IN A COUNTRY that is hemorrhaging manufacturing jobs and with a union membership rate at its lowest percentage since the Depression, you cannot make a decent living without a college degree, and the money you earn will probably be proportional to the quality of the university and your choice of a degree. Kids coming out of Dartmouth can pick from a range of $80,000-per-year consulting jobs, and VCU social work majors can look forward to poverty wages. High school graduates will probably have to wait for the food stamps to arrive before they buy groceries. This reality probably represents part of the reason you applied to U.Va. Unfortunately, your socioeconomic status played a decisive role in your acceptance and attendance here.
If you're white and scored well on the SATs, you should praise the corporation that creates a test that measures cultural background and socioeconomic status in additional to "scholastic aptitude." If your father went to U.Va., you should thank the legacy system. Most U.Va students benefit from a higher education system that rigidifies social stratification and practically guarantees that the fellow who serves you hamburgers won't ever be your son's boss.
If you are a U.Va. student, your family probably makes over $100,000 per year. There is a 20 percent chance your family makes over $200,000 per year. Families with incomes exceeding $100,000 per year represent approximately 20 percent of the population (Census 2003), and families with incomes exceeding $200,000 per year represent 2.4 percent of the population.
In contrast, nationwide, only 3 percent of the student body at the most prestigious colleges and universities come from families in the lowest income quartile. Thus, the wealthiest students are overrepresented and the poorest students are under represented by a factor of 8.33. The New York Times reported that only 5 percent of high-income high achieving students do not attend college, whereas 25 percent of low-income high achieving students attend college.
Because college graduates generally earn more money than non-graduates, the lack of income diversity at U.Va and other elite colleges leads to rigid social stratification. According to Peter Gottschalk of Boston College and Sheldon Danziger of the University of Michigan, children from the lowest income quintile have a 60 percent chance of remaining in the lowest income quintile and a 90 percent chance of remaining within the two lowest income quintiles a decade later. These statistics should lead us to question the purpose of the higher education system and our commitment to the principle of equal opportunity in general.
In recognition of what President Casteen calls "flaws in both federal and state financial aid policies," the Board of Visitors created Access U.Va. to eliminate the "barriers to access" for working class students. President Casteen claims the problem stems from "faulty public policy," and that "now the top universities are stepping forward to remedy the problems." In a few years, we may judge the effectiveness of Access U.Va. Instead of simply waiting, however, I would suggest that while Access U.Va. attempts to address the financial need of lower-income students who are accepted to U.Va., it will not remedy the socioeconomic factors affecting SAT scores, for instance, or legacy systems that eliminate opportunity for high achieving first generation college applicants. Thus, while I applaud the Board and Casteen's attempt to make the University affordable, I hope they will not stop looking for solutions to a pervasive problem.
Right now the higher education system serves to protect the socioeconomic elite from the dissipation of their power that would result from equal educational and concomitant economic opportunity. Should we work to reform the higher education system in order to educate the most qualified students available? Are we as the overwhelmingly white, suburban elite willing to acknowledge that a student attending a rural or inner-city school deserves the education that he or she earns?
To those of you who care for your fellow humans, who feel that you are your sister's and your brother's keeper: Get to work. In addition to providing financial aid for those students who do get accepted, we must end the legacy admission system, reduce the weight of SAT scores in admissions calculations and provide the counseling support necessary to help disadvantaged youth apply to college. Then we could work on the underlying socioeconomic factors that create the unequal access to admissions.
Zack Fields is a Cavalier Daily viewpoint writer.
Read More
PATEL: Personal development courses support students beyond the gradebook
By Heer Patel | 3 days agoThe University must rethink its approach to education beyond traditional major-specific requirements and mandate personal development courses.
EDITORIAL: Commercialization threatens U.Va.’s educational mission
By Editorial Board | 4 days agoAfter all, measuring the University’s worth in terms of accrued capital, operational efficiency and numerical rankings molds this space into just another cookie-cutter institution.
YOUNIS: Why every U.Va. student should say yes to English
By Ayat Younis | January 9, 2025Every student at the University, regardless of their primary field of study, can professionally and academically benefit from engaging with the English department.
