Build Feeder Schools (and Make Yale and Harvard Fund Them)
Harvard economics professor Roland Fryer calls on elite institutions such as Harvard and Yale to put their money where their mouths are with affirmative action and create real, systemic change— “Instead of making the admissions process shallow, elite colleges should deepen the applicant pool. The simplest, most direct way to do that is for these schools to found and fund schools that educate disadvantaged students.”
Fryer concedes that these schools may have been virtue signaling— “Elite schools would have to believe is that large numbers of talented minority students exist, are being failed by their current schools and, absent this lack of opportunity, would flood the halls of elite colleges. Those in charge certainly profess to believe this. If true, they can put a small percentage of their endowment money where their mouths are.”
Fryer argues that elite institutions have been able “to sidestep responsibility for far too long” and that they “could fix the problem if they truly wanted to.” He lays out the plan, including how the academies would be funded through endowments.
