The Cost of Elite Educations

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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. Now with affirmative action on trial at the Supreme Court regarding Harvard and the University of North Carolina, my next guest has published an indictment of elite colleges in general, and a system that he says fuels social and economic apartheid in the United States. Evan Mandery, who teaches at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice at CUNY, and a double Harvard grad himself, wants to challenge the myth.

He says it's a myth that elite colleges are a force for good, a great equalizer. Instead, he says, brand-name schools like those in the Ivy League, and selective colleges and universities generally keep the very rich, very rich, without much upward mobility for others. As you know, the Supreme Court will decide the future of affirmative action. Some practices of elite colleges have amounted to affirmative action for rich whites, which is the name of a chapter in the new book by Mandery. We'll, of course, ask him about the news and the fate of affirmative action at the Supreme Court as well.

While Mandery says the Harvards, Yales, and Stanfords of the world maintain a system that benefits wealthy white, largely suburban families, at least one category of colleges and universities is actually propelling poor and working-class students into the middle-class, public colleges and universities, community colleges in particular. With us now is Evan Mandery, professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice of CUNY. His new book is called Poison Poison Ivy: How Elite Colleges Divide Us. Professor Mandery, thanks for joining us. Welcome to WNYC.

Evan Mandery: Good morning, Brian. You should call me Evan. All of my students do, so please do too. [laughs]

Brian Lehrer: What did you set out to do with this book?

Evan Mandery: It started on a bet. I had a friend from college and we were talking about whether Harvard was a force for good and he was very committed to the principle that it was, and I didn't feel the same way. I'm responding to a myth that I think the colleges perpetuate, which is that they promote lots of poor kids out of poverty, when the numbers overwhelmingly show the opposite, that principally what they do is keep a lot of rich kids rich.

Brian Lehrer: Maybe it's a given that the families who send their kids to these elite schools are wealthy and privileged in one sense or another, but paint a picture of the student body at a place like Harvard, especially with the affirmative action that's now the focus of a lot of people's ire and the case at the Supreme Court.

Evan Mandery: At Elite Colleges, overall, more kids come from the top 1% of the income distribution than the bottom 60. Harvard's class is filled about a third by what's known in the business, ALDC tips. Those are the kids of alumni, often called legacies, donors, athletes, and the children of faculty members. Overall, your chance of getting into Harvard is about 5%. If you're the child of a faculty member, it's about 50%, and if you're a recruited athlete, it's almost 90%.

They're running two competitions one which is just skewed overwhelmingly in favor of affluent whites. They have settled relationships with prep schools that send 10 to 20 kids per prep school per year to Harvard and Yale and Princeton. Then low socioeconomic status students are competing for the tiny handful of slots that they offer to them.

Brian Lehrer: Are you saying that it's not okay to have any elite colleges because even though they get too much press, there's only a relative handful of Harvards and Yales and Stanfords, et cetera? Most colleges in the United States are public colleges, community colleges "lower-level private schools". Why focus on the elite colleges and universities as social problem? To what degree is it really as opposed to just an elite corner of our higher education system?

Evan Mandery: I would say it's a massive problem. A lot of the data in this area comes from a monumental study by Raj Chetty and John Friedman, a Harvard and Brown professor, which is a study of access to higher education. Friedman says, which is the same thing that I feel, that it's correct to focus on elites, even though they represent a small proportion of the people that go to colleges because they end up disproportionately staffing investment banks and management consultancies and ultimately, elite law firms and all of the institutions that set the national agenda.

To the first part of your question, Brian, of course, there's always going to be a top. Nobody could have any beef with their being elites, but it's a question about access. If you're one of those people who is deeply, deeply concerned about where American democracy is heading, as I am, access to the elites is a central part of the story, because there was no pathway that Trump exploited more skillfully than mistrust of elites. If access to the elite is something that you or your children will never have, how easy is it to mistrust the editors of The New York Times or the host of NPR? [chuckles]

Brian Lehrer: So what would you do?

Evan Mandery: I think two things have to happen. We have to raise the floor and we have to lower the ceiling. Obviously, if you read my book, I'm a huge fan of CUNY. Both of my parents went to Brooklyn College, and I've been at John Jay for 25 years. I think CUNY is a massive force for good. You went to SUNY Albany? Do I remember that correctly?

Brian Lehrer: That's correct.

Evan Mandery: SUNY is a massive engine of opportunity. The public disinvestment from public colleges is a national tragedy, but we also have to lower the ceiling or rather expand opportunity to places like Harvard and Yale, and Princeton. The resources, it's so hard to have a sense of big numbers, but Harvard's endowment is $50 billion. Let's say that Harvard increased its draw on its endowment, boy, by 0.5% per year. Their endowment would still grow exponentially, they'd still have a trillion-dollar endowment sometime after the turn of the century, but they could run a college the size of John Jay for free every year, and John Jay is about twice the size of Harvard.

These colleges haven't expanded capacities in ages, and they haven't changed their settled relationships with prep schools and sports, since 1930. It just has to change. I really think the ethical case is overwhelming. I can't believe anybody reading my book, maybe they'll disagree that I think they're a force for harm, but nobody can think that these colleges have to be doing much, much more than they are.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we can take a few phone calls for Evan Mandery on his new book, Poison Poison Ivy: How Elite Colleges Divide Us. 212-433-WNYC, with your experience at "Elite Colleges" or at Public Colleges, 212-433-9692, or with policy questions attached to his critique, 212-433-9692, or tweet @BrianLehrer. I think the flip side of your critique of the Elite colleges and just as important to your book and to this conversation, is how you document that investment in public education where most of the students go has dwindled. How bad has that gotten?

Evan Mandery: Oh, it's a massive disinvestment. I really like the way you framed that question because I think people don't like to admit that meritocracy and opportunity are double-edged swords. If we say that the rich deserve their status and are the hardest working people, then by implication we say that socioeconomically disadvantaged people also deserve their status and are less hardworking. There's been a massive effective disinvestment from Pell Grant Programs and from public colleges in general. Nationally, the data is tragic.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take a phone call. Let's see where we're going to start. Here's a Harvard grad who taught at Bronx Community College, I think. Dominique in Suffolk County, you're on WNYC. Hi, Dominique.

Dominique: Hi, Brian. First I just want to thank you for taking my call. A couple of weeks ago I was at president of Crimson Coaching and actually, my last appearance got me a couple of clients from my appearance on WNYC. I just love it

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Brian Lehrer: Happy to hear it.

Dominique: [crosstalk] a little bit of--

Brian Lehrer: What's my cut? Oh, I'm just kidding. Go ahead.

Dominique: [laughs] Actually, I became a member of WNYC right after that. So I did pay it forward.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you.

Dominique: I'm a Harvard grad from 1993. I realized that my experience is completely anecdotal, and I don't mean to take issue with any of the new research that I'm sure has gone into your guest book. I would just say that I came from a working-class background, my dad was a New York City police officer, my mother was a Catholic school teacher, and I got into Harvard, got massive amount of financial aid to go there. My friends at Harvard, same thing, we all came from working-class backgrounds, and we're all into at least a middle class now.

Now, I happen to go into teaching and most of my friends went into similarly, not very remunerative careers, and so none of us are making beaucoup bucks, but I would say that was our choice. If there was any critique I have of Harvard, it's more of at least in the early '90s, their career counseling services that didn't bring, for instance, Goldman Sachs into the art history department to recruit. I don't think that it's Harvard's fault.

If anything, Harvard, Princeton, and other schools in the past 10 years, and again, I know of this now because I do college counseling, but I'm also an adjunct professor at CUNY. Harvard paying full tuition, plus books, plus room and board, plus transportation to and from home for families of students making underneath a certain amount, and then that amount of aid tapers off the family income gross.

Brian Lehrer: Dominique, in work experience as a college counselor, is this part of what they call needs blind admissions?

Dominique: It is, and I will admit that not every school, very few endowments allow that. It's only schools like Princeton and Harvard that can allow that amount of aid to students. I would also say, on the flip side, as an adjunct professor of history at Bronx Community College, I love CUNY and I'm a progressive, and that's why I love to teach there, but I would also say that since the pandemic, the admissions requirements have brought a really struggling student body down even further, many of my students are barely literate. I'm not so sure what a degree from Bronx Community College can ultimately do for them if they're getting pushed to the system with such poor skills.

Brian Lehrer: Dominique, thank you for your call. Evan, what would you say to her? She raises a number of points there.

Evan Mandery: I think it's tragic in a way. I understand there's a very human tendency to dispend one's alma mater. Obviously, there are some socioeconomically disadvantaged students who find their way to Harvard, but it's why we shouldn't do this by anecdotal evidence. Approximately 3% of Harvard students come from the lowest 20%. As I told you before, overall, more people come from the top 1% and the bottom 60%. These are exceptional cases.

The idea that Harvard is promoting lots of teachers, oh, goodness, gracious, the data, resoundingly disproves that. Something between 2% and 3% of Harvard graduates go into teaching. Approximately 60% of Harvard students, either Harvard graduates either go into investment banking, management consulting, or the tech sector. They don't even go into medicine or law as they did when we went to college. I think that's an important part of the case. Harvard is not taking a bunch of rich people and promoting do-gooders. What they're doing is, they're funneling them into careers in investment banking, and management consulting.

I understand, I have a lot of these conversations like we're having now, they almost always go where somebody will tell me where they went to college, and dispending their alma mater. I understand that there were exceptional cases, and these institutions are not purely evil. They do some good, but the numbers just don't bear it out. Here's one way of looking at the data. If you sat at your 10th Princeton Reunion, for every one kid that had been promoted out of poverty, like the previous caller, 20 rich kids would have been kept rich. I think it's important that we not do this solely on the basis of anecdotal evidence, we have to look at the data and its totality.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take another call. Darren in Longmont, Colorado, you're on WNYC with Evan Mandery. Hi, Darren.

Darren: Hey, Brian, how are you doing?

Brian Lehrer: Good. What's your question?

Darren: Just real quick. I like the comment, in Canada, they just open it up. If there's more kids that are qualified to go to this school like McGill, they go. They just expand how many people can go. The limits seem like the big falsehood here. They should let whoever can get in, go. They have the endowment and it's basically the same, "Your parents is not Malcolm Gladwell says."

Brian Lehrer: Which is what? What is Malcolm Gladwell say?

Darren: Just expand the amount of kids that can go.

Brian Lehrer: Darren, thank you very much. What about that, expanding whether it's the number of kids who get admitted to the Harvard, Princeton, Yales, or whether it's expanding the universe of what the world considers to be elite colleges? Maybe that's a perception problem that public policy can affect, I don't know, or maybe it can.

Evan Mandery: Well, I think we should expand capacity, they should expand capacity, but I just wanted to respond to the first part of this. It's the idea of qualifications. I'm sure we'll talk about the Supreme Court case, but one of the most problematic, I might even say offensive ideas that elite colleges promoted is that there's a certain qualification that only certain people have and that they're engaged in some type of objective process. There is no universe in which performance on the SAT is a predictor of college performance. It's a very poor predictor of college performance. What high school grade point average is a far better predictor of college performance.

Harvard and Yale and Princeton, could choose among high school valedictorians nationally, they could do a lottery among them, and they would still have an extremely academically qualified class, they would actually do better. By the way, legacies and athletes underperforming college, yet, all of these colleges let in plenty of these.

To the second part of the question, they should expand capacity. The size of these classes hasn't changed in 50 years, and it would be a way that they could start to expand opportunity without upsetting their settled relationships with Andover and Exeter and all of the prep schools that they have unspoken agreements with to get a certain number of students.

Brian Lehrer: Your analogy in the book regarding standardized tests was interesting to me. You wrote, "Standardized test scores or to income as legacy status is to wealth," which I think you just expanded on and expanded on in that last answer. We're going to run out of time soon. I'm curious, considering that the Supreme Court case against affirmative action is both against Harvard, which is, of course, a private university, and against the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which is the flagship public university in that state. How does UNC or schools like it, fit into your analysis and critique of elite colleges?

Evan Mandery: The elite public colleges are guilty of many of the same behaviors as Harvard is. University of Virginia, for example, is an egregious offender with legacy preference. They actually have a scholarship program, which is specifically tailored to legacy students. I just want to say one thing about the Supreme Court case. It's against UNC which is subject directly to the equal protection clause as a government actor, and against Harvard, which is brought under the equal protection clause by the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Harvard could have averted this lawsuit by amending or dramatically curtailing tips for legacies and athletes and to children of donor and faculty members that would have dramatically expanded opportunity. Would it have made the system perfect? Of course not, but Harvard said it couldn't do that because it would jeopardize important institutional interests, as they put it without a single shred of evidence. There's no evidence whatsoever that legacy preference has anything to do with alumni generosity. MIT has never practiced it, and they have a $25 billion endowment. All of these colleges, they're just telling the story that serves their institutional interest and preserving the status quo.

Brian Lehrer: Are you saying that Harvard could have avoided the lawsuit because if they cut back on legacy and sports recruitment admissions, that they would have a more racially diverse student body without the same kind of programs that get labeled affirmative action.

Evan Mandery: They would've had a significantly, much more socioeconomically diverse student body and a more racially diverse student body.

Brian Lehrer: What about UNC?

Evan Mandery: UNC, it's vaguely similar. What's the question? Are they as egregious and offenders as Harvard? The wealth numbers aren't quite as bad as they are at Harvard. At Harvard, the average family comes from this is now 9-year-old data. The average Harvard family makes about $505,000 a year. It's not quite as high at UNC because you're getting a blended average in there of some local students who are coming from socioeconomically disadvantaged families. The flagship schools of all these public universities, by and large, also favor the wealthy.

Brian Lehrer: Evan Mandery, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the author of the new book, Poison Ivy: How Elite Colleges Divide Us. Thanks so much for talking about it with us.

Evan Mandery: Thanks, Brian.

 

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