Class Conscious
Low-income students have long been a rare and invisible minority at elite colleges. That may be about to change
Beyond financial constraints, admissions officers at selective schools are also faced with maddening choices. Whom should they admit, after all: the ever present, high-income suburban student with the 1300 SAT and 5's on a half- dozen Advanced Placement tests who also plays violin with the all-state youth symphony? Or the low-income student with lower scores who's working 20 hours a week (and whose school offers only one or two AP courses)? Sometimes, ethnicity and class further complicate the picture: Take Sandra Gomez, a senior at a predominantly Latino high school in Los Angeles, whose mom, a seamstress, and dad, a butcher, needed her to work on Saturday mornings, which made her miss half of her SAT prep classes (she ultimately scored 1090). She's not as impressive as a middle-class applicant in some ways, but she's clearly a smart kid. She has a 4.17 GPA in demanding college-prep classes in spite of not having some of the same advantages--college-educated, English-speaking parents, for one--that her higher-income peers enjoyed. Claremont McKenna College accepted Gomez this year. But more often than not, according to Bowen's data, schools seem to be going with the suburban applicant.
Of course, not everyone thinks affirmative action is the way to solve this problem--or, for that matter, that the dearth of low-income students on elite campuses is a problem at all. Believers in cut-and-dried academic meritocracy say there's no need for anyone to get special treatment in admissions. "I should have some sympathy for this, I suppose," says Harvard historian Stephan Thernstrom, who grew up in a working-class household in small-town Michigan. "My father only had eight years of schooling. I probably would have gotten a nice boost at the time--but I still have a lot of doubts." Elite colleges should be teaching the most intellectually well-trained students, he maintains, and there just aren't many low-income kids who fall into that category. "I do not believe in any preferences for athletes. I do not believe in any preferences for alumni children. I see no reason why we should do this, either," says Thernstrom.
Others point out that focusing on the small numbers of low-income kids with high SAT s who aren't getting into top schools ignores a much bigger problem: Many low-income students don't go to college at all. Only 54 percent of students from families in the bottom income quartile go to college each year, according to a College Board study, compared with 82 percent of those from the top quartile. Even if everything Bowen hopes for comes to pass, "the reality is that those poor kids who are admissible to Harvard or Williams are already going to college," says former Macalester College president Michael McPherson, who now heads the Chicago-based Spencer Foundation. "In terms of affecting the overall national picture for access of poor kids to college, this kind of program can't do very much."
Still, as with the debate over racial diversity, advocates insist that top schools play a unique role in producing the nation's elite--and over the past year several powerful presidents from these institutions seem increasingly determined to take action on behalf of needy students. Last year, Harvard President Lawrence Summers set the tone in a speech announcing a new financial aid policy that will give a free ride to students from families making less than $40,000 a year and more generous aid for those with family incomes between $40,000 and $60,000. "We want to send the strongest possible message that Harvard is open to talented students from all economic backgrounds," he said.
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