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Could This Be The New Affirmative Action?

It’s not clear whether or not this will ever happen, but let’s suppose it does.

Let’s assume that Congress passes, and the president signs, a mean-tested bill that makes public higher education free for all students whose parents make less than $125,000 a year.

From a statistical standpoint, students from backgrounds as affluent as that are likely to be very promising students, with good grades and test scores. This would seem to be a boon for public universities, who can now have their pick of well-prepped students and be able to get paid by the government for taking them in.

But there’s a problem. What if our public universities become the almost exclusive enclave of relatively well-off young people?

If you come from a family that makes only $50,000 a year, you might not have the same higher test scores or grades, even though you’re still qualified to attend a good college. Of course you can go for free, too, but won’t universities just take the free-tuition students who have the better grades and scores? One would hope not.

One would hope that public universities would instead be able to say, “We didn’t accept you because you’re a person of color. We accepted you because you were qualified and your family made only 50 grand a year, and we think students are better educated if they mix with students from economically different backgrounds and we think state universities ought to serve a wide array of citizens.”

Thus might family income -- not race or gender -- become the new affirmative action. Stay tuned.

This is Tom McBride; that’s my Perspective.

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