Last week, The GW Hatchet, the student newspaper at George Washington University, reported that the school has been practicing a policy of wait-listing students who were unlikely to be able to afford the $52,000 per year cost of attending the school. Additionally, students who would have typically been placed on the waitlist were offered admission if they could afford to pay the full amount.
Yet, until last week, the admissions department had continued to advertise the university as “need-blind.” Now, the GW website refers to the admission process as “need-aware.”
The story has stirred controversy and anger, especially due to the university’s intentional deception of prospective students. In fact, an article in Inside Higher Ed suggests that GW’s misrepresentation of its policy is a violation of the Statement of Principles of Good Practice, a code of ethics created by the National Association for College Admission Counseling.
Unfortunately, while GW is the only one making headlines, other universities appear to be engaging in similar practices.
A 2013 study by the New American Foundation analyzed data from the U.S. Department of Education and concluded that colleges are giving more financial aid to higher-income students who can afford tuition, thus forcing lower-income students to pay higher net prices for college. Although seemingly counter-intuitive, the colleges tend to do this because of a “relentless pursuit of prestige and revenue,” according to the study’s author.
These decisions by universities contribute to the perpetuation of decreased access to higher education for economically disadvantaged students. An article from the Chronicle of Higher Education, titled “How Colleges Perpetuate Inequality,” argued that college was becoming a place only available to those with money. Peter Sacks, the author of the article, noted: “Just six percent of students from the lowest-income families earned a bachelor’s degree by age 24 in 1970 and in 2002 still only six percent did.”
Universities’ policies that favor wealthier students may be driven by an economic need to be able to stay afloat with increasingly tight budgets. For some, the decisions may be motivated by the quest for top spots on the U.S. News & World Report rankings.
But these motivations hardly justify the colleges’ actions. The bottom line is that policies that force low-income students to the waitlist limit access to higher education for a large portion of the population.
How can we expect students who come from impoverished backgrounds to overcome the challenges they face if they do not even have the opportunity to achieve a college degree?
As Gov. William F. Winter of Mississippi once said: “Poorly educated people translate into poor people. Education is the one thing that will break the cycle of poverty. It is the only thing that will unlock the door of economic opportunity.”
There are clear economic disparities between people who continue their education past high school. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, individuals with only a high school diploma have a median salary of $652 a week. Compare that to median weekly salaries of $1,066 and $1,300 for people with a bachelor’s degree or a master’s degree, respectively.
However, I’d like to propose that a college education is more meaningful than increased income and greater economic security for individuals. A college education exposes students to a new, diverse set of ideas and people. This is one of the most powerful tools we, as a society, have at fighting ignorance and hate. Moreover, college reinforces the responsibilities that an individual has as a part of a democratic society, which encourages the development of strong communities — ones based on an understanding of the obligations we owe to one another in our society.
I’m thankful for the students at GW who exposed their administration for its deceptive policies. But the conversation does not end after the public shaming of an individual school. The story from GW serves both as a warning of what may happen when people become complacent with existing institutional policies and a starting point for beginning an honest, rigorous public dialogue about increasing access to an affordable college education for everyone.
Christine Dickason is a junior public policy leadership major from Collierville, Tenn.
