For many students, 11th grade marks the year they begin seriously researching the colleges they will apply to. Many of these students, and their parents too, feel an urgency to get into an elite university because they believe this will determine their future career and beyond. For students from less privileged backgrounds, in particular, an elite college or university offers the promise of financial stability for themselves and their families as well.
The following articles explore the relationship between elite universities and future success:
Jack, Anthony Abraham. The Privileged Poor: How Elite Colleges Are Failing Disadvantaged Students. Harvard University Press, 2019.
Though elite universities have created increasingly diverse student bodies over the last few decades, they continue to draw students from privileged backgrounds. Jack argues that college policies and culture fail to distinguish between these “privileged poor”— low-income students from elite, private high schools—and the “doubly disadvantaged.” As a result, Jack reveals the challenges that the doubly disadvantaged face on campus, which threaten their chances of success.
“These colleges are better than Harvard at making poor kids rich”
While students from underprivileged backgrounds receive substantial benefits from attending elite universities, Matthews draws on research from the Equality of Opportunity project to arguethat it’s really colleges beyond the Ivy League that truly foster the American dream more, in large part because elite universities accept very few low-income students.
“How Much Does Getting Into an Elite College Actually Matter?”
After controlling for SAT scores, economic backgrounds, and college ambitions, researchers found that students “poised to succeed” do well, independent of their acceptance into an Ivy League university. However, they find an exception in the data: students from less privileged backgrounds receive huge boosts from selective colleges.
Questions for discussion:
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How can elite colleges better support the “doubly disadvantaged” students that Anthony Jack described in The Privileged Poor?
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Should elite colleges accept more low-income students?
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Why does society care so much about elite colleges?