The presidents of major private colleges and universities like to tout their commitment to equal opportunity and diversity. This is terrific, of course, and a real change from 30 or 40 years ago. But a recent article
in Business Week suggests that the enormous wealth of elite schools is itself causing new types of savage inequality.
Business Week calls it “The Dangerous Wealth of the Ivy League.” In their competitive quest for the best faculty, students and facilities, Ivy League schools are spending mind-boggling sums to siphon away the top scientific and teaching talent from public universities. They are building gold-plated laboratories and wooing the cream from each year’s applicant pool with a lifestyle of posh dorms, wood-paneled fitness centers, and generous financial aid. The post-graduation benefits ain’t bad, either.
The wealth gap is enormous – and getting worse. Harvard’s endowment kicked off $5.7 billion in investment returns in the budget year that ended June 30, 2007, a sum that exceeds the endowment assets of all U.S. universities except Yale, Stanford, Princeton, MIT and Columbia. And these elite schools, with Harvard, typically raise much more money from alumni, government and research funders than other colleges and universities. It is a familiar story–the rich get richer.
Everyone is entitled to spend “their money” as they see fit, of course, but there is something alarming about the fact that private universities, which educate 1 percent of all college students, are using their wealth to exploit the financial troubles of public universities, which educate 75 percent of all students. The Ivies have deep reservoirs of money to raid distinguished faculty at public universities, for example, leaving the public schools without the star talent to develop competitive research programs and grad students. When top scientists can command $500,000 or more – plus expensive, state-of-the-art labs – public education cannot keep up. Furthermore, faculty stars typically take their research grants to their new host institutions: a direct transfer of prestige and fundraising capacity.
Business Week: “Public schools are being drained for the benefit of the ultra-elite, says Robert J. Birgeneau, Chancellor of the University of California at Berkeley. ‘The further you project into the future, the more frightening it becomes.’”
I am thrilled that the Ivies and other elite circles provide excellent opportunities to all comers, including the disadvantaged. I was one such beneficiary myself many years ago. But I’m looking for a new type of leadership against inequality by Ivy presidents. Let’s go beyond full scholarships, student voluntarism in the local community and warm, fuzzy people-to-people initiatives. Real gains for equal opportunity will require leadership in defending, and supporting, public education for all. It may even require some self-restraint on poaching the talent of public universities, and active support for beleaguered public educational institutions.
Can Harvard, Yale and Princeton offer us visionary leadership for that? If not, their work to make their own institutions affordable and diverse will be eclipsed by their own role in making higher education a polarized, two-tier system…in John Kenneth Galbraith’s words, a world of “private wealth and public squalor.”