College Equity: The Best and Worst in 2011

December 22, 2011, 10:41 am

As the year comes to an end, a look back suggests 2011 was a tough one for those of us who care about low- and moderate-income students in higher education. A series of reports and studies and moves by administrators suggest that the scramble for prestige generally continues to win out over equity concerns among college leaders. Below is my take on the worst and best developments of the past year.

The Worst

The surprising strength of legacy preferences. In January, a new study by Harvard University researcher Michael Hurwitz found that colleges are relying on legacy preferences far more heavily than previously understood. The research dispelled the notion that preferences for the children of alumni are just a“tiebreaker” in close admissions calls. At 30 elite schools studied, Hurwitz found that sons and daughters of alumni see a whopping 45.1 percentage point increase in the chances of admission.
The restoration of early admissions. In February, Harvard and Princeton announced that they were restoring early admissions programs that they had abandoned in 2006 when they said the practice unfairly disadvantaged low-income students, who may not have knowledge of the benefits of applying early, and who need to compare financial-aid packages between institutions. But in 2011, competitive pressures won out and the two institutions reversed themselves.
Dismal Pell numbers at wealthy universities. In March, The Chronicle published an analysis finding that despite a slew of financial-aid initiatives announced in the past decade, the percentage of students receiving Pell Grants at the wealthiest 50 institutions remained flat between 2004-5 and 2008-9. Thirty-one colleges and universities actually saw declines in the proportion of Pell recipients.
Purchasing spots at top British universities. In May, the British government proposed to add newly created spaces at Britain’s most competitive public universities for wealthy students who could afford to pay a different rate of tuition. The proposal to reserve seats for rich students was a blatant form of preference that went beyond even what American public universities explicitly do.
Economic segregation in American law schools. In September, the Denver Law Review published a stunning study by UCLA Law professor Richard Sander finding stark economic segregation in American law schools. Using a large national data base, Sander found that just 2 percent of students at the top 20 law schools come from the bottom socioeconomic quarter of the population while more than three-quarters come from the richest socioeconomic quartile. He noted, “low-SES representation at elite law schools is comparable to racial representation 50 years ago, before the civil rights revolution.”
The rise of merit aid and tax credits. In October, the National Center for Education Statistics reported that non-need institutional merit aid from four-year public and private colleges had surpassed need-based institutional aid, a reversal of the earlier emphasis on need. Also in October, The College Board found that universities now provide an astounding $5.3-billion in merit aid to students who do not need it.

The Best

There wasn’t as much good news on the college-equity front in 2011, but there were a few bright spots.

LSU’s decision to drop legacy scholarships. In November, it was reported that Louisiana State University, because of budget constraints, decided to eliminate special scholarships for the children of alumni. The financial aid was especially hard to defend because it was based neither on need, nor merit, but solely on lineage.
The Aspen Prize for community colleges. In December, the Aspen Institute announced the winner of a new prize for the nation’s top community college. As Kevin Carey argued in The Chronicle, the development of the prize, administered by Aspen’s Josh Wyner, is fitting recognition for community colleges, which “struggle to get by with pennies on the dollar given to well-known flagship research institutions” and too often constitute “the forgotten half of American higher education.” Recognizing excellence within this sector is an important first step to making community colleges equal partners in higher education.
The appointment of Clayton Spencer as president of Bates. In December, Bates College named as president Clayton Spencer, a longtime vice president at Harvard. In 2004, Spencer helped then-president Larry Summers launch Harvard’s financial aid and low-income admissions policy and before that she worked as an education adviser to Senator Ted Kennedy. As president of Bates, she could become a powerful and much-needed voice for equity in higher education.
Funding for Pell and TRIO programs survived in the short term. In August, the budget compromise between the Congress and the White House provided an increase in Pell Grant funding, which became a key argument used by Democrats to support the overall legislation. And in December, the TRIO programs, which were threatened with cuts, managed to get an increase in funding for the remainder of the current fiscal year. The TRIO programs, which provide support for low-income students, continue, however, to serve only a fraction of the eligible population.

Looking forward to 2012, here’s hoping for better economic times, which the country as a whole needs, and which can enable higher education to embrace a more generous spirit toward low-income and working-class students on our nation’s campuses.

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609zr

If you call people leaders and give them *nothing,* some of them are going to turn into leaders. While there are many exceptions, I believe this to be true since the beginning of time.
blogademician

I also feel that 2011 will be recognized in history as the Year of Heightened Accountability in education, particularly in the for-profit setting. I think it’s too early to add it to list of “best” or “worst,” but I’m in favor of measures that make sense. I wonder, though, what this will mean for the future of traditional institutions and non-traditional students, as access to higher education remains somewhat elusive.
Unemployed_Northeastern

“Economic segregation in American law schools. In September, the Denver Law Review published a stunning study by UCLA Law professor Richard Sander finding stark economic segregation in American law schools. Using a large national data base, Sander found that just 2 percent of students at the top 20 law schools come from the bottom socioeconomic quarter of the population while more than three-quarters come from the richest socioeconomic quartile. He noted, ‘low-SES representation at elite law schools is comparable to racial representation 50 years ago, before the civil rights revolution.’”

That’s OK. Given that there are 45,000+ law school graduates every year and fewer than 25,000 entry-level attorney positions to support them (including part-time and temporary work), a strong plurality of law grads, at least, will end up in the bottom socioeconomic quartile. I’m a licensed attorney trying to navigate this black hole of an economy, and I consider myself damn lucky whenever I can get an interview for a nonlegal* job offering as much as $30,000/year, which will almost cover the interest portion of my student loan payments if I send my *cough* nonprofit lenders the entire post-tax salary. How’s that for equality?

*Entry-level legal jobs basically don’t exist anymore. Outsourcing, intense competition from unemployed experienced attorneys, lower profit margins, and automation of many legal tasks have taken care of that. If one graduates from law school without an offer in hand, they have a much better chance of getting into Harvard Medical School than they do of entering the legal profession in any meaningful way. See, for instance, the January 2012 ABA Cover Story “The Law School Bubble: How Long Can It Last If Law Grads Can’t Pay Bills?” http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/the_law_school_bubble_how_long_will_it_last_if_law_grads_cant_pay_bills/
jamescurrin

Reading through Richard Kahlenberg’s list of the “worst” developments of the past year, I was able to feel a ray of hope that college admissions have not entirely departed from sanity as I have feared. I was particularly struck by his dismay upon learning that the “top twenty law schools” admit only two per-cent of their students from the lowest socio-economic quartile. I would suggest that he take a leave of absence from his sinecure at the Century Foundation and actually spend some time among the lowest socio-economic quartile. The first thing he will discover is that, in a mirror image of Garrison Keillor’s Lake Woebegone, all (or nearly all) of the students are below average. Upon his return from his sabbatical, he might usefully do a survey of his colleagues at the Century Foundation as to what proportion of them are drawn from this quartile. It is very sad that so much intelligence among people like himself is devoted to avoiding the obvious.
biaknabato

Legacy preferences are nothing but a form of a social and economic tax on everyone. It only produces mediocrity rendering this country helpless in its ability to compete with other countries. It merely exists to satiate the ego of parents of students who think being admitted to Harvard will mean bring them wealth or happiness or be perceived as intelligent etc. If sex eiscrimination costs our GDP 9 % according to one study, then legacy preferences exacts its own kind of toll. Harvard ranks only 8th in the production of future doctorate holders in science and engineering and sends fewer grads to medical school compared to UCLA or Berkeley.
fiona

Re the idea of having the “research track” and the “teaching track” in grad schools: That might be good in STEM fields. The research tracks in the humanities would be, I suppose, in fields like history or political science, with the assumption that the students would not attempt to get jobs as professors in academia.

Some years ago, universities had Doctor of Arts degrees, which were supposed to be doctorates for those most interested in teaching. The “teaching track,” essentially. I think the D.A. didn’t catch on because universities preferred to employ Ph. Ds. But I could be misremembering.
richarddery

Oddly enough, the college where I teach likes to see some experience, but actually is biased against applicants with significant experience. Long time adjuncts who have dedicated years to our institition have been told they are unhirable because they have too much experience, this despite the fact everyone knows they are great teachers.
http://nathaniel-campbell.blogspot.com/ Nathaniel M. Campbell

Perhaps this is a naive question, but if so many college teaching jobs require significant previous teaching experience, how do you crack the egg? How do you get your foot in the door at the beginning of a career, when by definition you don’t have that much experience yet?

If they won’t let you get experience unless you already have it, aren’t you caught in the 22?
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=12451314 Laura Summerhill Deeter

I got my PhD at an R1 research institution and most of the folks there really want their grad students headed into other R1 institutions, so talk of teaching/working at a cc is minimal. If there is talk of cc, it is almost always in a negative fashion, as in, “why in the world would you want to do THAT?!” As a student, I was required to teach at least twice (not be a grader, but in the lab and/or the classroom) in order to graduate. It’s not a lot of teaching experience, but it’s better than none and that little bit can get the foot in the door.
msmaria

Excellent article. Trying to get a teaching position in a community college is extremely difficult, as I know from personal experience. I never have managed to crack that nut, but do have some university teaching experience. Here in Los Angeles, it’s quite competitive to get a teaching position in a community college.
msmaria

You are correct about the D.A. versus PhD degrees. The former has fallen out of favor, unfortunately, because having the latter degree (PhD) doesn’t mean you know how to teach!.
big_giant_head

This.
big_giant_head

You’re right. It’s either that, or to, you know, hire people who can actually teach.
big_giant_head

What?
robjenkins

Thanks for adding your wisdom to the conversation, Kathleen.

Best,
Rob
nsqljs

I
look at finding a job like playing the lotto. Every employer views an
applicant’s experience in different ways, as many of the comments on this post
indicates. However, I will say that I am graduating this May with an MA in
History and the only reason I wanted a Master’s was to teach at a community
college. I taught four classes as a Teaching Assistant, my school only paid a
$200.00 annual stipend, so I certainly wasn’t in it for the money. I did that
because I absolutely and thoroughly adore teaching at the college level and ultimately
would prefer to work in a community college. Yet, I sent out my Teaching
Portfolio, CV, and a cover letter and have only received rejections letters so
far. One Department Chair in the area was kind in his response, but also said,
you “only have TA experience,” as if I was some useless nobody
incompetent that did not have teaching experience (I was also an instructor for
five years in the business world so apparently he did not read my entire CV) or
understand the community college environment. I started at a community college.
I was one of those students that came from an economically disadvantaged
background that couldn’t afford to go to a four year institution right away. I
also was always a working adult that had to pay my own way through school and
that was another reason I chose to go to a community college for as long as I
could since they generally have more flexible class schedules with classes in the evening and
on-line. So I understand the community college environment and
student body quite well. Moreover, clearly I care about teaching if I was
willing to practically do it for free as a TA and forgo paid part-time work
that would have brought in an income that I desperately needed. Then the
Department Chair suggested applying for another unpaid internship geared to
train people to work as a professor with the local community college district
to gain even more experience. Since my school loans are running out, I don’t
have the financial luxury to work for free any longer. I either work for pay,
or I starve. I also don’t have any problem starting as an adjunct to build
experience, but when people won’t even give you a chance to start as an
adjunct, how do you get this “experience”? It seems no one in colleges
or any industry for that matter is willing to give people a chance to get their
foot in the door anymore so they can acquire this “experience.” This is a
shame. There are so many people with great potential that would be phenomenal
professors or fantastic in other professions and they are overlooked. It just
feels like everywhere you turn, a door is slammed in your face for one reason
or another. But, the lack of “experience” is a very old and truly unfair paradox
of the work world.