Reply to America's Top Colleges Have a Rich-Kid Problem

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[quote=Anonymous]Going forward, I think the Ivies and other "elite" schools, are going to have some very difficult issues to confront as to their mission, the students they serve and their relevance to the larger society.  This will be especially true as the demographics of our society continue to change and evolve.

The U.S. population is undergoing very serious changes and the country will look very different in 2050 than it does today.  The overall population, fueled by immigration, will grow to 438 million. The country will be a "minority-majority."  While whites will still be the largest ethnic/racial group at 47%, the balance will be Hispanic, black and Asian at, respectively, 29 %; 13%  9%.  Much of the working age population that will be supporting a majority white retiree population will be black and Hispanic. Meanwhile, increasing income inequality will mean less for the lower and middle classes.

Given that the public schools in the U.S. to date have a poor record of addressing the education gap between whites and minorities, it behooves us as a society to find some way of closing this gap so that more of our up and coming population can find a place at our elite institutions.  These institutions should have a self interest in promoting and supporting whatever it takes to do this.  Otherwise, they will find themselves to be only bastions of privilege with little relevance in an otherwise diverse country.

America needs a recommitment to those aspects of the American dream that made this country such a draw for the likes of my great-grandparents:  the infrastructure - educational, political, physical and social - that made it possible for someone who, in Bill Clinton's words, "works hard and plays by the rules" to have a chance to succeed.  [/quote]

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