Question: Higher education after WWII was the instrument, thru the GI Bill, for returning vets to attend college and create a thriving middle class of their baby boomer kids. Now, higher education is working in the reverse and is a major contributing factor to the rapidly increasing income and wealth inequality here (the U.S. is now second in inequality only to Great Britain among developed countries). At the same time that smaller percentages of African Americans and Hispanics are admitted to top colleges, the premium paid to college graduates escalates. We are the only country that “accidentally” locates most of its best colleges and universities beyond commuting distance from population centers to “unintentionally” keep out placebound and lower income families who can’t finance room and board for their kids. States use regressive sales and property taxes to finance public universities to subsidize students from families of above average incomes and graduates who are destined to earn far more than the average taxpayer. Remember, education is conveniently labeled as a non-federal function. Now comes the coup de gras in today’s newswire releases from Florida.

Only 3 pecent of the 6000 entering freshman paid more than $500 tuition at the top university, the University of Florida! Florida already has one of the lowest state tuitions in the country (about $2000), but these three-quarter funding scholarships require only a 3.0 gpa and a below-average SAT (970). UF is a strictly residence university because it is a two- to six-hour drive from nearly all the state’s 14 million population located in the Tampa Bay, Miami, Jacksonville, and Orlando areas. Adding further irony, these “Bright Future” scholarship cannot be needs based (i.e., many recipients are millionnaires), and the funding comes entirely from the state lottery, the most regressive “tax” on the poor ever devised. States like New Hampshire and Florida, who depend on lotteries because they refuse to consider passing the more equitable income tax, must promote gambling to the hopeless and addicted in flashy ad campaigns (this week the one-in-14,000,000- odds lottery exceeded $70 million). Thus, the food and rent money taken from the poor and uneducated goes directly to subsidize the well off to get richer by obtaining a top education. The one hope is that as UF raises its average SAT near 1300 and weighted gpa past 4.0 for next year’s entering class, a few more children of the rich will get squeezed out by poorer academic achievers. Unfortunately, UF still gives admission preference to the wealthy by its policy of admitting preferentially the kids of alumni (i.e., high-earning college grads) and siblings of current students admitted when standards were lower.

Answer: You raise a good point about the lack of data in these debates. Here the issue is transportation and room and board costs.

Rice is located in the central section (broadly defined) of Houston, and it certainly would be conveniently located for people living in the middle of the city. Yet most of the students I knew from “bad” neighborhoods were Asian, who I imagine might have been willing to take the bus up to Austin (or even College Station) for school if they had to. Given the demographics of Berkeley, I think it is much the same there.

Maybe in Florida the urban overachievers are heavily Cuban? I don’t know. But in general, the groups from urban areas who would want and are qualified to attend a residential university aren’t the same blacks and non-Cuban Hispanics we often bring to mind when discussing the urban poor. OK… if you go back to my original post the next thing I talk about is how UCSD has no problems with letting high school students enroll in classes with UCSD. The mass majority of students are from upper class schools in close proximity (in fact I’ve never met ANY high school not from one of these schools). The complaints made about charter students are never raised with these students. Darccity was speaking of the location of many universities and I just brought up one more data point where it appears that the location of the school appears to be located as far away from a certain segment of the population as possible. When efforts are made to bring this population to the campus, the school will also fight this… all the while supporting the local population (they call this “good public relations”). In reality what UCSD does is support La Jolla (an extemely upscale neighborhood) while South San Diego is not only ignored, but demonized.

How is Stanford’s relationship with EPA? It seems like that might be a potentially similar situation, except EPA is physically closer.

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  3. What about the Middle Class Community?
  4. Rejection Letters to Colleges
  5. Thought du jour: Rigid Class structure in U.S. Maintained by higher education system
  6. Average age at good 4-yr Universities
  7. Ivy Admissions
  8. Can you pay a mortgage with student loan money?
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  11. Questions from the mother of a high senior
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