Controlling elitism in higher education

Last week, an article at the New York Times reports efforts of Harvard to attract more low- and middle-income students by extending breaks for low-income parents. Harvard isn’t alone in trying to improve the social demographics of its student body. There are similar programs in Princeton, MIT, Stanford and Yale, among other Ivy League schools. It has become such that the NYT observed, the situation is turning into a financial aid arms race among the prestigious colleges.

Harvard started focusing attention two years ago on the paucity of low-income students in the Ivy League with its announcement that it would not ask parents who earned less than $40,000 a year to contribute money for their children’s education. Last week, Harvard just raised that ceiling to $60,000 for students entering this fall.

Harvard’s president, Lawrence H. Summers, said in a statement, “There is no more important mission for Harvard and higher education than promoting equality of opportunity for all.” He said the financial aid increases “send a clear signal to middle-class families who have all too often felt that Harvard and other leading universities are out of reach.”

But the students will not get a simple freebie. They will still be expected to make some payments from jobs they hold. It must also be noted that these Ivy League schools have large endowment funds that help fund these programs. We still have to get local alumni to be as generous to their alma mater.

In any case, I found this bit of news interesting in relation to my observation about the monoculture of rich kids in Ateneo and our other top universities. I got a short note from former Health Secretary Quasi Romualdez, who was also Dean of the UP College of Medicine, reacting to my column on Ateneo.

“I have just read your column in The Philippine Star last Friday on “An Ateneo Education” and enjoyed it thoroughly. I must say that I agree with you completely on almost all points. The only possible exception may be your assertion that U.P. may be different (i.e., not an elite rich school). What you said may apply to the rest of the University, but probably not the College of Medicine.”

Dr. Romualdez went on to show how this failure in balancing social demographics affects the larger national community.

“Let us look at our program from the point of view of who are or should be the clients of the U.P. College of Medicine. If our clients are college graduates with academic qualifications to enroll in a medical degree program and interested in obtaining a solid education in scientific medicine, the U.P. College of Medicine has an excellent product. And at U.P. tuition rates, it is a bargain. Add to this the fact that over 65 percent of our graduates go overseas and earn much more money than most ordinary OFWs, and there you have it — the College program is perfect.

“But, if our clients were sick and poor Filipino patients needing culturally attuned, compassionate and caring scientific medical care, then it seems that we do not always have the right product. Such clients would have to be content with the minority of UPCM graduates who stay in the Philippines, the smaller minority who practice where the poor live, and the even smaller minority who on their own systematically nurture empathy for the sick poor.”

An overseas Pinoy based in New York also reacted to the Ateneo column. He wrote to say “admittedly, the reality is that low income bracket students remain to be a minority in traditional higher education programs that grant bachelors degrees. However the problem is not Ateneo’s (Manila) only. We might be able to draw similarities with the experience of American universities.

“USA Today reported back in 2004 that among America’s top 146 colleges, 74 percent of students came from the richest economic quartile and only three percent came from the poorest. These statistics prevail despite the fact that the United States has had a Higher Education Act for 40 years.

“USA Today identified several factors that have accounted for this. The most prominent is the mediocre quality elementary and secondary education in most public schools. As a result, only the ‘very best and brightest’ among the poor qualify for private college admissions, let alone scholarships.”

So, what are we saying here? It isn’t enough to have low tuition or generous tuition assistance programs as the US Ivy League schools are trying to make available. That’s an important factor, but there is also the problem that comes from poor pre-college education in the public schools, where the poor and even the middle class kids study.

I was told that in UP after they introduced an admissions policy skewed to favor the public school graduates, even the valedictorians and other honor graduates of the public school system had difficulty adjusting to UP’s rigorous academic requirements. I understand they had to institute remedial classes in English and Math before some of the students could be expected to perform at expected UP levels.

It probably makes sense to pick the brightest of public elementary and high school students and have them mix it up with the rich kids in Ateneo and La Salle that early. I know this works from personal experience. My elementary education was at Paco Catholic School which effectively mixed poor, middle class and some rich kids. High school at UP Prep was pretty much as egalitarian as in Paco Catholic.

The New York expat continues: “My sources in the Ateneo de Manila faculty have told me that around 10 percent of Ateneo college students are scholars from underprivileged backgrounds. The school’s goal is to increase this to 20 percent.

‘On the side, Ateneo de Cagayan de Oro (Xavier) has a special non-traditional industrial technology program (CIT) where majority of enrollees are scholars from low income families. This is a three-year post-secondary (non-bachelors) program where students are trained in certificate-bearing technical fields and placed on OJTs that lead to full-time job offers.

“This is possible in Xavier because private companies like Toyota Motors and Cypress Semiconductor are willing to pay for these students’ training in exchange for having the priority to hire them once they graduate, and because Xavier has a classical engineering department with faculty members in mechanical and electrical engineering who can be tapped to teach.

“Personally, I am tempted to accept the status quo as it is, considering that even the Americans can’t seem to solve the problem. But if somebody were to put a gun on my head and force me to use existing resources to come up with an idea on how to significantly increase the number of low income students in Ateneo for the sake of creating a more economically-diverse learning environment, I would propose that Ateneo simply implement a copy of Xavier’s CIT.

“Let Ateneo’s new CIT students join the same clubs and use the same facilities together with the rich kids studying in the regular bachelors programs. Since Ateneo doesn’t have a classical engineering department like Xavier, it can subcontract instructors from nearby UP or FEU. Costs won’t matter that much because companies will pay for the program just like the way it is dome in Xavier. While this approach won’t give poor students access to bachelors degrees, it will allow more of them to experience an Atenean education.”

I think that’s a good interim idea. I believe a more rounded education should happen not just in the formal classroom learning environment but more importantly, in the ordinary daily exposure students have to every segment of society. It is not possible to put the poor on a laboratory table or under a microscope in a weekend of “immersion” by living with a squatter family or helping build a house for Gawad Kalinga.

One of the valuable aspects of an Ateneo education for its current students is the lifetime network of friendships that are developed in school… the old boy network that somehow serves to perpetuate the elite’s hold on the economy and the politics of the country. I say, this network should not be limited to the same social class but transcend it, if we are to address the widening gap between the social classes we now have that’s terribly unhealthy. We just have to expand our social contacts and what better place to get started doing that than in college.

In the US, when they still had the military draft, the military served that function. Now that they have an all volunteer army, the social distinctions and the unfairness of it all is starting to show. We don’t need a military draft… if only the schools, specially the elite schools can serve that function.

Elitism in higher education is a big and tough problem. But we must discuss it and address it. Social harmony depends on it. Minute man to the rescue
Here’s Dr. Ernie E.

She was in the kitchen doing the boiled eggs for breakfast. He walks in and asks “What’s for breakfast?”

She turns to him and says, “You’ve got to make love to me this very moment”.

He, thinking it’s his lucky day, stands her over the kitchen table and they made love. Afterwards he says, “What was that all about?”

She says “The egg timer’s broken!” –Boo Chanco, Philippine Star

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is bchanco@gmail.com