Let’s say you are accepted into two colleges: Brown, an Ivy League university with an endowment greater than the GDP of some countries, and the University of Rhode Island, a solid state school and research institution. Which university should you attend? Shockingly, assuming you are the average student and your goal is to maximize future earnings, it does not matter which you choose.
However, there are two important caveats to consider. First, while attending a university like Brown may not boost future earnings on average, it does increase the likelihood of reaching extreme levels of wealth and influence — nearly every U.S. Supreme Court Justice, for instance, attended an Ivy League school. Second, for low-income students, choosing Brown can greatly improve future professional and financial prospects.
Despite elite colleges like Brown recognizing that their greatest impact is on low-income students, they continue to favor wealthier applicants through avenues like legacy admissions and athletic recruitment. It is therefore not surprising that Brown ranks near the bottom of selective colleges for socioeconomic diversity.
To address this imbalance, the University must implement affirmative action based on socioeconomic status, prioritizing the admission of students who will benefit the most from an education on College Hill.
When people hear “affirmative action,” they typically think of race-based policies, which give preference to certain minority groups in the admissions process to account for the societal barriers they face. While race-based affirmative action was well-intentioned and had positive effects, it also came with significant drawbacks that income-based affirmative action lacks.
One issue with race-based affirmative action is that it treats minority groups as monoliths. Asian Americans, for instance, had to score higher on standardized tests like the SAT compared to other groups to have the same admissions chances. This approach overlooked the varying levels of privilege among different Asian-American subgroups — such as Indian Americans and Nepalese Americans. Additionally, while race-based affirmative action did increase minority representation at top colleges, many of these students came from relatively privileged backgrounds, reflecting the reality that the education gap between income levels is now greater than the gap between racial groups. Another issue was that race-based affirmative action sometimes created social tensions between different groups, making many, including those who could benefit from it, uncomfortable with its implications.
Alternatively, income-based affirmative action would accomplish the goal of increasing minority representation at top universities without the drawbacks of race-based affirmative action. Moreover, even proponents of race-based affirmative action acknowledge that, with the Supreme Court’s decision to strike it down, income-based affirmative action is now the most viable alternative.
Implementing income-based affirmative action wouldn't even qualify as true “affirmative action” in the traditional sense of favoring one group over another. Instead, it would simply counterbalance the University’s existing bias toward wealthier applicants. As noted earlier, the University admits a disproportionately high number of extremely wealthy students who are no more qualified than their less affluent counterparts. In fact, the University boasts the highest median parental income in the Ivy League. Though wealthier applicants are more likely to be admitted, poorer students benefit most from attending Brown. Their chances of reaching the top 1% of earners increase by 60%, and their likelihood of landing a job at an elite firm triples — all while wealthy students see little change in their odds of future success.
By admitting relatively few low-income students, the University is effectively shutting them out from opportunities of prestige. A hugely disproportionate share of political and business elites come from Ivy League schools. By primarily admitting affluent students and funneling them into positions of power, these institutions contribute to the erosion of societal trust in higher education, which is currently at an all-time low. Of course, this lack of societal trust can be partly fixed by admitting more students from all parts of society. Brown and other top schools claim that they are already trying to do this — yet, by one estimate, they overlook nearly 35,000 highly talented, low-income students each year.
College admissions are simply part of a larger pattern of discrimination that low-income individuals face throughout the education system. Income-based affirmative action would be an important first step in remedying this systemic bias. As documented in Annette Lareau’s “Unequal Childhoods,” American schools are designed to accommodate parents who practice “concerted cultivation,” a parenting approach that involves deep involvement and intervention in their children's education. Schools expect parents to dedicate significant time to overseeing their children’s schoolwork and monitoring their academic success — a task that is much easier when parents are experienced with the education system and are not burdened by financial concerns. Parents who cannot engage in this level of involvement are often unfairly labeled as uninterested, which results in their children receiving inadequate academic support. Even when low-income students do receive support, it tends to be of lower quality compared to what a similarly talented student might experience at a private school or a well-funded public school.
Additionally, wealthier families benefit from a large amount of informal knowledge about the education system. They often know people who have attended various colleges across the U.S., are familiar with the college application process and have networks of individuals who can provide support if challenges arise. These advantages are so significant that many talented low-income students do not apply to college at all, primarily because they lack awareness of how the system functions and are unfamiliar with financial aid structures.
With all this in mind, let me reframe the question I asked earlier: If you were applying to Brown or URI, which college would accept you? While I can’t speak to your chances at URI, I can say with more confidence that if you’re a low-income applicant — regardless of your academic talent or the many barriers you have overcome just to apply — Brown would likely reject you.
