Socioeconomic Status, Race/Ethnicity, and Selective College Admissions. A Century Foundation Paper.

The issue of affirmative action at our nation’s top universities excites much interest and controversy in part because it goes to the very heart of what Americans mean by equal opportunity and meritocracy. Race-conscious admissions received an important boost with the Supreme Court’s recent decision affirming the constitutionality of the University of Michigan Law School’s program—an outcome we support. This chapter seeks to expand the traditional debate over race and ethnicity in selective admissions by analyzing the issue of whether low-income students, too, should benefit from affirmative action policies. Along the way, it asks a series of questions: Who attends selective universities today? Does it matter who gets in? How do college administrators define merit and fairness in the admissions process? How are they defined by the public? How should they be defined? Do colleges currently give a leg up to economically disadvantaged students? If not, would students admitted under such preferences be qualified to do rigorous, college-level work? What would be the effect of replacing affirmative action with a variety of policies: a straight system of grades and test scores; a lottery of minimally qualified students; automatic admissions to the top-ranking students in all high schools, irrespective of standardized test scores; an automatic admissions plan for top-ranking students with a minimum standardized test score requirement; preferences for economically disadvantaged students?