Commentary
Campus Richie Riches Need Archies
March 01, 2002|BOB SHIREMAN | Bob Shireman, program director for higher education at the James Irvine Foundation, served as an education aide to President Clinton. Web site: www.irvine.org.
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Perhaps you have seen USC's advertisements playfully objecting to the "University of Spoiled Children" moniker that some had given the institution in years past. The ad made me wonder: If the spoiled children aren't at USC, where are they? They must be going to college somewhere. I decided to find out.
Since there is not a National Registry of Spoiled Children, there is no list to match with college enrollment records. So the question must be approached from the other direction: Which prestigious colleges …show more content…
By my measure, 27% of USC's undergraduates are from roughly the bottom third of all families in terms of income. Princeton has only about 7%; Stanford, about 11%; Caltech in Pasadena, 16%.
UCLA enrolls more poor and working-class students than USC--almost 35%--and more than any other top-ranked university in the country, public or private.
UC Berkeley and UC San Diego are next in the rankings at about 30%, better than other flagship public institutions such as the University of Virginia (9%), the University of Wisconsin (11%) and the universities of Michigan and North Carolina (both about 12%).
If there is a University of Spoiled Children, it's not in Los Angeles.
This is a good thing, because--call me a romantic--I would like to live in a country where our education system is a route for upward mobility, a way that children of the working class can work hard and become leading scientists, educators or other professionals. If our colleges simply recycle the upper class, further spoiling the spoiled children, then they are not contributing to a healthy, democratic
Campus Richie Riches Need Archies
March 01, 2002|BOB SHIREMAN | Bob Shireman, program director for higher education at the James Irvine Foundation, served as an education aide to President Clinton. Web site: www.irvine.org.
Share
Perhaps you have seen USC's advertisements playfully objecting to the "University of Spoiled Children" moniker that some had given the institution in years past. The ad made me wonder: If the spoiled children aren't at USC, where are they? They must be going to college somewhere. I decided to find out.
Since there is not a National Registry of Spoiled Children, there is no list to match with college enrollment records. So the question must be approached from the other direction: Which prestigious colleges …show more content…
By my measure, 27% of USC's undergraduates are from roughly the bottom third of all families in terms of income. Princeton has only about 7%; Stanford, about 11%; Caltech in Pasadena, 16%.
UCLA enrolls more poor and working-class students than USC--almost 35%--and more than any other top-ranked university in the country, public or private.
UC Berkeley and UC San Diego are next in the rankings at about 30%, better than other flagship public institutions such as the University of Virginia (9%), the University of Wisconsin (11%) and the universities of Michigan and North Carolina (both about 12%).
If there is a University of Spoiled Children, it's not in Los Angeles.
This is a good thing, because--call me a romantic--I would like to live in a country where our education system is a route for upward mobility, a way that children of the working class can work hard and become leading scientists, educators or other professionals. If our colleges simply recycle the upper class, further spoiling the spoiled children, then they are not contributing to a healthy, democratic