Preserving Need-Blind Admissions
posted by Sarah Waldeck
Back in December, Charles Murray of the American Enterprise Institute called on President Obama to argue against the pro forma use of the bachelor’s degree as a job qualification. Murray did not discount the value of broadening one’s horizons or of exploring subjects for their general interest. But he argued that it was inappropriate to keep “the bachelor’s degree as the measure of job preparedness, as the minimal requirement to get your foot in the door for vast numbers of jobs that don’t really require a B.A. or B.S.” This is particularly true, Murray wrote, when most 18-year-olds are not from wealthy families, are not attracted to academics, and “want to learn how to get a satisfying job that also pays well.” As an alternative to the bachelor’s degree, Murray recommended certification tests which would vary in form depending on the job.
When I read Murray’s opinion piece, I thought his argument had intuitive appeal. Most of us know people who are quite successful despite never having gone to college. Most of us also know individuals who would have preferred a certification route to their current career, if that had been a viable option. But I was troubled by the class implications of Murray’s proposal. A bachelor’s degree will continue to have economic and social cachet for some time to come; parents with a tradition of higher education are most likely to push their children towards college despite a certification option; and certification is likely to become one more method of separating the haves from the have-nots.
I was reminded of the haves and have-nots when I read a recent New York Times article about Reed College dropping more than 100 financially-needy students from its admit list and substituting students who could afford the $50,000 yearly cost. At least for now, Reed has determined that this is a better approach than spending more of its endowment or selling some of its real estate.
One of the most interesting aspects of the Reed story is that Colin Diver, Reed’s president, is openly expressing frustratation about the “country-club” investments that colleges make in order to attract students. As the Times reports,
“The catering to consumer tastes — I keep trying to say, we are in the education business,” Mr. Diver said, describing the pressure to keep up with wealthier colleges and expressing a frustration rarely voiced publicly by college presidents. “The whole principle behind higher education is, we know something that you don’t. Therefore, we shouldn’t cater to them.”
But no college president wants to be first to make major changes in the college experience; Reed, for example, is not abandoning plans for a new performing arts center. “If we’re going to change our ways, we’re really going to need to be pushed,” Mr. Diver said, referring to colleges generally. “It’s not going to well up from within.”
So who could provide the push? One possibility is donors, particularly significant ones. Too often big donors gravitate towards buildings and other facilities with naming rights; these same sort of projects fuel what the Times referred to as an “academic arms race reliant on tuition increases and fund-raising.” Colleges could help foster this change by making the naming rights that come with, say, need-based scholarships as attractive and public as those that come with buildings. This suggestion may verge on change welling up from within, but if the prospect of axing poor but qualified students isn’t enough, it’s not clear what will be.
June 16, 2009 at 11:22 am
Posted in: Education
Print This Post
Responses (1)
Shubha Ghosh - June 16, 2009 at 4:30 pm
Let me tout my alma mater, Amherst College, which under the leadership of President Anthony Marx is moving towards generous financial aid and support for a wider range of students, both economically, racially, and culturally diverse. I know only a little bit of the details, and perhaps others can provide more. But President Marx’s vision offers an alernative path.
Leave a Reply