Inequality in Higher Education
Just as the American system of public, primary schools creates inequalities in education due to their funding from local property taxes, higher education plays a role in perpetuating systemic white privilege. College is no more “the great equalizer” than K-12 schooling, and in some cases, it only tilts the playing field further to disadvantage minority students. The inequality in higher education opportunities is passed on through generations. A student with parents who have completed greater levels of education and have higher earnings is more likely to go further with their education than a student whose parents have not attained advanced degrees themselves and have lower earnings. Higher education inherits all the previous injustices discussed when it came to K-12 education and continues those injustices into the workforce.
A report from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce (CEW) titled Separate and Unequal: How Higher Education Reinforces the Intergenerational Reproduction of White Racial Privilege explains the difference in the type
of higher education institutions attended by white and minority students: “white students are increasingly concentrated today, relative to population share, in the nation’s 468 most well-funded, selective four-year colleges and universities while African-American and Hispanic students are more and more concentrated in the 3,250 least well-funded, open-access, two- and four-year colleges”. So, while both white students and African-American and Hispanic students are attending college, the type of college differs. To further illustrate this point, since 1995, 82% of white students have enrolled in the 468 most selective schools versus 72% of Hispanic students and 68% of African-American students enrolling in two-year and four-year open-access schools. The disparities between the two classifications of institutions points to disparities in student outcomes. The selective, four-year universities have access to more funding to provide programs, pay qualified professors at a desirable student to professor ratio, support research on campus, and supplement study abroad opportunities for their students. Contrastingly, open-access universities where minority students are concentrated lack funds for any of those educational enhancing programs and on top of that face overcrowding. Selective institutions spend anywhere from two to five times more on instructors per student than open-access colleges. With these inequalities in mind, how could you expect the same outcomes of success to come from both institutions?
There are certainly cases of minority students attending a selective university and their education providing a source of social mobility. There is no doubt that this can occur, but these cases are the exception, not the norm. In most cases, higher education only exacerbates existing inequality. The stratification of race and socioeconomic status on college campuses mirrors the trend of society at large where the gap between the rich and poor is widening. What processes do institutions have in place to counter act the inequality in society when it comes to college admissions? Enter affirmative action into the debates surrounding higher education. First developed in the 1960s to address racial inequality, today affirmative action is discussed more as a mechanism for ensuring a diverse student body. Diversity on campus and in classrooms brings new perspectives to the learning experience and ultimately produces better outcomes for everyone.
Is affirmative action effective? The Washington Post explains “black students who probably benefited from affirmative action — because their achievement data is lower than the average student at their colleges — do better in the long-run than their peers who went to lower-status universities and probably did not benefit from affirmative action.” The students who do better in the long run are now equipped to go on to obtain graduate level degree and earn more in their lifetime, setting their children up for additional success. This social mobility then results in greater diversity in the workforce, particularly in leadership positions.
When discussing affirmative action policies, it is critical to remember the history of America that has given rise to the wealth disparity between whites and African-Americans. Beginning with slavery then moving into the era of Jim Crow laws, state-sponsored exploitation of African-Americans is entrenched in American history. Furthermore, within the last 100 years, white families received federal subsidies which allowed them to move to the suburbs to developments such as Levittown. Federal agencies did not, however, issue to same loans to African-Americans, making these homes unaffordable for them. White people could comfortably save for college. African-Americans could not. Lack of property, a main source of wealth for families, in earlier generations due to direct discrimination on the part of the government has negative consequences for years to come, creating a cycle that is difficult to escape.
If affirmative action serves as a tool for essential righting the wrongs of the past on behalf of the federal government, maybe it has a place in higher education. The fruits of a diverse student body certainly cannot be denied. Still, some argue for a pure meritocracy in college admissions where race is not considered, only academic ability. If this is your belief, consider the plethora of inequality facing students even before they apply to college, the obstacles that students of color face that for many white students do not exist.