Reducing an Unfair Educational Advantage

College doesn't have to be for the elite

Recent news suggests that colleges and universities, especially the elite, may not be as good as they could be or ought to be because they cater to students whose families are able to pay. This means that college is largely a ‘pay to play’ game, not necessarily admitting the best and the brightest but rather admitting students whose families can afford college tuition. Students whose families have few financial resources are at a disadvantage and are therefore not equally represented in colleges and universities across the U.S.

The NY Times and CNN report some colleges and universities have recognized this and are offering up a novel solution: Admit students whose families can’t pay anyway, without expecting a family contribution toward the cost of tuition. For example, grants are replacing loans at Amherst College in Massachusetts, meaning that students from financially disadvantaged families may have fewer concerns about loan burdens upon graduation (although, there is some debate about this). This is in contrast to national trends where students are increasingly relying on loans to pay tuition. In another example, Harvard University touts their offer of a $0 family contribution for qualified undergraduate students whose families earn less than $60,000. (Click here to watch the video on CNN publicizing Harvard’s $0 family contribution for qualified students).

These are noteworthy efforts to recognize the potential of students from financially disadvantaged backgrounds and give them an opportunity to enroll in and graduate from college – one that might not be afforded to them otherwise without financial assistance. 

Yet for some students, these efforts may come a little too late. Families’ financial advantage may translate into educational advantage early in students’ academic careers. For instance, students whose families are financially advantaged may grow up expecting to attend college, putting effort into school and expecting their effort to pay off in the long run. These expectations may develop years before they need to apply and pay for college tuition, suggesting that students’ educational advantage may be based on their families’ financial advantage. Students whose families are financially disadvantaged might not put in the same effort into school because they believe college is unaffordable and do not expect to attend, meaning that they might never achieve the scores necessary to get accepted into Harvard let alone take advantage of the $0 family contribution. If families’ financial advantage translates into students’ educational advantage, and this process begins early in students’ educational careers, then interventions aimed to help disadvantaged students get to college need to begin early.

One promising intervention is savings accounts. Researchers propose that giving students savings accounts as early as possible may help them develop educational expectations that include college and may eventually lead to their college enrollment and graduation. Findings from two recent, longitudinal studies by William Elliott and colleagues suggest that such interventions may be beneficial to students, particularly those whose families may have a financial disadvantage. In the first study, researchers find that students whose families earn less than $50,000 per year are over two-and-a-half times more likely to be enrolled in or to have graduated from college when they have savings accounts compared to those without savings accounts. This is notable given that, according to reports from the U.S. Department of Education, students from low-income backgrounds enroll in college less often compared with their middle- and high-income counterparts. In the second study, researchers find that Black students are twice as likely to be enrolled in or to have graduated from college when they have savings accounts. Again, this finding is valuable given that only 14% of students who enrolled in college for the first time in 2008 were Black.

As the search continues for solutions to improve the college enrollment rates of students whose families are financially disadvantaged, perhaps savings accounts deserve a prominent place amongst the suggested solutions. It may be that savings accounts help reduce an unfair educational advantage, one typically afforded to students whose families are able to ‘pay to play.’

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Note. The presentation of the studies are not intended to use class (i.e., income) and race interchangeably, yet it is noted that many Black families may experience a financial disadvantage relative to their White counterparts. In the second study presented by Elliott and colleagues, Black families had a median income that was $36,347 below the median income of their White counterparts and $30,202 below the median income of the aggregate of families. Disparities in income and asset ownership suggest that on average, Black families may have fewer financial resources to leverage to pay for college tuition. And these disparities have increased over time, suggesting that difficulties experienced by Black families regarding their ability to leverage financial resources may continue. This is further articulated in Elliott's study regarding differences in students' financial aid packages and families' access to economic capital.