Saturday, September 23, 2006

Economist attacks higher ed

For a change of pace, here is an attack on the elitism of higher education from the editorialist "Lexington" in the economist. The attacks the increaing inequality of admissions procedures.

It is is a two pronged attack: One against the policy of legacy admissions, including for children of faculty. The second is against diversity policies.

He proposes instead a class-based system in which poor children gain preference.

Most of this doesn't affect us. I don't know that we get special treatment for our children (unfortunately and unusually in the world of academia). We are an incredibly monocultural campus and we are increasingly pricing poorer families out of the system. However, I am not sure that we have a restricted enough admissions policy to turn anyone away!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Just yesterday a neighbor told me I was lucky that my kids can go to college for free because I teach in the UW system. He was surprised when I told him that I was told they can't!