The June 2023 Supreme Court ruling banning universities from employing racial advantages in admissions (the so called Affirmative action) triggered heated arguments.
Most academic studies of the socioeconomic impact of bachelor’s degrees from highly selective universities have failed to quantify what the real added value of getting a degree from a great university. These universities’ alumni have unusually high wages after college, but they also have exceptional high school credentials. This means that, by and large, great high school students are the ones who become successful corporate executives.
There is research that disputes this. Stacy Dale and Alan Krueger of Princeton discovered that graduates of higher-ranked colleges do not, on average, earn more than the ones from lower-ranked ones.
On July 24 2023, Raj Chetty, David Deming, and John Friedman of Harvard and Brown University presented a working paper that is contradictory.
The study examines 3 types of universities:
- “Ivy-plus,” which includes Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Duke, the University of Chicago, Stanford, and MOT;
- “Other highly selective private colleges,” like Caltech and New York University;
- “Highly selective flagship public colleges,” like the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Michigan.
They monitored 2.400.000 students who applied to elite institutions between 2001 and 2015 from high school to their early 30s using:
- Tax returns
- Tuition subsidies
- Standardised test scores, and
- University admissions records
The researchers came up with some interesting conclusions:
- Extremely selective institutions are the best way to enter America’s economic and professional elite, therefore students should polish their resumes.
- These universities’ preferences for “legacies” (children of alumni), athletes, and students at private high schools cause them to admit the children of America’s richest families at remarkably high rates—at the expense of less privileged, better qualified applicants who would be more likely to succeed after graduation.
- Eliminating these regulations would not only increase socioeconomic diversity at such universities but also would boost America’s future elites’ intelligence.
Throughout its 583 years history, Eton college can boast of educating more than a 33% of Britain’s 57 prime ministers. In a similar fashion to the elite UK graduate schools the number of Ivy-plus alumni who achieve positions of remarkable wealth or power shows that these alumni have a huge effect despite their tiny numbers:
- 66% of Supreme Court justices have Ivy-plus degrees since 1967.
- 42% of US presidents
- 25% of senators.
- 12% of Fortune 500 CEOs
When examining average earnings, this approach confirmed that Ivy-plus attendance did not seem to matter. There is a detail that is worth mentioning:
The most successful subset of Ivy-plus alumni earned way more than the most successful graduates of other colleges. By age 33, those who went to Ivy-plus universities were 60% more likely to be in the top 1% of earners than those who attended leading public universities.
If Ivy-plus universities boost their students’ chances of professional success, their selection process should be closely examined. The study’s 2nd main result is that 3 characteristics heavily weighted by admissions offices favor applicants with poor post-college prospects but wealthy parents.
Parents earning more than 95% of Americans are no more likely than the average student with the same test results to attend an Ivy-plus college. However, those in the top 0.1% and 99th percentile of family income are roughly 2x and 3x times as likely to attend. If test scores alone determined admittance, 7% of Ivy-plus college students would come from the top 1% of income distribution. The actual number is …16%!
The ideal scapegoat would be the admissions’ departments. But this is very simplistic. The fact is that rich kids apply to and attend Ivy-plus colleges more often.
Legacy offspring are 4x times more likely to attend an Ivy-plus college than non-legacies with comparable academic achievements. They are no more likely to attend Ivy-plus universities than their parents. Nearly 15% of Ivy-plus applicants from the top 0.1% are heirs.
Selective institutions’ insistence on having teams in dozens of sports, including upper-class favorites like rowing and lacrosse, benefits wealthy families. 5% of Ivy-plus students whose parents earn less than 60% are recruited athletes. 13% are from the richest 1%.
The report also finds that non-academic ratings favour the wealthy. These scores assess extracurricular activities like theater, debating, and student newspaper writing, which are particularly frequent at non-religious private schools where rich children attend.
Students from top-1% families receive much higher non-academic ratings than those with comparable test scores. Non-religious private school pupils are twice as likely as good state school students with equal academic abilities to get accepted to Ivy-plus universities.
Private colleges can select applicants on any legal reason. They may prefer a class with:
- Strong family links to the university,
- Several intercollegiate sports,
- Outstanding extracurricular accomplishments
versus one with only the smartest applicants. All 3 of these characteristics increase attendance by pupils whose parents can donate the most, which may be an unforeseen benefit. These biases affect American culture beyond inequality.
