Equity and Excellence in American Higher Education 

Equity and Excellence in American Higher Education
By William G. Bowen, Martin A. Kurzweil and Eugene M. Tobin
University of Virginia Press (Charlottesville, VA) 2006
453 pages, $27.95 paperback

Reviewed by Kerr C. Ramsay III
Senior Assistant Dean of Admissions
Hampden-Sydney College (VA)
Read more about the reviewer

Over the last few years, one of the most popular—and hotly contested—debates in college admission has been student access to postsecondary education. Whether based on gender, race, socioeconomic status, or a variety other factors, equal access has risen to the forefront of concerns for the greater good. Although equity, and, certainly, excellence are often taken for granted in the daily conversation about higher education, they are issues that require further discussion.

Born out of an invitation to William Bowen to be the 2004 Thomas Jefferson Foundation Distinguished Lecturer at the University of Virginia, Equity and Excellence in American Higher Education brings these important issues into one, easy to understand, book. Cut from the same cloth as Bowen’s earlier works on college access—The Shape of the River (1998) and The Game of Life: College Sports and Educational Values (2001)—Equity and Excellence compares the advantages and disadvantages given to particular subsets of the applicant pool at institutions included in the College and Beyond (C&B) database. The primary equity addressed by the authors is clearly that of socioeconomic status (SES), and they present a clear case for the inclusion of SES in admission considerations.

Limited Access
For years, athletes—through scholarships and recruitment—minorities—through affirmative action—and legacies—through admissions practices—have received preference above the majority of applicants. The institutions in the C&B database show that these preferential groups consistently perform under predicted expectations; however, a case is consistently made in most institutions to continue this preferential treatment: often to the detriment of qualified students from low SES backgrounds. Bowen, Kurzeweil and Tobin repeatedly demonstrate why this practice is not only inappropriate, but actually hurts the overall quality of the higher education system in America.

Students from disadvantaged backgrounds perform just as well as their classmates, but their ability to access the most selective colleges and universities has been limited by prohibitive cost, ineffective recruitment strategies, and lower levels of access to higher-quality primary and secondary schools.

Improving Access
All is not lost: We have made progress in leveling the playing field. Moves like Harvard’s decision to end all early application options and the number of institutions now meeting full-need for all of their students are starting to make a difference. The authors suggest that these types of actions are only a beginning and that the answer does not lie solely in better funding.

The levels of low SES students in colleges and universities will not correspond with their levels in the greater population until preference is given to these students just as it is to athletes, minorities and legacies. For example, if income sensitive admission preferences were adopted, while keeping race sensitive preferences, the probability of a non-minority bottom income quartile student enrolling at one of the C&B schools rises from 7.2 percent to 13.4 percent. As big an impact as this will have for this particular subset, non-minority, non-bottom quartile students only drop from 79.4 percent of the enrolled students to 73.5 percent. Enrollment for the non-minority low SES students can nearly double, and minority enrolment remains unchanged, without any adjustment in financial aid practices but simply by giving an admission preference equal to the preference given to legacies to students from low SES backgrounds.

The book is well organized and does an excellent job of not only presenting the history of this phenomenon in American higher education, but also finding solutions. Even in the sections that rely heavily on data and statistics, the authors make the content readable and understandable. Although those familiar with this subject matter will not find a plethora of new ideas or observations presented, Equity and Excellence is able to bring the conversation into a single work. For those unfamiliar with the issues of equity in higher education, Bowen, Kurzweil and Tobin have allowed them to enter the conversation without getting lost.

About the Reviewer
I’m entering my fourth year in the admission office at Hampden-Sydney College, where I’m responsible for Richmond (VA) and all states north of Virginia. During the fall, I can usually be found somewhere in New England or around Pennsylvania—just look for the guy with the bow tie.