
Generation Later, Poor Are Still Rare at Elite Colleges - _RPM
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/26/education/despite-promises-little-progress-in-drawing-poor-to-elite-colleges.html
======
fiatmoney
One problem is that the poor and highly qualified are mostly white kids from
flyover country and to a lesser extent recent Asian immigrants, both of which
are ethnic anti-priorities for colleges.

~~~
nooron
Hey fiatmoney. I think you're concerned about some thing that a lot of people
don't vocalize civilly, so I'm glad that you are.

Though I don't work in admissions, I work alongside a number of people of that
do.

I've gone out of my way to ask about those "white kids from flyover country".
I will elaborate on those of my alma mater here.

Very few kids from rural school districts perform highly on standardized
testing. Very few receive the encouragement (familial and cultural) to go to
high-quality, distant schools. If you want to hear some horror stories about
this from me, shoot me an email. I'd be happy to share them in private.

Point being that even within its state, my large public school struggles to
recruit from its rural parts.

Contrary to what you assume, they actually do employ recruitment and
affirmative action policies towards to the exact folks you're talking about --
predominantly poor and culturally disadvantaged rural people who are
predominantly white.

~~~
gnarbarian
I'm interested in hearing a few of these stories.

~~~
avn2109
Well, I was a poor white kid from flyover country. I slacked off all through
high school while hating the cruelty and boredom, and did my best to get
terrible grades. I knew nothing about test-prep, and buying a Kaplan book
would have been a stretch. But my HS's counselor gave me a SAT fee waiver so I
took the test and got near-perfect scores.

That made me feel like I should apply to good schools, and I liked Thai food
and the New Yorker mag so I applied to Columbia. I wrote them an admissions
essay about living in an Indian tipi and having a single mom, and submitted an
application photo of me standing in front of my tipi. CU admissions ate that
up and the rest is history.

However, I did have a supporting, loving, literate mother and I avoided
becoming a meth addict/pot smoking loser. Both of those things really help
avoid small-town stagnation.

~~~
ProAm
Well now we need to see the photo. Good story.

~~~
avn2109
Unfortunately that photo was on a spinning-platter hard drive and I knew
nothing about backups. Of course it's still on one of Columbia's servers
somewhere but liberating it would involve an unbelievable amount of red tape.

------
staunch
Poor people are likely as rare in elite Silicon Valley investor portfolios.

The vast majority of investors today are from upper middle class backgrounds
and educations. We know this isn't based on merit because they're almost
universally bad at investing. But who makes the decision to invest in VCs?
It's LP money managers with almost identical backgrounds.

~~~
gnarbarian
Investing in poor people who are bad at managing their own money or improving
their lot in life is probably not going to get you very good returns.

All joking aside. Upper middle class families are more likely to value,
encourage and afford personal computers for their kids. That's what got me
into programming. I started using my dad's computer too much when he had to
work, so he bought the parts and a friend and I built my first computer at 14
with an awesome Riva TNT2 Ultra graphics card.

~~~
thaumasiotes
> Upper middle class families are more likely to value, encourage and afford
> personal computers for their kids.

Afford, sure. Value and encourage? I'd say they're more likely to demonize
personal computers than to encourage them. My mom recently bought laptops for
my little brother and sister, but she can't stand that they want to use them.

Among the middle class, computers for children have become yet another
parenting moral panic: [http://www.penny-
arcade.com/comic/2014/06/30](http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2014/06/30)

------
bjourne
Question for the Americans: Does it really matter if you go to an "elite"
college or a regular one? Where I'm from, about 8 universities offers roughly
comparable Bc.S and Ph.D engineering programs. I'd guess that roughly 90% of
the study material is the same. It's the same in many EU countries. No one,
but an idiot, would claim that an engineer who studied in Luleå is more
qualified than one who studied in Lund because of their choice of schools.

But in the US, if you graduated from (expensive) school X you are objectively
more qualified than if you graduated from (cheaper) school Y?

Or if university programs are supposed to be equivalent across universities,
cant you just lie and say you went to a brand-name university? Because it
doesn't seem fair that someone who couldn't afford an expensive university
should have his or her whole career retarded just because of that.

~~~
IvyMike
> Question for the Americans: Does it really matter if you go to an "elite"
> college or a regular one?

One of the best engineers I know went to DeVry, which is definitely on the
lower tier of schools. And I know a few great programmers that don't even
technically have engineering degrees.

That being said, if I had to roll the dice I'd put my money on an MIT,
Berkeley, or Caltech grad any day. The minimum standards, your peer group, and
your opportunities are much better at an elite school. There are crappy grads
from 'elite' schools, but the odds of this are a lot lower. And if you have a
lot of talent, you're going to get noticed at the elite schools and have a
much easier time finding a way to use your talent than at a lower-tier school.

~~~
bjourne
But why are you contradicting your own anecdote? Do you have any evidence to
believe "elite" university graduates are more competent? Seems to me like you
and the sibling comments who also would pick the "elite" graduates could
influenced by marketing.

But in the real world you don't have to roll the dice. You can ask applicants
what courses they took and what their grade scores were. So if you had two
applicants with the same grades in front of you, would you still pick the one
that went to a brand name university?

~~~
IvyMike
> Do you have any evidence to believe "elite" university graduates are more
> competent?

I guess I'm talking about the difference between a strict rule and playing the
odds.]

> You can ask applicants what courses they took and what their grade scores
> were. So if you had two applicants with the same grades in front of you,
> would you still pick the one that went to a brand name university?

With no other data, yeah, I'd pick the guy who graduated from MIT with great
grades over the DeVry guy with the same grades. But of course my job during
hiring is to try to acquire more data, and I swear I tried really, really
hard, and sometimes it made the difference.

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lotsofmangos
Given that funding for elite colleges is largely about social signaling, if
the poor and rich were fairly represented by ability in these colleges,
wouldn't the rich move their money out and set up new elite colleges?

~~~
judk
This is really interesting. It would be great to see how this plays out, as
there are "menu effects" and "reputation effects", intertia and such that
would make it awkward to have society make this change without people publicly
admitting what they are doing.

~~~
lotsofmangos
This might be why you end up getting colleges within colleges within colleges.
They are like a kind of social power fractal, that becomes crystallized in
brick over time.

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ipince
> Sustaining one poor student who needs $45,000 a year in aid requires $1
> million in endowment devoted to that purpose

I don't see how this makes sense. Why does it require over 5x of what you
would expect by multiplying cost per year times number of years??

~~~
samatman
The endowment is invested, and the dividend supports the student. This quote
assumes a 4.5% yearly return on investment. If the institution spent the
endowment directly, they would shortly no longer have it.

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thrush
Shouldn't we be more concerned with the frequency of poor people becoming not
poor? Frankly, I'm not convinced that going to college, potentially
accumulating debt, and not having a guarantee of a job is really the best
strategy for someone near or below the poverty line. Perhaps there are other
avenues available that promise or at least offer positive outcomes that don't
require a college education.

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jostmey
The problem should not fall on colleges - if someone grew up poor and that
held them back then sadly I think it is too late for them - colleges should
not have to reach down. Assistance needs to begin way before poverty stricken
kids apply for college!!!! That's why I think we need more programs like Head
Start.

P.S. Teacher pay needs to increase while at the same time teachers must be
tested for competency.

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philip1209
I still feel offended that my alma mater, Washington University in St. Louis,
is not need-blind despite its $5.7 Billion endowment.

~~~
ridicter
Wash U alum here. I agree: unacceptable.

I believe Wash U uses the term "need-aware." It aggressively recruits based on
"merit" at the cost of socioeconomic diversity. While I was attending, Wash U
had the most National Merit Finalists, largely because those students get at
bare minimum a $2k/yr scholarship for showing up.[1]

On the one hand, this has resulted in a significant increase in the
standardized test performance of its student body [2]--and that has probably
resulted in higher rankings overall. On the other hand, there's a simulated
environment quality to being around people who are all so similarly well off.
For example, every student from a 150k+ income family thinks of his/herself as
middle class. Not much perspective.

[1]
[http://www.nationalmerit.org/annual_report.pdf](http://www.nationalmerit.org/annual_report.pdf)

[2] [http://www.businessinsider.com/colleges-with-the-highest-
sat...](http://www.businessinsider.com/colleges-with-the-highest-sat-
scores-2014-8?op=1)

------
sitkack
Thanks god. Last thing we need is actual meritocracy where people can cross
class boundaries with hardwork and a bit of cunning.

Harvard and Princeton are rubber stamp universities for the elite. GW Bush
graduated from Harvard.

~~~
santaclaus
Quite a few nobel laureates are also associated with Harvard. [1] I'm sure one
could cherry pick rich jokers from virtually any school.

[1] [http://www.harvard.edu/nobel-laureates](http://www.harvard.edu/nobel-
laureates)

------
bnolsen
What really matters: Are the most capable getting into elite colleges?

~~~
incision
What really matters: Actually reading the article.

The entire point, beginning with the very first paragraph...

 _" This is despite the fact that there are many high school seniors from low-
income homes with top grades and scores: twice the percentage in the general
population as at elite colleges."_

...is that these students are completely capable, yet underrepresented with
the cited studies bearing that out in good detail.

~~~
gnarbarian
Elite colleges are overrated and overpriced for bachelors degrees. It's
different if you're getting a masters degree but for the most part you learn
the same basics in a bachelor degree at any accredited school. Maybe they are
doing the smart thing by choosing schools with a better value per dollar.

~~~
abat
If you're poor, the most elite colleges are either free or nearly free. Some
avoid using debt at all in financial aid.

The most elite colleges can be a better deal than a state school.

