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185 Chapter 8 The Bottom Line: The Difference That Open Access Makes E nrollment in higher education expanded over sixfold since the middle of the twentieth century, and the number of degree-granting institutions more than doubled.1 Some observers saw this as a tide of mediocrity washing away standards and eroding academic excellence . In retrospect, we can see that the swelling ranks of prospective students intensified competition for entry into the most sought-after colleges. From the Ivy League to the flagship campuses of state universities , most top-ranked colleges were able to admit an ever smaller proportion of applicants, and their freshmen’s SAT scores kept rising (table 8.1). Thus, for the top-ranked institutions—which enroll only a small percentage of the nation’s students—the expansion of higher education coincided with increased academic selectivity and stronger students. On the other hand, the number of academically weak students who aspired to college increased dramatically during this period, also impacting numerous nonselective colleges. By 1992, almost 60 percent of high school graduates with C minus or lower averages were proceeding to college, compared to less than a quarter of such students in 1972 (table 8.2). Eight out of ten high school graduates are heading to college today, compared to about half in the early 1970s. Entry rates have increased across the board for every category of ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status, and high school academic record. As this influx indicates, the majority of U.S. colleges and universities have evolved toward nonselective admissions. Two-year colleges have absorbed a disproportionate and increasing share of the poorest and least well-prepared high school students (see table 8.2). Nevertheless , substantial proportions of graduates with C grades in high school (30 percent) and others with grade point averages of C minus or lower (15 percent) are being admitted into four-year colleges. Unlike the situation at CUNY, this nationwide acceptance of less-prepared students by four-year colleges does not seem to have been a deliberate 186 Passing the Torch policy shift, but rather an evolution or adaptation to changing application patterns. Does Open Access Make a Difference? Just how much of a difference has this expansion made? In previous chapters we documented the individual payoffs to college attendance for students in general and for academically weak students in particular . We also documented the impact on the second generation. But here we want to assess something different: the aggregate importance of the shift towards broad access—the social consequences of educational inclusion. One way of approaching this is to consider a hypothetical world in which educational expansion and open access never occurred. Suppose we rolled back the clock to an era of more stringent college admissions. How much of a difference would it have made if a more selective system of access to higher education had remained in place? Answering this question is more complicated than it seems. Critics who refer to “unqualified” students rarely say exactly what they mean, so it is left to us to define a more selective model for college admissions. If we were to roll back the clock, one plausible requirement would be that all students entering a four-year institution should have earned a high school average of B minus or higher. Students who did not meet Table 8.1 The Changing Academic Selectivity of Some Leading Universities Percentage of Applicants Verbal SAT Accepted Score Range 1980 1998 2005 1998 2005 Harvard 16 13 11 700–790 700–800 Princeton 20 12 11 670–770 680–770 Stanford 19 15 12 670–770 670–770 Yale 20 18 11 670–770 690–790 Dartmouth 23 22 19 660–760 670–770 Chicago 66 58 40 640–740 670–770 Duke 37 30 23 640–730 660–750 Northwestern 55 29 30 620–720 650–740 Vanderbilt 67 58 38 590–680 620–710 Ann Arbor, MI 72 69 62 590–660 580–680 Austin, TX 74 61 51 540–650 540–660 Berkeley, CA 70 36 25 570–700 580–710 Chapel Hill, NC 46 37 36 560–670 590–690 Madison, WI 83 77 66 520–650 560–670 Sources: Peterson’s Annual Guide to Undergraduate Study (1982) and Kaplan’s College Catalogue (1999, 2006). Note: The admissions percentages refer to undergraduate applicants, whereas the SAT verbal scores refer to the 25th and 75th percentiles of the incoming freshman class. [13.58.82.79] Project MUSE (2024-04-24 14...

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