The most advantaged students attend the best-funded colleges. Does it have to be this way?

A new study by Princeton’s Zachary Bleemer and UC Berkeley’s Jesse Rothstein exposes the stark inequality of American higher education. The prevailing philosophy suggests that top-funded universities should be limited to the best-qualified students, who predominantly hail from advantageous backgrounds. This stratification is not merely about academic prowess, but also about financial means.

Elite private schools and public flagship universities both reflect this disparity. At these institutions, students from the top 1% of family income outnumber those from the bottom 40% at hyper-elite private colleges, and from the top 20% at public flagship universities, compared to the bottom 80%.

The study shows that the more selective the college, the higher-income its students are, and the higher their test scores. Young adults who don’t enroll in college tend to come from less-advantaged families. The income and academic stratification correlates with the amount spent on students' education, with elite private schools spending over $50,000 per student on instruction, and public selective four-year colleges spending more than twice as much per student as community colleges.

This inequality in higher education was not always so pronounced; it expanded significantly between 1980 and 2010. The authors attribute this to a "meritocratic consensus" – the belief that a student's college education should depend on their high school performance. This consensus is pervasive, and while it may seem uncontroversial, it perpetuates the cycle of inequality, widening the opportunity gap that starts in childhood.

Although the study is descriptive, the authors acknowledge that economically, the status quo lacks justification. They suggest more funding for community colleges and argue that selective schools can coexist without such vast resource differences. Research indicates that less academically prepared students do benefit from better-funded education, contradicting the notion that they wouldn't.

Critics argue that students who don’t get into their dream colleges face worse-quality alternatives. Breaking this "meritocratic consensus" has faced fierce resistance, with some arguing that underprepared students should be kept out of elite schools. However, this overlooks the potential for these students to attend other institutions that offer a comparable quality of education.