While many were upset when the U.S. Supreme Court restrained Harvard University from using racial preferences, I believe this decision could ultimately benefit working-class students of all races. He suggested that there was.
Harvard University has attracted wealthy students of all colors for decades, but restricting the use of race would allow the university to reach more low-income and working-class students. This could indirectly create racial diversity without violating the law.
When Harvard University announced its admission decision for the Class of 2028 last Thursday, there was some evidence that the university is moving in the right direction. Although no racial data was disclosed and information on socio-economic status was sparse, certain numbers suggested continued progress in a key area: the percentage of first-generation students. There is.
The percentage of first-generation college students in Harvard’s 2028 graduating class rose to 20.5 percent, according to data released Thursday, which is 7 percent of the percentage of first-generation students Harvard admitted to its 2019 graduating class. almost triple the percentage. Last year, Harvard University reported: That number is almost 20 percent.
Despite impressive long-term progress, Harvard will need to do more if it wants to maintain its racial diversity and draw talent from students of all socioeconomic backgrounds. Harvard should continue to diversify by indicators such as parental education level, income level, and other indicators of socioeconomic status.
As an expert witness in affirmative action litigation, I work with Duke University economist Peter S. Arcidiacono to ensure high levels of racial and economic diversity and maintain academic standards of excellence. We have modeled what Harvard University can do for students.
In a simulation of a viable plan to achieve racial diversity without racial preferences, we demonstrated that Harvard University’s first-generation student population could increase to 25 percent. This significantly exceeds the number of her 2028 graduates at Harvard University. (The simulation also assumed that Harvard abolished the preference.) As for legacies and faculty children, the university does not announce. )
Other socio-economic data released Thursday by Harvard University is of limited usefulness.
Harvard University said 20.7 percent of its admitted Class of 2028 will be eligible for federal Pell grants, which will go to roughly the bottom half of socioeconomic families. Scholars have shown that Pell data, while important, may be a misleading proxy because it includes many students from the very middle class who are within the qualifying household income range. There is.
As a result, the Pell rate may not track the true representation of low-income students. For example, in his book The Most Crucial Years: How Universities Make or Break Us, Paul Tough writes that Princeton University doubled the number of Pell delegates from 2004 to 2013; “The actual number of low-income students has increased very little.” campus. “
Furthermore, Pell’s data also tells us nothing about the socioeconomic distribution of the more than three-quarters of 2028 enrollees who exceed Pell’s standards.
To close this gap, Harvard professor David J. Deming argued that universities should report more detailed income data, such as the percentage of students in the top 1 percent. Raji Chetty ’00, another Harvard professor, broke down income data for her 2013 Harvard graduates by quintile, but I think this information should be reported annually. I am.
I would go further and request that universities provide a breakdown of their student populations by wealth, or net worth, and by neighborhood poverty level.
Wealth and neighborhood poverty are important predictors of opportunity in America, and black and Hispanic students are much more likely to be disadvantaged than white students at the same income level. Harvard should reward talented students who overcome these obstacles, but without data we can’t know whether it does so.
Harvard University should also disclose the number of children of students and faculty members who have become legacies.
Professor David E. Card, an expert witness at Harvard University, said that under a simulation of affirmative action that removed legacy and preference for faculty children, the number of legacy students in the 2019 graduating class It showed that the proportion would decrease by nearly 70 percent. The proportion of children in teaching staff would have fallen by a much lower percentage. Once the data is released, we will see how much preference remains.
Despite its shortcomings, the data reported by Harvard University is encouraging. In a legal battle over the use of race in admissions, universities deserve credit for significantly increasing the proportion of first-generation college students.
Still, as a university whose motto is Veritas, Harvard should be prepared to lift the veil even further.
Richard D. Kahlenberg is director of the American Identity Project at the Progressive Policy Institute. He served as an expert witness in the Student Fair Admissions case against Harvard University.
This article is the second in a series that provides analysis and commentary on the culmination of Harvard’s first admissions cycle following the U.S. Supreme Court’s race-based admissions cuts. Read Kahlenberg’s first article here.
