The Quest for Better Students

There are strong incentives for colleges to enroll good students: faculty prefer teaching well-prepared students; good students don’t require expensive remedial help; good students graduate faster, get better jobs after graduation, and give more to the college at Annual Giving time. Good students are a mark of prestige for a college and potentially can bump it up a few notches on the academic pecking order.

But the strongest incentive, in this era when both private and public colleges are struggling financially, is that good students have more money than poor students and can therefore afford to pay full tuition. There is a dramatic correlation between SAT scores (or high school GPAs) and family income, which means that the quest for good students is in reality a quest for wealthy students. Good students are a money-maker for a college on many levels.

It is easy to justify a selective admissions policy on abstract, academic grounds, and these two colleges have made the standard arguments. However, I hope the faculty, administration and trustees of these institutions also consider the larger social impact of their proposed change. With the cost of a college education soaring, the demographic group that is suffering the most and that needs the most help is precisely the group that these colleges now would exclude.

I don’t mean to be critical of these two colleges; nearly all colleges and universities these days with excess application pressure are moving in the same direction. However, at some point, our society needs to look at the larger social cost of denying essential educational opportunities to those stuck at the lower end of the country’s economic spectrum.

Jim Garland, at 10:10 am EST on February 27, 2008

looking in the wrong direction?

These two struggling institutions seem to be blaming their customers for their plight. TSU is one of the most scandal-plagued schools in modern history. Elevating the quality of instruction and management might do more to attract stronger students than setting up a more exclusive gate.

Peter, at 11:10 am EST on February 27, 2008

Educational Disadvantage

Admissions selectivity is a good thing for all of the reasons stated. I also agree that financially disadvantaged students are most likely to have poorer academic performance than their more affluent peers. It is the reason for that performance disparity, however, that needs to be addressed. The reason is that educational disadvantage often goes hand-in-hand with financial disadvantage—particularly at the formative and elementary levels where it is most pronounced and most damaging. It results in glaring gaps in foundational math and reading skills. These gaps conceivably can be remedied with interventions at nearly any point in time. I believe our efforts would be invested best in establishing programs for disadvantaged students that provide either adequate early supplementary instruction or remedial instruction in later life. Let’s treat the disease and stop lingering over symptoms. In this way we can actually narrow the performance gap instead of complaining about it and looking for alternatives to high academic standards (a mentality that drives me nuts as a person of color). Once we do, we can finally stop debating the merits of selective admission and simply appreciate it for what it is—i.e., the right way to go.

Dr. Ron, at 5:05 pm EST on February 27, 2008

This reeks of classism

Kids from the middle and upper class are better prepared for two reasons: Their families have the money to throw at private tutors, SAT preparation courses, and a myriad of culturally enriching activities. Secondly, middle and upper class families live in suburbs with schools that have more classroom resources compared to impoverished inner-city schools.

I find it extremely hypocritical for the “haves” and “have-mores” to tell the poor that their poverty is their own fault for failing to get a college education when some of society’s most privileged are those who occupy positions of authority in academic ivory towers, and happen to be the very ones erecting more systemic barriers to keep the poor out.

If your university wants “good” students, maybe those with privilege and power in charge there ought to be investing some time and effort dismantling the systemic barriers of poverty in this country so that ALL have a truly equal opportunity to get an education.

Of course, that would mean that some upward bound poor kid from the ghetto might be competing with some wealthy alumni’s kids for the economic rewards and social prizes in our so-called meritcracy which is what the privileged seek to prevent — at all costs.

With an elitist agenda like that, our society will become more stagnant that the British royal family’s gene pool — and twice as useless.

Jacqueline S. Homan, Author, at 11:05 am EDT on March 14, 2008