Blog 3

This article in the Washington Post argues how education isn’t as much of a factor in determining which college people go to as how much money they make. 74% of Ivy-league students are from the richest part of the population, while only 3% of Ivy-leaguers are from the poorest part of the population. Legacies, meaning a member of your family attended that school in the past, can also be an important factor in whether you get into an ivy-league school. Only 20% of people that apply to Ivy-league schools that aren’t legacies get into that school. The reason these schools allow legacies into their schools so easily is because they say they will not have enough donations from alumni if they don’t; but new research done by Chad Coffman says that schools that don’t have a legacy preference, or never did, have enough alumni donations. It makes me angry that they won’t help out the people that need the education the most. I don’t think that the legacy system is fair because for me, I would only have a 20% chance of getting into an Ivy-league school, since I’m not a legacy. I think that students should get into schools based on their grades, and test scores. Hopefully many more Ivy-league schools will provide better financial aid.
I like that the University of North Carolina has created a good financial aid program. The program says that low-income students aren’t required to take out loans as a part of their financial aid. Research done by Edward B. Fiske says that the UNC program has increased the four-year graduation rate from the college by almost 10%. The truth is that only one hundred of colleges in the U.S. have offered a better financial aid for low-income students. Harvard is starting to accept more low-income students, and giving away Pell grants to college students that need them. The percent of Pell grants that have been given at Harvard as increased from 9.4%, to 15%. I think that it’s good that ivy-league schools are starting to change their financial aid program to accept more low-income students. I think it’s really late for them to realize that they need to accept more, lower-income students in order to help them be successful in their life.