Class Matters
This essay was assigned to be written from the perspective of a (choose one: Class matters) advocate, and does not necessarily represent the views of the author.
Over the past few weeks, our first year seminar class, Color and Money, carried out a mock admissions activity for which we acted as a group of admissions officers for a fictional school called The College. At the end of this activity, we selected candidates for admission, and eventually reached a group of students who would enroll in The College next year. Although our class’s admissions process was legal, it did not result in the best possible class of incoming freshman due to a lack of socioeconomic diversity and a minimal financial aid budget. Socioeconomic diversity would prove beneficial to The College and The United States for a number of reasons, and even with The College’s current financial aid budget, it is very capable of admitting a more socioeconomically diverse class.
During the deliberation process, my classmates would often bring up that we only had $70,000 to spend on financial aid for candidates. Because of this, we would often admit wealthy students who were comparable but still less qualified than other less wealthy students on the basis that they needed less financial aid. For example, our class chose to accept applicant Jazmine Hope-Martin, before choosing to accept applicants Rosa Martinez, and Angelica Parker, although both Angelica and Rosa had been ranked higher than Jazmine in terms of merit in previous rounds. Jazmine, however, posed a cost $25,000 less than Angelica and around $30,000 less than Rosa, and this made Jazmine the most sought after applicant of the three (Decision Day). This was all legal, as we had a financial aid budget to meet, and we were trying to use the money as best as possible, but it did take away from our ability to create the best class possible.
The most obvious way to create a more socioeconomically diverse class would be to increase the financial aid budget, however even with the current budget, The College is very able to create more socioeconomic diversity. To take steps toward creating a more socioeconomically diverse class, The College has a few strong options even with its current financial aid budget. Firstly, The College could choose to give diversity points to socioeconomically less fortunate candidates in the same way diversity points are awarded to applicants of minority races. During the admissions process, our class decided to give points for a candidate if we felt he or she would add to The College’s diversity. However, looking at our 4th round review sheet, no points were ever granted based solely on the low socioeconomic status of an applicant (4th round). By being awarded points for being of lower socioeconomic standing, poorer candidates would get higher admissions scores, and thus would be more likely to gain admittance to The College. Additionally, The College could distribute its financial aid budget more intelligently. To admit as many non-wealthy applicants as possible, The College could search for a sort of financial aid sweet spot. For example, instead of admitting a single applicant who requires full financial aid, it could admit two who require half financial aid. This would produce a more socioeconomically diverse environment by distributing it among many relatively poor students rather than a smaller number of extremely poor students. Also to compensate for the fact that no students requiring full financial aid would be admitted with this plan, the college could save spots for a select few exceptional students who require full financial aid.
The College should choose to address the lack of socioeconomic diversity, which is inevitable in its classes to come. The way the current system works is very unfair in favoring the wealthy, and it would prove advantageous to admit more non-wealthy students for a multitude of reasons.
The system that is used in the vast majority of America’s colleges for admission, The College included, is portrayed as a meritocracy (Stevens). This means that admission is ‘merit based’, and the applicants who display the greatest distinction are the ones who will be admitted. However, affluent applicants are much more equipped to meet these merits that colleges evaluate than lower class applicants. Mitchell L. Stevens describes this issue in depth in his study, Creating a Class: “Keenly aware of the terms of elite college admission, privileged parents do everything in their power to make their children into ideal applicants. They pay for academically excellent high schools. They shower their children with books and field trips and lots of adult attention….. In the process of doing all of this, affluent families fashion an entire way of life organized around the production of measurable virtue in children” (Stevens p.20). Stevens describes the impact that gaining admission to a prestigious college has on the child raising process in America. He also states the pricey expenditures that the wealthy make to help their children meet admissions requirements. The poor however are less capable of making these kinds of expenditures, as they do not have the same kind of income level as the wealthy. Class Consciousness in The College’s admissions process could potentially correct this discrepancy by recognizing that lower income applicants are less capable of meeting these merit based requirements and awarding them admissions points due to this fact.
Another benefit being class conscious in The Colleges admissions process could have is that it could help to diminish the lack of upward social mobility in the US. America used to be thought of as a land of opportunity, and a land where with hard work the poor could one day become rich. However, in a recent study conducted by Miles Corak with the World Bank, The United States was ranked lower in social mobility than neighbor Canada. Although, there are many factors contributing to this low social mobility, college’s uncanny favoritism towards the wealthy definitely plays a role (Greenstone et al.). A 2008 Haskins study showed that of children born in the lowest quintile of wealth, those who obtained a college degree were 3 to 4 times as likely to become upper class (4th and 5th quintile) than those who did not get a college degree (Greenstone et al.). Acknowledging class in the admissions process could help to increase social mobility in the United States by giving poor individuals an opportunity to earn a college degree, and thus the ability to move up in socioeconomic status. This would prove very beneficial to the United States, as there is a correlation between nations with high social mobility and nations that exemplify general citizen happiness (Forbes). Although many may feel that it is the government’s job to correct its nation’s lack of social mobility, with the value of a college degree in today’s world, and how much it improves the likelihood of upward social mobility, Colleges also must make changes for this problem to get fixed.
A last reason as to why The College should choose to address its lack of socioeconomic diversity is that it would prove beneficial for The College itself. A main goal of many colleges is to prepare its students for the so-called real world. One way to do this would be to create an environment similar to the real world, and include socioeconomic diversity. This would make the wealthy students more aware of the poverty that exists in the country, and vise versa for the poor students. Although it may turn wealthy classist families away from The College, it would produce a more interesting and more realistic atmosphere and this probably would not have a significant effect on the prestige or perception of The College. Additionally, it would be more beneficial for The College to admit more students from the lower class because the lower class is growing. A poll conducted by Pew Research showed a jump from 25% of Americans identifying themselves as poor in 2008 to 32% in 2012 (“America’s Middle Class Shrinks Further. Now, Blacks And Whites Equally Broke”). With this rapid growth of the lower class, if The College wants to maintain it’s strong applicant pool, it must appeal to the lower class. An obvious way to do this would be to admit more lower class applicants now. If more lower class applicants are attending The College it would set the tone for applicant pools to come. Although some may say that these statistics aren’t truly telling due to the economic recession that started in 2008, the little upward social mobility in America, and the increasing size of the lower class makes for an inevitably large lower class in the future.
The College must address its lack of socioeconomic diversity in its admission process and set an example for the rest of America’s higher education institutions to follow. The people of the nation have called for change and The College has nothing to do but respond accordingly. A 2005 New York Times poll showed that 84% of respondents in a nationwide survey favored programs that allowed low-income individuals to get ahead regardless of race, gender or ethnicity (New York Times). In conclusion, with the relevance of class in the United States today, and the countless benefits that using class as a criteria for admission presents, The College should adopt a class-conscious admissions office and work to create more socioeconomically diverse classes in the future.
Bibliography
@crobmatthews, Christopher Matthews. “America’s Productivity Problem.” Time. business.time.com. Web. 30 Sept. 2013.
Stevens, Mitchell L. Creating a Class: College Admissions and the Education of Elites. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009. Print.
“Happy Country=Social Mobility?” Forbes. Web. 29 Sept. 2013.
Deparle, Jason. “Harder for Americans to Rise From Lower Rungs.” The New York Times 4 Jan. 2012. NYTimes.com. Web. 29 Sept. 2013.
Greenstone, Michael et al. “Thirteen Economic Facts About Social Mobility and the Role of Education.” The Brookings Institution. Web. 29 Sept. 2013.
4th round review, Color and Money Admissions Simulation Data, Trinity College, Fall 2013, http://commons.trincoll.edu/colorandmoney. Web. 29 Sept. 2013
“How Class Works.” New York Times. N.p., 15 May 2005. Web. 29 Sept. 2013.
Decision Day, Color and Money Admissions Simulation Data, Trinity College, Fall 2013, http://commons.trincoll.edu/colorandmoney. Web. 29 Sept. 2013
“America’s Middle Class Shrinks Further. Now, Blacks And Whites Equally Broke.” Forbes. Web. 4 Oct. 2013.