In the wake of Trump’s election, the majority of Republicans say colleges and universities have a negative effect on the country, according to the latest polling by the Pew Research Center.

Nearly 10 percent of its students are from the top 1 percent.Ĭlass-based anger was a driving factor in the 2016 presidential campaign, as white voters without college degrees vented their frustration by voting for Donald Trump in record numbers it was the single best statistical predictor of a Trump voter. For instance, the University of Michigan enrolls just 16 percent of its student body from the bottom 60 percent of earners. The lack of economic diversity extends far beyond the Ivy League, and now includes scores of private and public universities, according to the Equality of Opportunity Project, which used tax data to study campus economic trends from 2000 to 2011, the most recent years available. Fewer than 10 percent of those in the lowest quartile of income ever get a bachelor’s degree, research has shown. One report by the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation found that kids from the top quartile of income earners account for 72 percent of students at the nation’s most competitive schools, while those from the bottom quartile are just 3 percent.

Recent studies have produced the most powerful statistical evidence in decades that higher education - once considered the ladder of economic mobility - is a prime source of rewarding established wealth. There is, however, growing evidence that elite universities have reinforced that inequality. Meanwhile, there is no measurement for the economic diversity of the student body, despite political pressure dating back to the Obama administration and a 2016 election that revealed rampant frustration over economic inequality. Alumni giving, which creates incentives to appease alumni by accepting their kids. Performing well on surveys of high school guidance counselors from highly ranked high schools, while many high schools in less affluent areas have few or no counselors.

Having a lower acceptance rate, which many colleges have sought to achieve by leaning more on early decision admissions this hurts lower-income students who apply to more schools in order to compare financial aid packages. Students’ performance on standardized admissions tests, which correlate strongly with family income, more than high school grades, which have less of a correlation.

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