Harvard's Playing Field Gets Flatter

This New York Post article describing parents of graduates from some elite New York City private schools rending their garments over the inability of their children to get into Ivy League colleges contains reassuring news for everyone else. One of the apparent reasons why it has become harder for students from wealthier families to gain admission to the Ivies is that those top universities, led by Harvard, have become more generous in subsidizing the tuitions of low- and middle-income students.  That has led a broader range of students across the income spectrum to compete for slots, with some lower-income public school applicants beating out the prep school grads.   

At Harvard, under its new policies, tuitions are waived entirely for families earning $60,000 a year or less. Families earning between $60,000 and $120,000 pay a reduced rate on a sliding scale that rises to  a maximum of 10 percent of their income. The Post quotes Harvard director of undergraduate admissions Marlyn McGrath as saying, "Our low-income initiative has repositioned us. A lot of people are starting to think about Harvard when otherwise their state university might have been on top of their list." One example is public school student Lukasz Zbylut, who just graduated from Brooklyn’s New Utrecht High School. After rejecting offers from 18 top colleges, including Yale, Princeton, Stanford and Dartmouth, he plans to attend Harvard University come fall. Lukasz’s parents are Polish immigrants, and his father works in construction in Brooklyn to support his wife and three children.

The Century Foundation has published studies calling attention to the dominance of students from the wealthiest families at selective universities over the years. Harvard's policies, and the impact they are having, are a small but significant step toward restoring a modicum of fairness to American society.