And yet, while the data are thin, all available lists of successful black Americans indicate they went to a variety of undergraduate institutions. For example, a 1996 report by the National Research Council lists the undergraduate institutions that trained most of the African Americans who earned Ph.D. s between 1992 and 1996. Three out of the next eight are also predominantly black, and only one the University of Michigan is among Bowen and Bok s elite. Although Bowen and Bok collected data on four historically black colleges, they failed to analyze them. That is a serious omission.
Selective institutions do little to shape the overall structure of opportunity in higher education.
Far from it. Selective colleges, with their high-powered students, are intellectually enriching and thus more fun for those who love school. But as Princeton economist Alan Krueger and Stacy Dale of the Mellon Foundation recently found, selective colleges have no impact on earnings fifteen years down the road. The academically skilled do well wherever they go to college. It is indeed awkward to let out the truth about double standards, although it is remarkable that administrators think that students will not make invidious comparisons if the statistics are kept under wraps.