The hypocrisy in higher education is sometimes just astounding. I read Richard Kahlenberg’s blog yesterday about the admirable efforts on the part of Washington University in St. Louis and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to increase graduation rates among low income students who attend these institutions. In fact, Mr. Kahlenberg goes as far as to suggest that other universities should learn some valuable lessons from these institutions.
Give me a break.
Of course I applaud efforts to help those less fortunate succeed, but the idea that we should celebrate two highly selective, well-funded, elite universities that require even more funding to develop special programs to serve such a small, hand-picked population of students who, in the end, enjoy only slightly improved outcomes (at best), seems a bit outrageous to me. Instead, I would suggest that the stories of Wash U and UNC provide additional evidence to support what some of us have known for quite some time (and that academic researchers have concluded over and over again), which is that educating low income students requires a lot more than talented faculty and a rigorous curriculum—it requires a great deal of additional money at a time when there is precious little of that to go around.
Does this mean that we should give up on low-income students? Some seem to believe that taking a chance on students who might not succeed is a risk too great for the American taxpayer. I would argue that the risks of not taking a chance are even greater. We should continue to serve high-risk students while acknowledging the reality that it might take longer and cost more to graduate fewer of them. In fact, I would go as far as to say that those at highest risk for failure (which, according to academic researchers, are single mothers who are independent students) are the very people who most need the opportunity to participate in higher education. We can’t do this because of numbers we want to see, or international claims we want to make or even to test our ability to meet artificially imposed thresholds that we’d like to envision, but instead because some high-risk students will beat the odds and flourish in ways we can’t imagine or predict. It is the right thing to do for many reasons, including that the cost of educating someone is nominal when compared to the cost of supporting someone for a lifetime through entitlement programs and government subsidies. Besides, I think in our country we still believe that everyone should have the opportunity to work hard, earn a credential, and enjoy a better life.
It is easy to pretend that the will of the faculty can overcome all of the obstacles low-income students face in order to ensure that they will beat the odds, or that the failure of a low-income student is a sign of institutional weakness or inadequate curricula, but I doubt that anyone believes that the faculty at Wash U or UNC Chapel Hill don’t want better outcomes for their low-income students or that their curricula are weak. However, when considering the outcomes achieved by students at lower-ranked institutions, we do seem quick to conclude that if only the institution and its faculty were smarter or worked harder, the students would all be successful. The stories of Wash U and UNC tell us that educating disadvantaged students is a bit more complicated than having good intentions and developing a strong curriculum.
I do commend Wash U and UNC for admitting publicly (and not just in grant applications) that their low-income students do not enjoy the same outcomes as their higher-income students, and for trying to do something to solve that problem. Most elite institutionals elect to bury the truth about the disadvantaged few in cohort data that is dominated by, and more reflective of, the outcomes enjoyed by the more advantaged many.
Looking first at Washington University, Kahlenberg tells us about two recent graduates who were disappointed by the lack of economic diversity at the institution. In fact, the graduates founded an organization to ensure that in the future, Wash U focuses as intently on achieving economic diversity as it does on achieving racial, gender, and ethnic diversity. The students also call for improved support systems to help low-income students be successful once they arrive on campus. Mr. Kahlenberg would have us believe that Washington University is answering the call through the Cornerstone Program, an effort funded by the Department of Education’s TRIO program to provide mentors, academic assistance, and cultural programs for low-income, first-generation students.
I agree that low-income students benefit from a variety of supplemental and support services, and that the TRIO program well serves many low-income students across the country. In addition, I’m glad that Wash U is committed to the goals of the TRIO program. However, the problem with this story is that Wash U has been receiving TRIO funds for the Cornerstone program since the early 1970’s, so why after almost 40 years of federal funding do the problems of low-income students, as highlighted by the recent graduates, still persist on this campus? How many more millions of dollars will it take to solve the problem and at what point should an institution like Wash U be expected to provide these support services on their own, without the support of continuous government grants?
What really boggles my mind, though, is learning that an institution which charges $52,892 per year (tuition, fees and housing), which has the 18th largest endowment in the country, and which receives almost $500-million in federal research funding each year needs additional government funding (TRIO funds) in order to help such a small group (200 per year according to the Cornerstone Web site) of hand-picked, low-income students succeed. After all, this is a highly selective university. Shouldn’t we be wondering what is wrong with an institution like this—with so much wealth, such an accomplished faculty, and such a highly competitive admissions process—that so much additional funding is required for the university to serve such a small group of low-income students? If an institution that charges $52,892 per year and that has the 18th largest endowment can’t serve a few low income students without significant additional federal funding, then how can lower cost, open-enrollment institutions be held accountable for providing so much more for so much less?
Kahlenberg’s blog then boasts about the Covenant Scholars program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This laudable program provides supplemental financial aid (including a federal work-study job, grants, and scholarships), social events, mentorship opportunities, and etiquette dinners to a small group of low-income students on the Chapel Hill campus. According to the Covenant Scholars Web site, the program serves approximately 400 students per year (out of a total student population of 18,000 per year), all of whom must first be admitted to the university through a selective admissions process, must be dependent students, and must come from a family whose income is less than 200 percent of the poverty level ($42,400 for a family of 4). In other words, the university is being quite generous to an exceedingly small group of students (relative to the total student population and the demographics of the state of North Carolina), and yet retention and graduation rates have increased by only 5.2 percent and 5 percent, respectively, among this group.
Again, UNC Chapel Hill is to be commended for creating the Covenant Scholars program, but given the high cost of the program relative to the small number of students served and the marginally improved outcomes achieved, one wonders how this program could serve as a sustainable model for other institutions, or how it could be taken to scale, especially by institutions that are less selective, less expensive or that—hold your breath—serve those dastardly single mothers? While a very good value, indeed, we must recognize that at $20,000 per year for in-state students and $39,000 per year for out-of-state residents (including room and board), UNC Chapel Hill isn’t exactly an inexpensive institution.
So while Mr. Kahlenberg extols the virtues of these miraculous programs and schools, I would ask why don’t we expect more—without additional taxpayer dollars—from institutions that just today received U.S. News rankings confirming their superiority? If they are so good, why do they need so much more money than everyone else in order to do right by low-income students?
Maybe the efforts of Wash U and UNC Chapel Hill will finally convince higher-education experts and policy makers, alike, that cohort data is almost meaningless when it is used to compare schools that have different selectivity standards and that serve different demographic populations. In other words, it is time to conduct apples-to-apples comparisons among institutions of each selectivity bracket based on the outcomes achieved, per taxpayer dollar spent, among low-income, high risk and non-traditional students. Otherwise, the double standard we seem to hold for the “have” versus the “have not” institutions serves as yet another example of the deep hypocrisy in higher education.
20 Responses to Elite Institutions and Low-Income Students: A Story of Dismal Failure
trendisnotdestiny - August 17, 2010 at 8:47 pm
Flaws in your article:1) Your use of the word “entitlement” programs 2) Selling meritocracy as ideal 3) Outcomes-funding connections: qualitative interviews needed for TRIO and Convenant scholars to really see how their lives have been affected…. Two Strengths1) Teachers can only do so much complexity argument2) Arms-races in higher ed between the haves and have nots3) How many more millions argument
trendisnotdestiny - August 17, 2010 at 8:48 pm
Three strengths: my bad
jffoster - August 17, 2010 at 10:43 pm
Maybe they need the additional money to fund the “etiquette dinners”. Are they universities? Or Finishing Schools? I do agree about the rediculosity of anybody’s pouring huge amounts of money onto a small select group with only marginally improved results.
gnarly - August 18, 2010 at 5:38 am
Create small single-student-mom-communities voor single moms, life is easier when there’s someone you can count on. Raising children together is much easier.
dan_roe - August 18, 2010 at 6:33 am
My wife and I were low income grad students and met at Washington University, St. Louis. After graduating in 1999 with a Ph.D. and MS respectively we took our first job at Harvard, then fell on hard times (10K/yr didn’t quite pay the bills even in St. Louis, so I did take out some loans). I should have married wealthy, but even at elite institutions birds of a feather….I’m sorry rich kids, we have no common experiences. We declared bankruptcy (student loans were untouched, of course), have been in hardship forebearance etc. since, and both feel that Wash U robbed us. We’ve contacted them for help to no avail. We once tried to give our degrees back in a dramatic act and they offered “career counseling” (chuckles). WE WILL RETURN OUR DEGREES TO WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY, ST. LOUIS, FOR A REFUND.Those who think that this current educational lending debacle is about “for-profit” vs. “not for-profit” are part of the problem. This is “us” (well, you folks really–I don’t consider myself a “made” scholar any more), not those dread “for profit instituions” (which, in our Orwellian world, are considerably less profitable than the “not for profit” sector, right?). When we make the debate about “for profit” vs. “not for profit” those of us who benefited from academic lending usury soothe our consciences at the expense of those of us who have suffered–and at the expense of the truth right before our eyes.This is all I can do about it: http://www.danroe.net…though it doesn’t pay my creditors.
quietncali - August 18, 2010 at 6:42 am
It’s funny that “single, independent fathers” aren’t having this graduating from college problem.
optimysticynic - August 18, 2010 at 7:10 am
Trendisnot: And meritocratic systmes are bad why? So you give everyone in your class the same grade?
22228715 - August 18, 2010 at 8:51 am
I found the essay a bit wandering and hard to pin down for logical direction, but it raises good points. I believe it comes to the very thorny but essential questions about the purposes of higher education, and the relative benefits to individual and/or society. It also triggers the assumption that if the benefits are individual, the individual should bear the cost of it, and if they are societal, society should bear the cost. And, in either case, it should be efficient with spending, with the most gain for the least amount of money. The confounding overlay is that all of these ideas and approaches borrow from a business model. But, frustratingly perhaps, learning and education are far more complex than the if-then mentality of business models. As an earlier commenter is discovering, the product is not students or degrees, but an experience. The results and impact of the experience is filtered through so many other factors that it is only generally predictable.That said… we still have some pretty good ideas of what works and what doesn’t, at least on a broad scale. In this way, higher ed is much less like business and more like medicine. We are doing better than perhaps years ago, but we still can’t guarantee cures. Of course it is expensive… but it is worth some cost. How much? Or perhaps metaphors with religion or charity or marriage or child-raising… we can sense there are good things out of it, and some practices work better than others, but how much spending is more than it’s worth?
crunchycon - August 18, 2010 at 11:21 am
quietncali — show me where single, full-time university student fathers raising their kids without the mothers are a large demographic group, and then we can talk about statistics wrt them. On the other hand, at least at my public university, there are quite a few single mothers raising children while studying full-time — having talked with several, I find that there is a distinct lack of support services available to these single mothers, who are spread across many majors/departments, and are “unaware” of each other. gnarly’s sugggestion for creating a single-parenbt community hits the nail on the head — why not a special dormitory of 2-3 (bed)room units, with the same common areas “regular dorms” have with TVs, lounging areas, etc., with a live-in “house person” who runs a daycare on site and shuttle services to get school-aged kids to their schools. These services would vastly improve the retention rate and success of single mothers studying full time, imho.
cwinton - August 18, 2010 at 11:44 am
It’s always struck me as a bit noblesse oblige for elite institutions to indulge in special programs like those described. It would help if they got off their high horses and actually rubbed elbows with colleagues at institutions whose mission is directed at providing an educational experience for those lacking financial resources; e.g., community colleges. Perhaps they might even discover these folks have far better ideas regarding what is most likely to work. Even better, perhaps they might consider directing some of the resources they are expending in this manner towards their less well-endowed, and likely better informed, counterparts.
trendisnotdestiny - August 18, 2010 at 11:50 am
optimysticynic,My apologies twas a bit confusing…. I have a problem with selling Meritocracy and the American Dream as a finite outcome to new incoming students on the front end but changing the rules as you go in a system that designed to profit at the expense at their expense (tuition increases, adjuncts teaching classes for professors and getting rid of programs etc)… All while 25 companies from industry shed over 700,000 jobs since 2008. Embedded in this meritocracy is the idea if you work hard enough and perform at the right times that outcome is more or less guaranteed. If we are honest, its has always been who you know with little sprinklings of what you know…. my two cents
11132507 - August 18, 2010 at 1:42 pm
And if the administration that the author worked for did not start a war in Iraq that has cost taxpayers nearly a trillion dollars, hadn’t topped that figure with a tax break for the supply siders, regulated the financial industry so that it didn’t bring a near total collapse of the world’s economy, and then didn’t get the bailout ball rolling to companies who used taxpayer money to pay 7-figure bonuses to rich white guys…well, then money probably wouldn’t be so scarce, would it? Did I miss the details in the article on how much TRIO funding Wash U is receiving? Ms. Jones can quote the exact cost of attendance and the rank of their endowment several times, but the amount of TRIO funding is conspicuously absent…because it’s probably a drop in the bucket, and quoting that amount would make her argument look petty.Yep, when all else fails, attack the decision to spend money on poor people. Nostalgic for the Reagan years, I guess.
dank48 - August 18, 2010 at 3:38 pm
That’s not what “noblesse oblige” means, btw.
mbmcfarland - August 19, 2010 at 7:57 am
(Posted on behalf of Shirley Ort and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill):Progress among leading universities in enrolling and graduating low-income students occurs when there is intentionality (a clear sense of purpose coupled with action.)The Carolina Covenant is a promise to current and future generations of low-income students anywhere in the country that, if admitted through our normal process, we will make it possible for them to graduate debt-free. This week, UNC-Chapel Hill celebrates our seventh year of the Carolina Covenant when we welcome 540 new students as Carolina Covenant Scholars, bringing us to a total of 2,868 students who have benefitted from the program since its inception. Consistently, 57 percent of the scholars are first-generation, and 62 percent are students of color. The program is complemented by an array of personal and academic support services, which our diligent research shows work.Success can be defined in many ways. At Carolina, we use our own history as the yardstick. Prior to the Covenant, only about 4 percent of the students in our entering first-year class were low-income students; this fall, we expect to reach 12 percent. Further, we have made great gains in our four-year graduation rates of low-income students (9 percentage points). Low-income students who entered in 2003 (our last pre-Covenant year) had a four-year graduation rate of 56.7 percent. That rate increased to 65.6 percent (and is still rising) for the Covenant Scholars who entered in 2005 and graduated in 2009.The University pledges its own resources to remove these financial barriers — a committment which will endure. We think it’s a great investment. Progress is rarely achieved without intentionality.Shirley OrtAssociate Provost and Director, Office of Scholarships and Student AidUNC-Chapel Hill
mbelvadi - August 19, 2010 at 12:32 pm
Is the TRIO money intended to help institutions set up their own programs, or is it money intended to be spent directly on individuals’ mentoring/etc costs? If the latter, then it might be comparable to funds the federal government provides for institutions to hire assistants for people with physical disabilities, to help them get around, read books, etc. If that is the case, then Ms. Jones’ comment: “why after almost 40 years of federal funding do the problems of low-income students, as highlighted by the recent graduates, still persist on this campus? How many more millions of dollars will it take to solve the problem and at what point should an institution like Wash U be expected to provide these support services on their own” is completely nonsensical. New poor students keep arriving and needing those special services, and every year they need to be paid for. If that’s the way TRIO was designed to work, then that’s that. If WashU was never told they’d be expected to pick up the tab eventually, why be surprised if they haven’t? If TRIO was in fact designed to help the institutions build their own self-supporting program, then this criticism is reasonable, but then one would have to ask why the govt kept giving them the funds for 40 years without question.
jamesmoeser - August 19, 2010 at 5:00 pm
The Carolina Covenant was created to send a message to students from poor families that, even though UNC is highly selective academically, there is no financial barrier to a first class education at UNC. The results speak for themselves. Now 12% of the first year class is covered by the Covenant, up from 4% before the program was started seven years ago, as Shirley Ort points out in her comment above. Even more impressive is the improvement in retention and graduation rates among Covenant students, as measured against a control group of low-income students before the Covenant was established. The simple fact is that UNC is a low-cost institution, and we were providing 100% of our students’ need with aid before this program was created. What we have eliminated is the debt and the false perception of many poor families that we were beyond their reach. I am also proud of the fact that, despite our high academic reputation and ranking, we never diverted one cent of student aid from need-based to merit-based scholarships. This program is a core value of a university we like to call “The University of the People.”James MoeserChancellor Emeritus
goxewu - August 20, 2010 at 11:09 am
On the one hand, Ms. Auer Jones issues some rhetoric about how she “applauds” university programs to edcuate low-income students, how she understands that these programs cost a lot of money, how she knows that in the end they’re cheaper than supporting uneducated low-income people throughout their lives.Then, on the other hand (and with no specific comparisons), she finds “a bit outrageous” (why “a bit”?) an article praising Washington University and UNC Chapel Hill for doing exactly what she “applauds.” Why? Because those schools (one of which charges a high tuition,* and has a substantial endowment,** and gets $500 million in federal research funds) are spending too much money improving the lot of too few people too little. And what, to her, would be a reasonable return? She doesn’t know, but she’d like someone to do some studies to prove her right. In the meantime, she just knows that those hifalutin elitist institutions are wasting the taxpayers’ money.* Tuition at private colleges covers only about 40-50 percent of the cost of instruction. ** Endowment principles are staggeringly large amounts of money, but only the income on those principles can be spent by colleges and much, if not most, of that expenditure goes to making up the shortfall between tuition and the actual cost of educating their students. *** What does the amount of federal funds for RESEARCH have to to do with the amount of federal funds for INSTRUCTION? Surely, they’re not fungible at Washington University.Ms. Auer Jones makes a lot more sense at 8,000 feet than she does at street level.
ledzep - August 23, 2010 at 12:41 am
That’s because you didn’t even try to identify her point, gowexu. She has a separate one-sentence paragraph saying “Give me a break” – what precedes that? The statement of another author, to the effect that these two programs should provide lessons for other institutions. She then attacks the suggestion on the grounds that the situation of institutions like these and programs like these is not comparable, in relevant respects, to the large-scale problem. Certainly there are some digressions in the post, but the overall point was that these are good programs, but they have very little to do with the situation of most colleges and universities vis-a-vis improving retention and graduation of disadvantaged students. I suspect you would interpret it the same way if you put aside your animus for little while.
goxewu - August 23, 2010 at 12:04 pm
Re #18:Ms. Auer Jones starts off by accusing Mr. Kahlenberg as personifying the “astounding hypocrisy” of higher education in his praising of programs at UNC and Washington University regarding low-income students, and saying other, less elite schools might learn something from them. This is a more serious–and nastier–charge than accusing Mr. Kahlenberg of simply being in error or misguided. This says that Kahlenberg knows one thing but says another for public consumption.Ms. Auer Jones cites a few stats–Washington University’s expensive tuition and its large endowment, and UNC’s five percent improvement rate in the retention and graduation of low-income students–but doesn’t compare them to anything. She’s waiting, she says in effect, for some “apples-to-apples” studies to get the numbers she obviously figures will prove her right. (Why her post didn’t simply say that it’d be nice to have some numbers to compare before praising WU and UNC, instead of calling Mr. Kahlenberg a hypocrite, is a mystery to me.)A good portion of Ms. Auer Jones’s post consists of some “applaud[ing]” and “commend[ing]” the two schools’”laudable” programs, along with a repeated announcement that educating low-incomes students requires not just faculty working harder at it and schools’ strengthening their curricula, but money, lots of money, too. It’s all worth it, Ms. Auer Jones says, because it’s ethically the right thing to do, it helps exceptional students defeat the odds, and it saves money in the long run by making productive citizens out of people who might otherwise require various forms of public assistance through out their lives.But then Ms. Auer Jones turns around and says–with no indication of what retention and graduation rates she would consider adequate–that WU and UNC aren’t doing enough with the taxpayer money they’re getting. (Mr. Kahlenberg is an apparent a hypocrite for saying they are.) As ledzep paraphrases Ms. Auer Jones, “the situation of institutions like these and programs like these is [sic] not comparable, in relevant respects, to the large-scale problem.” Right. They involve hundreds of students at elite schools and the large-scale problem involves tens of thousands of students at a variety of institutions. But that doesn’t mean that there’s little or nothing that schools less elite than WU and UNC can learn from these programs. Ms. Auer Jones calls Mr. Kahlenberg a hypocrite for saying they can, but offers only the comparison-less opinion that too much taxpayer money is being spent (pace “…it requires a great deal of additional money at a time when there is precious little of that to go around”).
goxewu - August 23, 2010 at 12:06 pm
Oops. “…of personifying”