheating on the SAT seem discussed less often, money is commonly used to give many students the upperhand in the admissions process.
As I have embarked on the college process, I have noticed how many Milton students, including myself, feel guilty of putting an exhausting amount of emphasis on activities or classes in order to seem more appealing to admissions officers. With heightening anxiety over our futures, the pressures to be more distinguishable among applicants have made students and parents more willing to dispense inordinate amounts of money to ease the process. Very common for parents and almost a presumption for Milton parents is to provide their children with private tutoring or other coaching for college that most middle-class families can’t afford. This stress has become natural and these practices ordinary in the path to go to a top university. The students involved in the case had the option to go to alternative colleges, as one journalist from the New York Times argues, “it’s just that they wouldn’t have been able to go to the college they cheated their way into.” The crux of America’s obsession with top schools is the belief that the name of the school on the diploma carries more prestige and advantages than that a state university can provide. In the coming years, interest in lower-tier universities–those that enroll local students–is projected to drop by 11 percent while America’s more selective colleges could see their applicant pools rise 14 percent, according to models by Carleton College economist Nathan Grawe. As the popularity over more elite schools grows, students will continue to exploit their economic privilege to gain admission to elite institutions.
Though colleges are committed to admitting students from more diverse economic backgrounds, colleges overwhelmingly continue to accept wealthy students. One study led by Harvard economist Raj Chetty found that students from the top 1 percent, in which case he believed was more than $630,000 a year, are 77 times more likely to be admitted into an Ivy League school than students from families that make less than $30,000 a year. Despite high-income students’ representing much larger numbers than low-income students at top universities, schools have considered the cultural, economical, and racial challenges that may hinder opportunities in admissions. Looking at the context of a student’s life is the framework of the school’s holistic admissions. Though the aspiration of universities was to encourage diversity in race and economic background with this approach, a group of Asian-Americans felt like this attempt by Harvard implicitly discriminated against them.
The lawsuit against Harvard has a larger goal of dismantling affirmative action and reversing the steps already taken towards addressing economic inequities. The notion that a fair admissions process will result by removing affirmative action fails to consider the inherent inequities in financial donations and legacy admission. The case is ironic because it overlooks the problem of legacy admission and preferences for large donors and faculty children. Revealed in the case’s documents, legacy children were found to comprise 33.6 percent of children admitted to Harvard while non legacy applicants comprised only 5.9 percent. The ideas of equal opportunity in admissions, therefore, would still lack legitimacy if the Harvard case is successful. The ongoing argument over the fairness of college admissions shouldn’t be over the validity of affirmative action but instead over the influence of money in admissions. Understanding and reforming the structural advantages of money and influence in admissions will help universities live up to their standards of creating a fair and equitable process.
