And the rich get smarter

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

NY Times, April 30, 2004
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
And the Rich Get Smarter
By DAVID L. KIRP

BERKELEY, Calif.

Yet another string of studies confirms what any high school senior or 
parent who has just weathered the college admissions mating dance 
already knew — it's a cutthroat competition where money matters more 
than ever. Teenagers from wealthy families are beating out middle- and 
working-class youngsters, both at top private colleges and flagship 
state universities whose historic mission of broad access is receding 
into memory. The trend means that "smart poor kids," as the educator 
Terry Hartle bluntly puts it, "go to college at the same rate as stupid 
rich kids."

A lot of not-so-secret factors are at play in this market. In pursuit of 
competitive advantage, well-off parents spend thousands of dollars on 
test prep courses, college admission summer camps and "dress for 
success" counseling. They are more adept than their less well-heeled 
rivals at working the system; that brings results, especially at 
prestigious universities.

At the other end of the spectrum, the inequity is worsening as 
cash-starved state schools are forced to raise tuition — an average of 
14 percent last year. For fall 2003, for example, community college fees 
in California rose to $18 a class hour from $11. Though that typically 
amounts to only about $100 a semester, enrollment was more than 100,000 
below the state's projections. Why? Sticker shock scares away poorer 
students from even applying.

The one bright spot is that academic leaders are now discussing this 
wealth gap. William Bowen, the former president of Princeton, made 
headlines when he assailed elite colleges — presumably including his own 
— as "bastions of privilege" and urged putting "a thumb on the scale" 
for poor students. Amherst's president, Anthony Marx, has made the same 
argument. Harvard's president, Lawrence Summers, announced that parents 
who earn less than $40,000 a year will no longer be asked to contribute 
financially to their offspring's education. That's a start, but much 
more is needed if such students are going to be a presence in Harvard Yard.

Those who run universities bear considerable responsibility for creating 
these inequities — and not only in admissions. These trends are just the 
most visible sign of how much the market ethic has come to dominate 
higher education. To be sure, dollars have always greased the wheels of 
academe. What is new and troubling is the raw power that money exerts 
over all of higher education, including the emphasis on research that 
adds less to the storehouse of knowledge than to the institutional 
coffers, and the shift from liberal arts to the "practical arts." While 
competition has strengthened some colleges, embedded in the very idea of 
university are values the market does not honor: the belief in a 
community of scholars and not a confederacy of self-seekers; in the idea 
of openness and not ownership; and in the student as an acolyte whose 
preferences are to be formed, not a consumer whose preferences are to be 
satisfied.

full: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/30/opinion/30KIRP.html

--

The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org