Campus Revolutionary

I hadn't heard about what the new president of Amherst is doing.  Kudos!  This is really important! (Though he has his work cut out for him for sure.  The problem is that by the time students reach 12th grade, it's too late.  You need to intervene, I'd argue, no later than 5th grade (as KIPP shows).  By 12th grade, of the half of minority kids (ALL minority kids, not just low income, for whom the statistics are surely far worse) who haven't dropped out, they test in math and reading at the level of the AVERAGE white 8th grader.)

When Marx finally met the committee, he made an impassioned appeal. Elite U.S. colleges such as Amherst, he said, are perpetuating deep inequalities in American society. They equate success with serving the privileged elite and have largely abandoned talented youth from poor families, he charged. This deepens the country's growing class divisions and exacerbates the long-term decline in economic and social mobility. Feeling he had nothing to lose since he hadn't sought the job, Marx exhorted the trustees to tackle the problem head-on. "I'm not interested in being a custodian over a privileged place," he remembers telling the gathering of wealthy alums and academic stars that day.

As it turned out, Marx's radical message was just what Amherst trustees wanted to hear. Over the past two decades the college had committed to increasing minorities to a third of the 1,650-student campus, up from 13% in 1985. But while this brought in more low-income students, Amherst remains an incubator of the elite. More than half its students come from families prosperous enough to pay the full $42,000 annual tab out of their own pockets. Many shell out thousands more for cars, meals out, and other extras. (One student showed up recently with two BMWs -- one a convertible for sunny days.) "We were blown away" by Marx's passion and commitment, recalls Jide Zeitlin, a partner at Goldman, Sachs & Co. (GS ) who has since become chair of Amherst's board.

Since Marx, now 46, took over in 2003 as Amherst's youngest president ever, he has waged a ceaseless crusade to make the college a leader in welcoming more lower-income students.

The article also has a related story on what Harvard, West Point and Smith are doing.

 

The article has a couple of charts that are good summary of some of the terrifying statistics about how bad the inequality has gotten:

 
 

 

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FEBRUARY 27, 2006

SPECIAL REPORT

Campus Revolutionary

Tony Marx has a radical plan to get more poor kids into top colleges, starting with Amherst http://aol.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_09/b3973087.htm

Anthony W. Marx had never even thought of being a college president. "I was minding my own business" as a Columbia University political science professor in 2002, he says, when a friend who was an Amherst College alum put Marx's name in the hopper to be president of the Massachusetts liberal arts institution. Sure, Marx was flattered, but he also felt underqualified. A career academic, his most important administrative experience had come before graduate school, when he helped found a college in South Africa to educate blacks deprived by apartheid. "That is very nice," he wrote back to his friend. "But I've never been a chairman, a dean, or a provost, and besides, I didn't go to Amherst."

Amherst's search committee felt the same way and tossed his file into the reject pile. But after grilling many top college honchos, a student member remembered Marx and suggested that the group give him a second look.

When Marx finally met the committee, he made an impassioned appeal...

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FEBRUARY 27, 2006

SPECIAL REPORT
By William Symond

http://aol.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_09/b3973099.htm

Online Extra: The Thinking at Harvard, West Point, and Smith

Elite colleges are looking to expand their intakes of low-income students. Here's how three big names are doing it

Amherst isn't acting in a vacuum. Many elite colleges also have aggressive programs aimed at attracting and admitting more low-income students. Here's a closer look at three of the most prominent programs:

HARVARD
Until recently, Harvard University has been perhaps the most glaring example of an elite college's failure to welcome low-income students. With an endowment of $25.9 billion -- far larger than that of any other university in the U.S. or abroad -- Harvard clearly has the resources to educate the poor.