How Colleges Can Propel More People Into the Middle Class

By: Jessica Grose

In the two weeks since the Supreme Court rejected affirmative action in college admissions, there’s been a lot of talk about the racial makeup of elite institutions like Harvard and the University of North Carolina, the respondents in the case. And yes, the makeup of the student bodies at the most selective schools matters: Graduates of these institutions often have a certain level of access at the highest levels of business and government — the justices themselves are evidence of that. But the vast majority of American college students don’t attend these elite schools, and the rise of lower-income and nonwhite students in the undergraduate ranks has been “most pronounced in public two-year colleges and the least selective four-year colleges and universities.”

Part of the puzzle, then, in addition to figuring out what comes after affirmative action, is revisiting a question akin to one that Times Opinion asked last year in the context of K-12 schools which applies to all prospective college students: What is college for?

Is it a finishing school for the elite? Is it for inspiring intellectual inquiry and fostering critical thinking? Is it an engine of social mobility?

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