Anti-affirmative action advocates (from both the left and right), have long said it was really all about class — not race — in the quest for equal opportunity in student admission.
How many times in the past did we hear complaints about the poor, rural kid from Appalachia not getting a break in admission while the Cosby kids got into Harvard?
Now as we all await the Supreme Court’s anticipated ruling that could change affirmative action, class advocates will be waving a new study to bolster their position.
The new report says low-income students — in spite of good grades and test scores — still don’t attend the most elite colleges in the country. That would be not just the Harvards and Yales, but all the mid-to small colleges that pride themselves as being the Harvard of the South, West, North and points in between.
Only 34 percent of low-income students (defined as students from family income under $41,472) attended the country’s 238 most selective colleges.
Meanwhile, 78 percent of students from families earning more than $120,776, attended the best schools.
The study is to be published in the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, but the findings were reported in The New York Times.
