Here's One Way to Get Early Admission to College: Be Rich

[xchrom]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2015-01-09/colleges-fill-more-seats-early-favoring-richer-u-s-students.html


Prospective students are led on a tour at Northwestern University's main campus in Evanston, Illinois.

Top colleges are filling more of their classes in early-admissions programs that favor affluent families, placing another barrier before poorer students hoping to better themselves through higher education.

Families that need financial aid often wait for the regular round, which starts this month, so they can compare aid offers. Because early-decision programs require a binding commitment to one school in November and boost admissions chances, many slots are taken before lower-income students even apply.

At Northwestern and Duke, about half the spots for this fall’s freshman class are already spoken for. Ten years ago, the universities each took about a quarter through early admissions. Vanderbilt expects its class to be as much as 44 percent full by next month, compared with a third a decade ago.

“The scale is definitely tipped to the kids who have more behind them financially,” said Bruce Poch, former dean of admissions at Pomona College in Claremont, California. The trend of colleges filling up early “has gotten more extreme in recent years.”

[Arcadiasix]

1. Remember the golden rule. He who has the gold usually makes the rules

[SheilaT]

2. Because a lot of schools have a binding early decision,

meaning you must attend if accepted, if you're going to need serious financial aid you simply are better off waiting to be accepted by several colleges and seeing just what financial aid is offered.

The real problem is that so many young people have been bamboozled into believing they must go to college, no matter what it costs, and not to worry their little heads about what major they choose. I've been arguing with people for a couple of decades now about this, and I consistently tell kids and their parents that if they don't have a lot of money and can't get a good scholarship (as compared to an aid package that is mostly loans) then they should start out at the local junior college and then transfer to their nearest state university. If they have to work and so take and extra couple of years to get the degree, then fine, so long as they come out with little or no debt and -- this is the crucial part -- a degree that gets them a decent job.

Up until about 1965 or so, when the Baby Boomers suddenly hit colleges in vast numbers, higher education was a province of the rich. Then things changed, and for a while there public education was inexpensive enough to be affordable for many, and so lots and lots of people got degrees. And until maybe 1975 a bachelor's degree, regardless of the major, really did open a lot of doors. But so many people started having degrees that employers got picky, and just any old major no longer mattered.

Don't get me wrong. I'm a huge proponent of education for its own sake, and I've taken college classes on and off my entire adult life. But I think many of those who think that a degree in anthropology or 18th century French poetry will land a good job need to re-think that. A certificate in medical coding will get you a decent job. So will lots of other programs that the community colleges offer. Again, I have this sort of conversation a lot with young people and their parents, and keep on telling them that the very worst thing they can do is to borrow huge sums of money for a degree. Unless, perhaps, it's engineering or medicine.

[Fumesucker]

3. A certificate in medical coding will get you a decent job until an AI starts doing it.

The AI needs no benefits, takes no coffee breaks and doesn't talk back to the boss.

[SheilaT]

4. Actually, so many coding mistakes are made,

having an AI do it would be an improvement. That was just an example. There are many other certificate programs out there.