Debt, Merit, and Equity in Higher Education Access

I INTRODUCTION When President Lyndon Baines Johnson signed the Higher Education Act (1) (HEA) on November 8, 1965, he proclaimed that the law "means that a high school senior anywhere in this great land of ours can apply to any college or any university in any of the 50 States and not be turned away because his family is poor. " (2) And in the fifty years since the Act passed, nothing less than a revolution has occurred regarding college access. Colleges and universities in the United States are producing more than two-and-a-half times as many graduates as in the past: 2.8 million in the 2012-2013 academic year, compared to 1.1 million in 1970-1971. (3) This 154% increase represents far more growth than can be accounted for by the 17% growth (4) in the number of high school graduates; currently, about two-thirds of students who complete high school enroll in a two-year or four-year college program, up from about half. (5) The increase reflects an ambitious and expensive effort to put college within reach of all aspiring students. Yet President Johnson's words remain aspirational. The distribution of this bounty of higher education has not evolved as President Johnson and other supporters of that landmark law might have hoped or envisioned. Although the Act created a regime to make college possible for poor students, it did not seek to address present and historical discrimination and exclusion on the basis of race or class. For example, poorer students continue to be underrepresented at the nation's leading colleges and universities, (6) African-American and Latino students disproportionately attend institutions associated with the worst education outcomes, (7) and rates of student loan default among both African- American and Latino students are significantly higher than among other student groups. (8) Addressing these disparities requires recognizing the narratives underlying political discourse around higher education--narratives that enable legislative inaction. According to one prevalent narrative strand, higher education is a private good that accrues to the benefit of the student rather than to the larger society, a view making it more difficult to justify public subsidization of access. (9) According to another, admissions decisions at selective institutions are based on individual merit assessed largely through standardized tests, performance on which closely tracks the income of the test-taker's family (10) and varies among racial groups. (11) The assessments are viewed as objective and consideration of other student characteristics may be controversial because it is seen as inconsistent with commitment to meritocracy. (12) Although higher education is available on a more equitable basis now than it has been in the past, less inequity in the distribution of higher education opportunity is not the same as equity. Advancing the cause of access, a touchstone of the civil rights movement in the era of the HEA, requires attention to this difference. Further advancement of opportunity for students who belong to groups historically excluded from college campuses will turn on arguments informed by sophisticated evaluation of the moments that determine who enjoys meaningful access, rather than mere access, to higher education. Access is meaningful when education opportunity extends beyond enabling matriculation to encompass the chance both to excel while enrolled and to pursue a career unburdened by excessive debt. This conception of access includes and goes beyond the admissions decision to recognize the importance of cost, of the experience while enrolled, and of the steps that must be taken to help students achieve graduation. Evaluation of the moments that shape students' higher education experience requires study of both the principles justifying the HE A and the results of its implementation in order to see whether the practices that determine who goes to college promote equity in access. …