Michael Bloomberg announced last week that he would be donating $1.8 billion to set up a college financial aid fund at his alma mater, John Hopkins University in Baltimore. His motivation for the unprecedented donation he said, is that "no qualified high school student should ever be barred entrance to a college based on his or her family's bank account." I think we can all agree this is a great gesture, full of generosity, and one we should all be supportive of. But who, really, will reap the benefits of this donation?
John Hopkins University is a private institution ranked by US News as tenth in the country for undergraduate education. According to Chetty data, private colleges that serve the greatest percentage of low-income students are non-selective universities. Non-selective private universities are those that tend to be the poorest, with few endowments, and they admit most students who apply. At schools such as these, low income students (low income in this data means the lower forty percent of median income) make up roughly a quarter of the student body. On the other end of the spectrum, of highly selective private universities such as John Hopkins, along with even more selective ivy league private universities, the percentage of low-income students plummets to sub ten percent.
The evidence suggests, as does Mr. Bloomberg in his opinion article, that the selective private schools are less likely to admit a student who may have trouble affording the cost of attending, in place of students who can afford to pay. This means that for highly selective private universities, low-income applicants likely only enroll if the admissions team agrees to provide them with scholarships and grants to attend, essentially a full ride. Even though many of these highly selective schools have the funds to provide low-income students a full ride, they often opt for those who can pay full sticker price. This low acceptance rate and outbidding by students coming from wealthy families further discourage low income and working class applicants from applying. Data suggest working-class and low-income applicants will opt for the colleges with the least resources, such as community colleges, regional state schools, or non-selective private universities. Once at these colleges, the lack of cash flow for the college coupled with the lack of present resources means the low-income and working-class student likely will not be afforded the same opportunities, especially as it relates to upward mobility, as are those who attend a selective private university.
Another troubling issue is that most-in-need low-income and working-class students are those at public schools in k-12 that do not have the resources or support to help students achieve their potential. There may be a systemic issue here, in which students with great ability never reach the level of merit described by Mr. Bloomberg in his article. The students who need the most help for upward mobility need the help when preparing for college. Working-class young people realize that they don't have the tools and resources to succeed in college, because they weren't provided those tools or taught how to manage academics in their adolescent lives. In her article in the Atlantic, Alexandria Radford discusses the many reasons working class students with great credentials do not apply to selective private universities. The bulk of the information leads us to the same notion, that working-class students just don't know they can get in to the college of their choice, or that they would be accepted with financial aid available.
Working-class students are not often from schools or cities that have the counselors necessary to advise them. These students often need to be sat down individually to discuss their many options. Often, though, these students only hear about a small number of options available to them through announcements made to their entire class. The majority of high achieving working-class applicants say they just go where they were told to or where they have heard of (the regional public university). I find it hard to believe that such a donation by Mr. Bloomberg will do much for working-class college applicants (except for a few who are the exceptions) and will ultimately allow applicants in the top twentieth percentile to get a better scholarship or even a free ride so that they may further separate themselves from the working class and contribute (even if inadvertently) to the widening of socioeconomic class in the United States.
If Mr. Bloomberg was really interested in serving all applicants who have the merit and high academic credentials to go to an elite college, shouldn't he try to use this money for more than just supporting one of the most selective and exclusive universities in the United States? Why not develop a national scholarship fund that can support working-class applicants who wish to attend a multitude of different universities based on need? Do we want to see one of the largest gifts ever made go to a top-ten selective university that already can provide all of their students with need based financial aid? I am happy that a successful business mogul is announcing to the world that our education system needs help and reform, and his actions are admirable, but are they really accomplishing the goals that he claims catalyzed his donation in the first place?
I think the answer to your question: "If Mr. Bloomberg was really interested in serving all applicants who have the merit and high academia credentials to go to an elite college, shouldn't he try to use this money for more than just supporting one of the most selective and exclusive universities in the United States?" is yes!
ReplyDeleteWhen researching this issue myself, I did not find any evidence that Mr. Bloomberg put any conditions on his endowment (e.g., "these funds may only be used to support low income applicants"), nor did I find anything suggesting that John Hopkins was turning low income students away BECAUSE of academic need. To me, it seems like this donation was simply made because Mr. Bloomberg is fond of his alma mater and wants the tax write off. He also forgets how expensive it is to apply to these elite schools in the first instance, I think a better route would have been using this money to invest in low income high school students before they reach application processes.
But the larger issue here is that education is NOT fully subsidized, and such an initiative is very unlikely going to be implemented in the near future. For now, elite universities attract highly privileged candidates and people of immense wealth. These same people give back to the universities that educated them which continue to attract people of immense wealth/privilege. It is a circular problem, these same institutions continue to have excess funding for students who can afford tuition. Public criticism of academic endowments that serve only to benefit those with privilege is a step toward making education more equal.
DeleteThank you both for your well thought comments! I agree that negativity is always going to be a problem. I never meant to permeate "disdain" for Mr. Bloomberg. My intention here is merely to discuss the many alternatives we can push for as a society for the betterment of the majority of the population.
DeleteI agree with L Nicole that this is a circular problem. When something is wrong, the freedom of speech as the first amendment to the constitution signals us to make public comment, in hopes that we may elicit change for the greater good of the people.