Georgetown University's Center on Education and the Workforce has released a new report, Progress Interrupted: Evaluating a Decade of Demographic Change at Selective and Open-Access Institutions Prior to the End of Race-Conscious Affirmative Action.
As expected, even before the court ordered end of race-conscious admissions, "diversity gains made at the nation’s [498] most selective colleges and universities were incremental at best." The full report is downloadable from the press release.
As for social class, most low-income students, as measured by Pell Grant eligibility, continue to enroll at open enrollment rather than selective schools.
Students attending selective colleges also have access to significantly more resources that those attending open enrollment colleges"
In can be very difficult to understand a system that promotes the power of education to level playing fields while providing the wealthiest and whitest students such a disproportionate share of educational resources.
The authors recommend better resources for open enrollment colleges so that students enrolling on these campuses will graduate at rates similar to those of the selective colleges. They argue for more complete integration of high schools and colleges and greater transparency about the actual student costs of selective colleges. None of these recommendations are new, yet policy makers cannot hear them often enough.
