SINCE its founding, the University's Jeffersonian ideals have been at odds with its status as a bastion of economic privilege. Through the decades the University has largely drawn its student body from the ranks of the economic elite while only including a small group of students from the rest of society.
Fortunately, the current administration has recently embarked on an ambitious plan, headlined by the financial aid program, AccessUVa, to extend equal access to the University to all ranks of society. As students, we must ensure that the University holds true to its commitment to break down the economic barriers that have historically denied access to the University to an untold number of applicants.
While the administration's plan to tackle the unequal access is encouraging, the University will have a long way to go if it is to become a truly egalitarian institution. Indeed, a 2005 study released by USA Today noted that 58 percent of the student body was drawn from families with an income exceeding $100,000 while 20 percent come from families with incomes exceeding $200,000.
Considering this former group comprises less than 16 percent of Virginia's households, while the latter represents less than three percent, these figures indicate that access to the University is much greater for students from families at the top than it is for the rest. Although almost all colleges of the University's stature share these same issues, the University nonetheless has an obligation to confront this problem.
Moreover, the community has a moral obligation to ensure that the University is used as a tool for talented students to achieve the American dream, and not as a mechanism for entrenching existing hierarchies within society. Moreover, on a practical level, the University's access to state funds will inevitably come into peril if it is viewed as an institution which only serves a small section of the state's elite.
Even though it is extremely difficult to remove such deeply ingrained inequalities, the programs centering around AccessUVa are the most promising initiatives yet attempted at the University. In the words of University spokesperson Carol Wood, AccesUVa "extends advantages to students that would never before have come to UVa."
AccessUVA seeks to accomplish this goal through a variety of means including raising the maximum family income at which students can receive financial aid and by decreasing the debt burden of students receiving financial aid by capping the amount of loans that can make up an aid package. According to the AccessUVa Web site, these reforms led applications from families with incomes at or below 200 percent of the poverty level to rise by 21 percent for the class of 2009.
In addition, the University has also implemented a variety of other programs. According to Wood, "The University has a grant and we train 20 U.Va. fourth-year students who are actually going into communities into high schools around the state, who are going into guidance offices to understand not just about U.Va. but about the opportunities of college."
In sum, these programs represent the University's renewed commitment to tearing down the barriers erected by economic inequalities. While this commitment is a necessary first step toward tackling these problems, the University community will not effectively address these deep-seeded inequities unless it makes addressing this issue a long term priority.
To this end, student groups have a very important role to play in monitoring the success of these programs and in pressuring the administration into more radical action should they fail.
Student groups such as Student Council and progressive CIOs can play a crucial role in this process by working together to monitor the success of these programs and issue reports as to their success. Moreover, progressive students should be prepared to organize a new group designed to pressure the University into more substantial action should the current initiatives not achieve their goals.
By expanding equal access to education the University can not only fulfill the Jeffersonian ideals that were set out at its founding, but also give thousands of students a fair chance to achieve an education at the University.
Adam Keith is a Cavalier Daily associate editor. He can be reached at akeith@cavalierdaily.com.
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