Increasing racial diversity at
colleges and universities across the United States has been a topic fiercely
discussed since the civil rights era in the 1960s. While there’s still a ways to
go, studies show racial diversity across America’s college campuses has been
increasing, slowly but surely.
Diversity, however, goes beyond just
race.
Even though socioeconomic diversity
is equally important—and inextricably linked—to its racial counterpart, it hasn’t
been in the spotlight nearly as much as it should.
The situation is particularly dire
at the nation’s elite colleges and universities. A report by The New York
Times found that there was “virtually no change from the 1990s to 2012 in
enrollment of students that are less well off [at selective colleges] even though
there was a huge increase over that time in the number of such students going
to college.”
Elite colleges carry a prestige that
in many ways allows their graduates to attain powerful economic, political and
social footing. This means that if elite colleges are primarily made up of
society’s upper classes, whiffs of oligarchy begin to penetrate our democracy.
It is the responsibility of every
elite college in the United States, then, to do everything in its power to open
its doors for high-achieving, low-income students. Not only would it grant such
students a good chance of escaping poverty, but it would instill a sense of
respect for peoples of all income levels within its student body—respect that
might have not come otherwise.
Thankfully, most of the admissions
data from the Claremont Colleges shows yearly increases in admitted students
that qualify to receive Federal Pell Grants—with one notable exception (see
Table 1).
According to data obtained from The
New York Times‘, Claremont McKenna College decreased its
total number of enrolled first-year Pell Grant recipients from 13 percent in
2008 to 11 percent in 2013, making CMC the only Claremont College that has
lowered its overall first-year socioeconomic diversity within the last five
years.
To the unsuspecting eye, a two percent
decrease over the course of half a decade might seem an easily dismissible
statistic unworthy of attention or analysis. CMC’s track record clearly shows otherwise.
Contextualizing Diversity
In 2008, 82 international students
were enrolled at CMC. By 2013, that number nearly tripled to 224, representing
17 percent of the total student body (Table 2). The vast majority of
international students pay full or near-full cost of attendance, a whopping
$60,010 per year.
It’s also worth noting that
international students factor into CMC’s racial demographics. However, the
majority of international students that are considered racial minorities in the
U.S. are of Asian descent; out of the 224 international students enrolled at
CMC in 2013, more than half came from China, India or Korea.
Of course, CMC diversifying its
student body by admitting more international students is not inherently
suspect. What makes CMC worthy of criticism are the other admission trends that
have occurred in tandem.
In 2008, CMC ended its Los
Angeles Posse Scholar program four years after its inception. Then, in 2009,
CMC discontinued its partnership with QuestBridge after only two years due
to “financial considerations.” Both programs aim to attract low-income youth
from across the United States, especially those residing in urban areas.
The slashing of these programs
directly relates to the overall stagnation in Pell Grant-eligible students.
This is clearly shown by the fact that CMC admitted cohorts from both Posse and
QuestBridge in 2007 and 2008, matching with the five-year-high of 14 percent of
the student body composed by Pell Grant recipients in 2011.
There are two possibilities, then.
Best-case scenario, it’s a coincidence that CMC’s international student body
has increased at least two percentage points since 2010 while the percentage of
low-income students stagnated. Worst-case scenario, CMC consciously chose to
widen its doors for wealthy international students as it simultaneously took
away streams of access for low-income students of color.
Data for the class of 2018 could
point us, in some ways, toward the right answer. Unfortunately, such data
hasn’t been approved by the school to be used in a public forum. But the number
makes it seem as though the international student body is on an upward slope
that doesn’t look to be slowing down any time soon. Pell Grant recipients, on
the other hand, haven’t even reached the 15 percent benchmark that the
international student body crossed in 2012.
At this point, I want to clarify
that I do not wish to set our culturally rich international students against
their low-income peers. The issue of extreme over-representation of the wealthy
and upper-middle classes applies to domestic students as well. According to a
CMC brochure available online, 40 of the incoming first-years in 2008 came from a
yearly family income of $200,000 or higher, the largest subset of any income
level. Out of the 392 total incoming students in 2008, 242 of them—61
percent—had family incomes of $75,000 or higher.
While there is no similar data for
other incoming classes, it is not a stretch of the imagination to predict that
the college’s income makeup hasn’t changed much since then.
A Promising Future?
It’s important to note that many of
the statistics listed above were overseen by former CMC president Pamela Gann
and her administration. Indeed, current president Hiram Chodosh seems
especially weary of the lack of socioeconomic diversity on campus.
The Student Imperative—CMC’s new
$100 million initiative “aimed at raising financial support (both merit- and
need-based), lifting economic barriers to access, and enhancing the
undergraduate experience at CMC”—has the potential to solve many, if not all, of
the issues raised above. Spearheaded by Chodosh himself, the Student Imperative
also emphasizes personal and social responsibility on campus climate issues
such as “identity, diversity, and speech.”
Unfortunately, rhetoric doesn’t
accomplish much. David Leonhardt, the lead author of the Times’ recent data
set on college accessibility, wrote that while “dozens of colleges have
proclaimed that recruiting a more economically diverse student body was a top
priority,” many “have not matched their words with actions.”
Those colleges that did follow up on
their promises, Leonhardt observes, “changed policies and made compromises
elsewhere to recruit the kind of talented poor students who have traditionally
excelled in high school but not gone to top colleges.”
Ultimately, CMC is at a crossroads:
Will we join Leonhardt’s list of deceptive colleges, or will we live up to our
word and widen our doors to high-achieving students of low-income backgrounds,
even if it means shortening the massive gates available to the upper
class?
Regardless, we cannot sell ourselves
short. Admitting and enrolling more low-income students is just the beginning
of a long, grueling and culturally shifting challenge.
Besides focusing on admissions, CMC
needs foster a new social infrastructure which will allow non-white,
non-affluent students to feel as welcome and secure as their privileged peers.
This goes beyond the mantra of “personal and social responsibility” preached by
the Student Imperative.
It means using some of our $600 million
endowment to implement new programs strictly aimed at increasing the
number of low-income students of color. One way the school could begin do this
is by reinstating Posse and QuestBridge—or partnering up with similar
programs—as soon as possible.
The college should also consider
implementing an income-based affirmative action policy, especially since race-based
affirmative action has been losing public and judicial support over the last
decade.
“The happiest college in the world” must
trade in its discourse of unabashed happiness for one of cold-hearted honesty.
We must look at ourselves in the mirror, point out all of our institutional
flaws, and debate the alternatives. Only then do we have a shot of taking that
happiness beyond the realms of Green Beach and TNC.
Carlos Ballesteros CM ’16 is a sociology and history double major from Chicago, Illinois.