"Richard Kahlenberg has been on a lifelong journey to expand social and economic opportunity and provide a much wider group of people the opportunity to have a place at the table. In this highly personal and deeply researched book he dramatically and persuasively illustrates that class should be the determining factor for how a wider group of people gain admittance to higher education and the opportunity to "swim in the river of power". While elite universities claim to be on the side of social justice, the dirty secret of higher education in the United States is that the decades-long focus on racial diversity provides cover for an admissions system that mostly benefits the wealthy and shuts out talented working-class students. How to rectify the resulting skyrocketing economic inequality and class antagonism is a question of profound moral and practical importance. Kahlenberg has long worked with prominent civil rights leaders on housing and school integration, but he made a controversial decision to goover to the "other side" and provide research and testimony that helped lead to the controversial Supreme Court decision of 2023 that ended racial preferences. Ironically, he shows, this decision could actually result in a progressive policy outcome - from one that benefited the upper-middle class to one that helps working-class students. By removing legacy admissions, increasing community college transfers, growing financial aid programs, and recruiting students from underrepresented communities, colleges can create more seats for working-class students, a disproportionate share of whom are Black and Latino"--
Arguing for class-based admissions to address inequality, a leading progressive voice critiques race-focused diversity efforts in higher education, exposing bias that favors the wealthy while proposing reforms to enhance economic and racial fairness. 10,000 first printing.
A powerful argument for a class-based approach to college admissions that shows where we have gone wrong so far, and how we will get to justice, equality, and even diversity for real (John McWhorter)
For decades Americas colleges and universities have been working to increase racial diversity. But they have been using the wrong approach, as Richard Kahlenberg persuasively shows in his highly personal and deeply researched book. Kahlenberg makes the definitive case that class disadvantage, rather than race, should be the determining factor for how a broader array of people get in.
While elite universities claim to be on the side of social justice, the dirty secret of higher education is that the perennial focus on racial diversity has provided cover for an admissions system that mostly benefits the wealthy and shuts out talented working-class students. By fixing the class bias in college admissions we can begin to rectify Americas skyrocketing economic inequality and class antagonism, giving more people a better place at the table as they move through life and more opportunity to swim in the river of power.
Kahlenberg has long worked with prominent civil rights leaders on housing and school integration. But his recognition of class inequality in American higher education led to his making a controversial decision to go over to the other side and provide research and testimony in cases that helped lead to the controversial Supreme Court decision of 2023 that ended racial preferences. That conservative ruling could, Kahlenberg shows, paradoxically have a progressive policy outcome by cutting a new path for economic and racial diversity alike and greater fairness.
