Is College Merely Helping Those Who Need Help Least?

New York state, one of the nation's largest and wealthiest, doesn't have a flagship public university comparable to Berkeley, Michigan, Virginia, Florida or even Penn State or Maryland. They don't have a single public university ranked in the top 75. While the NYT obsesses, as always, over the Ivies and their cousins, this is a travesty for New Yorkers who are denied a flagship university experience at an affordable in-state price.

There's kind of a weird switcheroo going on at the end of this article. Who is "we" and who are "the American people," as two separate categories? In fact, the people who most believe in higher education are the people that the author seems to mean by "we" - elites, educated people, liberal people, urban people. Those people tend to vote to support education and other public goods with their taxes. On the other hand, the people who least value education, according to the logic of the article it seems, are the non-elite, the ones who can't afford it, the ones who don't have a college education, and non-urban people, and thus most likely politically conservative people who are not high income earners. Ironically, those are the ones who vote to least support higher education with their taxes, thus making it increasingly unattainable for themselves, their children, and their communities. You are preaching the choir here.

There are many effective ways of disrupting a system. And college rankings is one such system, well explained in the article. Alternative ranking systems, based on (1) peer assessment of quality of students, (2) faculty assessment of quality of students, (3) rankings by department (excellence of courses, rigor of requirements), (4) student evaluations of quality of student life (residences, campus activities, accessibility of advisors), social and community life), (5) student and administrative assessments of effectiveness of teaching, (6) determination of quality of academic resources (research facilities, laboratories, libraries, faculty access) by perhaps a disinterested reviewer: These are just some of the possible elements of ranking that could change public perception and moderate the irrational popularity of a handful of schools. I work in college admissions, so I understand a lot of this. The test-prep industry is essentially a racket, which people would object to less if there was demonstrable proof that scores equated to college achievement. The article confirms it does not, which many of us have always known. Make student applicants submit high school academic papers and projects, sent by the school, not by the student, to back up the grades reported. Ignore any teacher recommendations that do not include evidence of the student's ability as a critical thinker and curious intellect.

Those of you who work as hiring managers, you actually have the power to affect this. Next time one of these overachieving rich kids applies, throw their resume in the trash and keep looking for one that has actual life experience listed on it.

Whats up with all the references to Elite universities? There are formative experiences to be had at lower tier colleges and universities. I believe what people are really after is prestige and connections; the former has benefits only for the first few jobs and the second is illusory because of the social stratification brought with them from high school. The current articles on Kavanaugh illustrate the difficulty of those not in the upper class to assimilate into the social circles where these connections are supposed to occur.

Federal money given to land/sea/sun and space grant universities needs to have no "conditions" on it. Currently, the federal government says it will take these funds away if the term "climate change" is spoken in research. Outside financial influence with strings on curriculum and research is always a bad idea.

"higher education does not ameliorate the inequities of K-12. It magnifies them" If the function of k-12 is to educate, and many students receive a k-12 education extremely unequal to others, so they are profoundly unprepared to attend demanding college programs. How could this possibly function otherwise? While many universities do what they can to find and help underprepared students have a shot at getting prepared, it is not only NOT the responsibility of colleges to take on unprepared students for difficult classes they are not ready for, but to do so (and most of them are doing it anyway) is profoundly destructive of their own missions. Americans' wild obsession with status-name schools is absolutely insane. Most wealthy and powerful people didn't go to those schools anyway! When people talk about inequality and Ivy League schools, they are routinely and exclusively focused on paychecks after graduation -- presumed golden tickets to high-earning jobs. We never see any other metrics but pay, measuring this "boost." Paychecks are important, as is equality, but what about schools' own priorities, which might be to accept and develop students some significant proportion of whom are actually _interested in learning_, not just for megabucks in Silicon Valley? Students who want to, say, read books and learn history, instead of becoming one more undergraduate "business" major or computer science major who thinks undergrad is just trade school, the fancier the better?

I am waiting for someone to write a really fabulous story on a small state college in Tennessee or Idaho or Georgia that is doing some fabulous good for their students. This annual hand-wringing over Ivy League schools is exhausting.

This is an interesting review as far as it goes. But, like many articles of this genre, the assumption is that college is the only way to success. Frankly, a huge minority of kids are not cut out for college and the 'knowledge economy' doesn't have jobs for even close to all of them anyway. And, more importantly, there are lots of other interesting and rewarding tasks that critical to our lives on a day to day basis. For all it's drawbacks, the German system provides alternative options for kids who have other interests, like wanting to work with their hands and building something intricate and complex. In a partnership of schools, government and industry kids learn the skills that make Germany the export powerhouse par excellence because of what they make. There, manual skills are respected - and compensated. Here, one is measured by their college degree, useless or not. There is a HUGE need for these skills, but the obsession with 'college for all will' keep us from not only not supplying the skilled workers that we need but produce a college cohort with skills we or they don't need along with a debt that should have never been assumed in the first place. What a waste.

Studies have consistently failed to show large test score gains due to preparation. Paul Tough and the reviewer believe a few anecdotes and ignore the studies. High-paid tutors will want you to believe they have a secret sauce. In the Rick Singer admissions scandal, students were enabled to cheat to get higher SAT scores. If the rich parents could have boosted the scores of their children safely and legally by spending a few thousand dollars on test prep, they would have done so.

A firm grasp of the obvious....no workable solutions ..Yet !

Coughs. Free College for All!

These days a world class education can be had, for free, from world class institutions, with just an internet connection. (Here are MIT’s offerings: https://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm ). So the problem is not one of access or cost. The problem is societal in that we fail our most vulnerable youngsters the minute they are born. Early childhood interventions would be transformational so that the extent of trauma is minimized so that these kids can grow equipped to better seize the opportunities presented to them despite the challenges of their socioeconomic background.

“The middle class raid retirement funds & bury themselves in student loans.. to attend state schools”. I am having trouble with this “painted with a broad brush” paragraph. Define “middle class”, please. My daughter went to a state college and graduated with zero debt. She made the choice to attend a state college because the private college she wanted to go to would saddle her with substantial debt (not me). My son went to a private engineering college because of the merit scholarship he earned and financial aid we received as a middle-class earning household; after all expenses were calculated the costs for this ended up to be the same amount as a state college. By the way, my daughter, the graduate of “State U” business school makes much more than my son, though he is very successful in his own right. I made my children aware of the choices that needed to be made about incurring student debt and this steered them to not incur debt. You don’t need a shiny diploma from Yale to succeed, you need to get that B.A./B.S./Master’s Degree and go out into the world, pay your dues, and strive to get better at what you do as time goes on.

We need more money to be put into preK - 12 before we look at higher education. What is the point of putting money into community college if they have to teach remedial math and English? We desperately need to upgrade students primary school experience - and only with more money for teachers can we attract/retain the calibre of people needed and demand what is required to succeed in the 21st century. Do not fix an ugly house without first fixing the foundation.

It took me to my mid-60s to realize what I learned in my high school Democracy class (yes there was once such a thing), that America is a caste system that serves greed and worships celebrity. In God we trust is a lie. All we trust is profit. We don't lift people up by raising the standard of living for the poor. No we make them servants. Trump isn't the problem. He's a symptom of our greed.

Affordable access to (good) education and (good) healthcare is fundamental to a successful society. By severely limiting both to an ever greater portion of the population we Americans shoot ourselves in the head as a country. There is absolutely NO REASON we should have such rapidly growing inequality in both of these areas. Also no excuse. But having an uneducated, sickly population serves a purpose to those with power. The desperate can not think critically about their own best interests and well being. They (we) are too busy trying to survive. So the wealthy/powerful continue to exploit and expend most of our lives, for the benefit of theirs. We have to make a change for the better, or have no choice but to turn into the worst.

Book reviewer Westover writes, "If we want others to believe in public education, we first have to believe in it ourselves." Living in a university town, I am surrounded by a multitude of evidence which proves every day and beyond a doubt that America believes in public education. But populist authors Westover and Tough find capital in targeting the Ivy League schools "and their ilk". When choosing which institutions to apply to, too many high school seniors and their parents prize validation over education. Real life shows us that the former is a false prize and this reality is what researchers should be writing about.

"It is difficult to overstate how important college is at this moment." The author is exquisitely correct. It is the 'make or break' for middle class designation. All of the burgeoning problems like decreased college gov funding exist but...…...….look around. We used to have unions that would bring in trainees...relatives usually but now the ranks are basically closed. Your local gov positions are occupied by long term employees, and any openings are coveted for the relatives. Teaching is not open as the teachers hired are most often retirees as the retirement pool is carefully guarded against any new entrants. The only job constantly being trumpeted by politicos is police. Thanks to Bush, we have already become a police state, and the police hires are creating the snares and the traps that generate their existance at the cost of the public trust. Where are we going to end up? IF we don't establish trade schools on par with educational schools, we will have no option besides incarceration. Civilian conservation camps were successful because they produced a product, a trained and talented individual. They saved a generation of people. Now that all published data admit IQs are falling, down 20 points, with the 85 to 95 low IQ being the most difficult to deal with, the prisons will see higher and higher numbers of inmates. We are a police state, and now we are completing the circle, feeding the low IQ to the prisons. Is this our future?

This author makes an assertion I hear often. That children of educated parents with any means don't need/deserve a college education because they will just draft off of their parents success. I find that to be intellectually lazy populist rhetoric. In our growing international economy, brain-based jobs are becoming even more competitive and specialized. So all late-teens who are interested will benefit from higher education and higher skills. Including kids of high-income homes lest they founder and drop down the ladder. The idea that any college should support one generation to only abandon the next is ludicrous, not to mention against the DNA of every parent trying to lift their kids up. We should not speak in these terms. I think the right solution occurs in increasing the size of the participant pie for all kids to get higher ed. Which means America would be much better served if we lost this old marketing driven concept that only Harvard and Yale can provide good educations. Let's find ways to make all schools more affordable on the price curve to educate ALL our kids. Build all up not tear some down seems like a much better philosophy to me. Mr. Tough where

Karl Marx and Karl Polanyi predicted that the market system, if left unrestrained by government, would destroy society and the environment. I would say we are about one-half to three-quarters of the way there. All of our public institutions, as well as the family, are being eroded by the simple minded notion that, left to itself, the market will distribute goods and services equitably, or at least efficiently. The fact is: the market only works if you have the money to play the game. If you don't, you're not in the market. You can play the lottery (sucker!), or, most likely, just reconcile yourself to a life of debt and disappointment. This is the society we are creating.

Why do we put education financially out of reach for anyone who desires it? That is shooting ourselves in the foot as a nation. Public universities need to stop being about their bottom line. They need to stop catering to corporate academics in order to support their existence. Federal money given to land/sea/sun and space grant universities needs to have no "conditions" on it. Currently, the federal government says it will take these funds away if the term "climate change" is spoken in research. How sick is that???

"College was meant to be an equalizer"... Reads the headline for this article. NOTHING could be further from the TRUTH. College was/is meant to give the participant a "leg up" on the competition. Always was, always will be.

You rarely hear a core problem addressed: the corrupt power of the faculty. Faculty senates featherbed their salaries, benefits, pensions, and other goodies in their own self-interest. That type of governance leads to the astonishing inefficiency of operations, to courses and programs to suit the faculty tenured in a department, and to indifference to students and the needs of society. Corrupt little insular universes with no meaningful oversight.

Does the Warren, an Ivey professor, have the guts to look this one straight in the eyes and call out the hypocrisy and slow-burn corruption here? The tax-exempt status of elite institutions ensures the long-term inequality will only get worse. It's wrong. It's corrupting.

I like your comments but not your headline. It is not a matter of only helping those who need it the least; it is about helping all students.

The author needs a course in logic. "Post hoc ergo propter hoc" describes the fallacy at the root of this story. Is it not more reasonable to assume the parents in a poor family are poor because they lack the skills needed for a higher paying job? By "skills", of course, I am referring to their mental acuity -- their intelligence. Lower intelligence parents are likely to have lower intelligence children. A broad generality, I admit; but it's the most likely explanation for the inequality the author decries. "Equal rights" means "equal opportunity." It does not imply equal results; what is accomplished after the opportunity is provided depends upon the individual's competence.

When I went to a NY State public college in the 1960s, a Regents' scholarship paid my entire tuition. The last time I looked the largest award was $1800 but tuition rose to around $6,000. At least Cuomo's plan to Make tuition free for those from households earning less than $125,000 should be a help to many. I wouldn't have been eligible for any of the jobs I held without a college degree.

There is no question that a college education can for many, raise their income prospects and so improve their lives. Whether the current organization of higher ed is the best--or even a good--way to deliver this benefit is an entirely different question. Obviously the loss of family wealth and the debt and default of students frequently outweigh that benefit--while the exploding administrative bureaucracy in universities demand higher and higher salaries that lead to fewer professors and more adjunct faculty. Whether the huge sacrifices of families and students are worth what has been shown to be primarily a "signalling" degree and not a certification of knowledge or competence is another unsettling question. The monopoly 4 year colleges and universities have on this signalling degree, and perhaps this signalling degree itself, should probably be phased out. Then there is the matter of inculcating ideology. The schools are overwhelmingly staffed by a single political party--and this Party hires and promotes and advantages its own. This does not work for at least half the Country. There are many other matters, like the explosion of poor mental health on campuses, the betrayal of an allegiance to first amendment rights, young people who never finish their degrees. And then there are the young people who never go at all. Josh Hawley has made a good starting proposal: let all young people apply for Pell Grants, even for vocational school and training. Let's lift everyone.

Had a conversation with a co-worker years ago (when we were discussing our kids' college prospects). He mentioned that when he and I were going to college (in the 70's), California funded 80-plus % of the University of California. At the time (in about 2010, maybe), that number was down to 11%. My daughter is about to graduate from UC Berkeley. The degree she is getting costs a student who can't get grants/scholarships $30,000/year - or $120,000. For a "public" university. (And yes, private universities are twice that.)

I am a humanities professor at UCSB. We are a public school and I work every day with students of color, students who are first-generation, and students who are low-income. Sometimes all three of these categories converge, sometimes not. Regardless, we do more with less: our infrastructure is crumbling, but we build more and more dorms to accommodate additional community college transfers, a promise extracted by Gov. Brown in exchange for a tiny bit more of the state budget---6% instead of 4%. Our classes are large: a "small" course is 60 students, large is 300+, humanities professors on my campus have no phones, any parties we organize within the dept are always potluck, and our graduate students, bless them, who are often first-gen themselves, help us in the trenches by teaching smaller 25 person sections that meet in addition to the lectures. We have amazing resources on this campus for all of the above students: the undergrads often have trouble understanding how to ask for help. It is a learned skill.

The tuition levels in the US are found nowhere else in the world. The endowment levels of the rich universities are found nowhere else in the world. Cut out all the frills and cut tuition. In an ideal world there should be increased government support, but that is of course in an ideal world (or not the US). When middle class or lower class students can actually afford a degree and afford having the experience to actually learn not being under tremendous financial pressure, then those who need to be helped will have a better chance.

My father always said public Universities were "a first class education at a bargain price"- if you put work into it. My major was Nursing- would I have been a better Nurse if my degree was from an Ivy League school and not a State University? I think not! My parents' generation worked hard but could afford to send us to State colleges. I will be paying on the loans I got to help 4 of my children through public Universities (they have loans too) til I die. So much change in one generation. The inequities noted in this book are striking. Wish I knew a fix to a very broken system.

I'm not sure that, even if the question posed by title of the article is accurately answered "yes". the adjective "merely" is appropriate. Who knows what person who needs less help than others nevertheless might go from merely successful to helping save the world, due to that little extra obtained from college? "Help" is, after all, a nebulous word considering all the myriad ways "help" can be defined, including individual help versus society help. We know that one person sometimes makes a huge, nonlinear difference in the world. It is definitely possible that college could result in that person making that difference and not making it otherwise; college often changes the life course of students by exposing the to things they would otherwise probably never see.

The focus on the ivies is near pathological. They make up a tiny percentage of total students and yes it comes with cache but it is not the whole story. The public universities which still educate the bulk of US students. And yes there are well heeled students but again that does not preclude bright students from all income levels from attending. More to the point are expectations and preparation. K-12 education and parents who support learning make for students who apply at all and then succeed. We cannot expect universities to fix either K-12 or parents.

I have always admired and appreciated Paul Tough's excellent work, and I would never defend our universities against some of the well-researched charges he brings in this book; however, at the same time, I think it's important to appreciate these matters in a fuller context, one that does not ignore the K-12 situation. Very specifically, if only, say, 15% of the students in the bottom SES quartile are reading at grade level, how do we expect the remaining 85% to go to college? And yet I assume that those 85% are included in his analyses. Another important point is that because the K-12 education experience has been "dumbed down" so much in recent years -- to keep all of our students "successful" and feeling good about themselves (even though genuine self-esteem actually comes from similarly genuine effort, not easy success) -- increasing numbers of our high school students are not learning how to study and put forth sustained effort. Ask anyone who's been teaching at the college level for enough years about the changes they have observed in the student body over time.

The title of the book is wrong. College can not equalize 15+ years of inequality. The years that matter most are the early ones. Parental involvement, reading to your children, interactions with people and not tablets, expanded vocabulary...those are the years that matter. Investment in parental leave, community programs for pre-school, and k-12 education are the only way to develop college students who can "make" their futures.

The underlying assumption here, and currently true, is that college is about getting ahead financially. When my daughter entered Smith College in 1988, college was still primarily about broadening one's mind and being an educated person. By the time she graduated in 1992, the writing was on the wall that college was becoming about getting ahead financially. And so it continues.... but we have become bankrupt in so many ways while worshiping at the feet of the almighty (so far) dollar.

I'm a first generation college student coming from a very poor family. I triple majored (Mathematics, Physics, German) and attended a small college. Because of the financial condition my parents were in, I borrowed money ($30k in debt when I graduated in January 1984 - equivalent to about $86k in today's dollars), and worked upwards of 60 hours per week to pay for tuition, room and board. I then had to quit graduate school (despite getting 2300 out of 2400 on my Physics GRE) because my parents were in trouble financially and medically and needed help. By the time I got my life back (nearly 40), the days of the system giving me automatic breaks was long over. What I do today is completely self-taught, and while I'm now paid fairly well for it, sadly college didn't help me. I was busy working while co-students were making connections, and far too many of them didn't have to worry about affording college in the first place. The college I attended had to rewrite many of its policies because of me. E.g. The way they used to run their work program was that you paid off the entirety of the program then got to keep the paychecks. I had to threaten informing the Federal Government they were cheating in order for them to change it to what it was supposed to be. I have had to literally fight for every scrap of respect I've ever gotten. It's made me a survivor, but sadly so far the only benefits I've gotten from college have been the labels I put at the bottom of my resume.

This is not at all surprising. In the years since Reagan, many people on the right deride the role of public institutions - colleges, schools, etc and have worked hard to reduce the funding, all while criticizing them for lack of performance. And, as the story of the tutor shows, money can often lead to better performance, even with a low income kid. It isn't rocket science. As we defund public institutions, they do not perform as well, which leads people to say that since they perform poorly, they deserve even less money. And the cycle continues.

I am someone who worked my way through college. The public university I attended had tuition of $300/ semester back in the 70s. It took 5 years for me to finish, but I finished with out debt. I have a hard time supporting the blanket amnesty approaches to student loans. Let’s focus our tax dollars on providing a good education at community colleges for a price that one can pay as they work through college. The doctors and lawyers and middle class kids who attend private colleges do not need a bailout.

I’d argue that the years that matter most are 0-5. Parents and children need support during those years that our society does not provide. We need high quality early childcare and better funding for K-16 education at the state level.

Exactly the reason we should not forgive student loan debt. It’s a massive handout to those largely destined for success. Few policies could be more regressive.

Some things college is kind of useless for is coping with life when everything just falls apart and jobs evaporate quicker than a few drops of water in a red hot skillet. You really can't eat a college degree. Some of the toughest lessons in life are only learned from experiencing them first hand. When I lost everything I owned and had to catch a bus across country with the clothes on my back and nothing more my college years were of absolutely no use. When I was forced to live in a shed in an old woman's back yard there were no college experiences I could draw on to help. The only thing that prepared me for my misfortune at the time were those years as a young man hitch hiking coast to coast living under bridges and learning all about the generosity of strangers. I'm not knocking a good college education, but it doesn't prepare most people for calamity and financial collapse.

For those following higher ed, there isn't much new here, but I do find this comment disturbing: "The education system isn’t transforming the lives of those who need it most; it is dispensing ever more opportunity to those who need it least." Agreed that for a myriad of reasons, higher education is not benefit everyone equally and improvements are necessary, but how is it dispensing more opportunity to those who need it least? Are you suggesting that part of the solution is that people of means shouldn't attend college? Do you believe they or society will continue to thrive if part of the solution is reducing opportunities for kids of means to attend college? Is it a zero-sum game now? Maybe that is not what the author means, but it certainly sounds that way.

The lack of motivation for minority and economically poor students to achieve academic excellence is a factor which this article, and I assume this book, fails to address. If a student's home environment does not stress the hard work involved, that student will not excel. This is true from the student's earliest experiences with school. Truancy rates and lack of academic accomplishment are major factors in maintaining the inequality that the author writes about.

I'm sorry, but why does anyone believe that higher education was "meant to be an equalizer?" For almost all of this country's history, Universities were finishing schools for the wealthy. Talent and intelligence were not used as a justification for letting in the poor - in fact these criteria were cast as rare precisely as a way to keep the poor out, and to lend a veneer of moral legitimacy to institutions anchored in wealth by admitting a token number of plebes. That a book like this could be revelatory - I suppose our gullibility knows no bounds.

Something to also consider when it comes to the astronomic rise in tuition is the explosion of administrative and "Student Affairs" staff in higher ed. Until recently I worked in higher ed in Student Affairs and the number of jobs that seemingly only exist to make college more "fun" and to cater to the infinity of diverse student populations. Does a college really need a minority coordinator, a womens coordinator and a LGBTQ coordinator? How many people does a university really need to plan movie nights or laser tag outings? Theres no small number of positions at American colleges that you could eliminate with literally no effect on the quality of education. They all represent the giant money pit that is "Student Affairs."

(I'm also first gen. My parents were a printer and a secretary. ) The assumption underlying this article is wrong: that you need to go to an "elite university" to get ahead. I went to Brooklyn College. My wife went to Queens College/CUNY. Three of our kids went to Rutgers, one went to Queens College/CUNY. With all due respect to Rutgers and Queens, I'm not sure anyone would label them "elite". Yet my wife, kids and I are all doing quite well, thank you, and that's not because our schools were out of the ordinary, but that we followed a few simple rules - stay in school - pick a major that will provide marketable skills (computer science and health care were our targets) - do not have babies until financially able to afford it - work part time to help pay your way through school. No large loans. I realize that even these rules are hard to follow, but the idea that if you don't go to Yale you are a victim of inequality is just off base. I got the American Dream at Brooklyn College. You don't need Yale.

I am waiting for a presidential candidate vow to hire non-Ivy league for a majority of staff and appointed positions. When we have people from public institutions in positions of power, then we will see real change in education policies.

"we have allowed the inequities of our economic system to be reproduced in our education system" is correct but incomplete. We have allowed these inequities to be reproduced in pretty much every system from law enforcement to pollution control to the military to transportation to health care. Either we fight to get our democracy working for more people or the rulers will continue to tighten the vise using high-tech surveillance and coercion and, if that doesn't work, low tech tear gas, water cannons and even greater mass incarceration than is already the case. The one thing that the rulers cannot rig, though is the Earth's climate; eventually their greed will destroy them along with the rest of us if things don't change soon.

Thoughtful and balanced review of what looks like an terrific book. College admissions is a vetting mechanism to sort potential "winners" from potential "losers." In my recent book, The Job: Work and Its Future in a Time of Radical Change, I make clear that students born into high income households have a far greater chance of being the former, hence are admitted at a far greater rate than those form lower income households. But in fact, studies suggest that students from high income households have a high chance of lifetime success regardless of where they attend college. So to best serve the public good, it would make sense for universities to admit fewer of the rich and talented--who are more likely to succeed under almost any circumstances--and more of the poor and talented, whose future prospects are greatly enhanced by a prestige education.

Sounds like a good book. Thanks for the review. The answer is simple. Getting there is the problem. How about raising taxes substantially? How about taxing endowments? How about inheritance taxes? How about cutting the military industrial complex? Obvious answers....and no political will.

I went to an elite liberal arts college but worked my whole career at a state university. When two grateful alums from my college decided to put out a one-day matching challenge where they'd match anything up to 500K? 750K? I don't remember...anyway, they had reached their goal before I got to work. So they raised the bar, and eventually raised a few million. This is not an organization that needs my money. If people want to make a difference with their charity giving, they should give to state schools, ideally community colleges. These are the institutions that are truly raising people up. I always said you could have locked my college peers in a dark closet for four years and they would have come out just fine, such was their educational and social capital on matriculation. One other example of misguided, self-promoting giving. Someone (don't remember the name) gave a lot of money to Stanford a few years ago so they could offer especially generous stipends to hot-shot grad students. And this accomplished what?? Those people could have gotten in anywhere. All it did was increase Stanford's bragging rights. And of course, the donor's.

When my children and their friends were choosing colleges, they all wanted to attend distant schools that had some special appeal. Attending a local university in New Jersey was seen as a failure. In retrospect, I think that this must have been a particular form of upper-middle class snobbism, but the deeper implications are troubling. Very few of these young men and women had any idea of what they wanted to do with their lives, so they had no way of choosing a college for its programs. They needed to “discover themselves”, and the colleges were good at exploiting this. Anything that wasn’t intellectual decoration was subtly disdained as “vocational”. This wasn’t something that any of us wanted as parents, any more than we wanted to pay for exactly the “right” sneakers in middle school. It’s just something that’s there, in the spirit of the times. Connected, somehow, with state politicians that enjoy cutting back the funding for public colleges, and the re-emergence of an ugliness in American life.

Education is just plain economics. When you have too many educated people on the market their worth is decreased. When those with educations are scarce their value is increased. We have a situation where there are too many educated people and not enough high paying jobs. The cost of education has gone up tremendously as schools have had to expand to adapt the the ever growing influx of students. Their are legions of administrators, in addition to professors, who earn very comfortable salaries and job security. These ever growing overhead costs are contributing to the ever growing costs of tuition and the ever growing tuition, in the face of job scarcity, if contributing to the so-called inequality. As to the your point about a college degree predicting political preference; what is really going on today is if you don't adopt a certain political preference you fail. They have become indoctrination camps.

Selective colleges are filled with liberal professors writing books about income inequality, lack of social mobility, and the winner take all society. They write about segregation and re-segregation of communities and schools. And yet, these universities are perfectly positioned to stop accelerating all these trends, which they know they do and as Paul Tough points out. Are you, dear reader, a member of an Ivy admissions committee and want to end the harm you are doing? Try these: 1. End legacy admits. Your endowments are big enough. 2. Limit admissions from private high schools to 5% of admits. 3. Do not ask any question on the application where something that cost more than $100 was needed to create the answer. Ignore all those packaged charitable action trips to Guatemala, the $20,000 per year equestrian programs, etc. Find out what prospects can do with their own skills, hands, and wits, in their own community. 4. Reserve 90% of admission slots for applicants that attend high schools that are racially and economically integrated. Use your power to stop the trend where small rich suburbs abandon the cities of which they are a part to avoid desegregation. 5. Consider only sports played through high school. No more buying a leg up in admissions with a decade of $5,000 per year travel teams. This should be a good start to address the problems your professors complain about in society. Right?

Interesting that Ms. Westover begins her review speaking of the "engine" of inequality and how she was (passive voice interesting here) "propelled up to" the "new ground" she lives on now. I read and loved her memoir and feel it was her grit and talent, recognized by a few individuals along the way, that helped her get where she is now--nothing passive or even really mechanical about her "ascent," to me. So I was eager to hear her proposed solution for the terrible situation she and Tough describe--but all she can do (not her fault, just was hoping for a magic answer) is tell us we need to believe--in facts, science, in public education. I DO believe but wish we could had an objectively true, good, practical fix for the broken engine of higher ed (and K-12, too). We're stuck in this junkyard of failed policies, corrupt institutions, systemic inequity--maybe it's just a matter of each individual reaching out, pulling others up, generating "transformative power" where and when it's possible.