Higher education in the US has ¡°become a system that justifies race and class inequality¡±, according to Anthony Carnevale, founder and director of the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce (CEW), and author of a new book that targets this system.

¡°This is bred in the bone,¡± Dr Carnevale told Times Higher Education. ¡°It is the business model¡­In many ways, [higher education has] become the capstone of institutional inequality.¡±

His book, The Merit Myth: How Our Colleges Favour the Rich and Divide America, argues that selective universities have ¡°trapped themselves in a race for prestige and money¡±. Co-authored by Peter Schmidt, an education writer, and Jeff Strohl, CEW¡¯s research director, it highlights that students with less social and financial capital are ¡°ruthlessly sorted into colleges with fewer resources¡± and, as a result, have lower chances of graduating and finding good jobs than their better-off peers.

¡°US colleges reinforce intergenerational, racial and class privileges, then magnify and project these inequities into the labour market,¡± the book says, adding that just 19?per cent of prospective black and Latino students with high SAT scores go to selective institutions, compared with 31?per cent of their white counterparts.

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Many selective universities profess that they mitigate barriers to entry by providing financial aid or specific programmes for low-income students, but Dr Carnevale said these initiatives prove only that they are not properly addressing the issue.

¡°The reason they have a special programme is because they¡¯re not doing?it [providing equal access]. It¡¯s hype,¡± he said. ¡°If you look at the top 500 colleges in America, less than 5?per cent of the kids in those colleges come from the bottom income quartile. That hasn¡¯t changed since 1993.¡±

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But Dr Carnevale does not lay the blame entirely on university leaders. While Harvard University ¡°chooses to be elitist¡± ¨C ¡°it doesn¡¯t really need to charge students, it could run the school for kids at the bottom of their class¡± ¨C in most cases the tuition fee-based business model of higher education ¡°doesn¡¯t allow¡± institutions to admit more students from poorer backgrounds, he said.

¡°The annual process is that you admit as many students as you can through early admission, in October or November, and they are money in the bank,¡± Dr Carnevale argued. ¡°Those kids are not kids who need scholarship money. Then you start bargaining with a mass of middle-class and upper middle-class parents. That¡¯s called merit aid. Then whatever [places are] left over you can give to the low-income kids.

¡°The way you become a high-priced, ¡®go?to¡¯ university in America is by turning people down, not by accepting people¡­If we [want to do] anything for low-income kids, we have to take the money out of merit aid. It¡¯s not merit at?all.¡±

Dr Carnevale said that when university leaders at selective universities try to ¡°play it differently¡± and ¡°make their college look more like America¡±, they are often forced out by their governing board.

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He added: ¡°If you go to the board and say, ¡®We¡¯re going to accept more low-income kids¡¯, most of the people on the board are going to say: ¡®No, we¡¯re going to become Harvard. We¡¯re going to accept as few people as possible. That way we can charge a?lot of money and we¡¯ll have strong alumni, which puts money in the bank.¡¯¡±

Dr Carnevale acknowledged that the Covid-19 crisis has laid bare race and class inequalities as well as the fee-dependent business model of US universities. But he does not believe the pandemic will be a great driver of change towards equality, as some have predicted, saying it is ¡°well known that the system discriminates by class and race¡±.

However, he does believe that the increasing likelihood of the adoption of a free-college plan in the US offers some hope, and he thinks demographic changes could pressure universities to expand their pool of applicants.

¡°Once there is a decline in the 18- to 24-year-old population, then a lot of universities will have an incentive to go get the low-income kids because they will be a bigger share of that group,¡± he said.

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¡°That is one of the silver linings of the [changes?in] demography. If you want to stay in business, you¡¯ve got to get religion [get serious] on race and class equity, because that¡¯s where the kids who are available are going to be.¡±

ellie.bothwell@timeshighereducation.com