The Daily Pennsylvanian :: Editorial | Make diversity a priority

If there is one thing that has become clear from a recent campus discussion, it is the consensus that economic diversity is beneficial to a university.

In the Penn Almanac earlier this semester and during a panel event last week, English professor Peter Conn debated Dean of Admissions Eric Furda and Director of Student Financial Aid Bill Schilling over Penn’s efforts to attract students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. But while their views on the success of Penn’s current initiatives differed, all three individuals agreed on the underlying value of economic diversity and the need for Penn to continue taking a proactive approach in addressing the issue.

An economically diverse student body has significant benefits for undergraduate education. The college years are the time and the university campus is the place at which students develop their personal ideologies and outlooks. Penn provides a unique opportunity for people from many different backgrounds to come together, and students often learn most from their peers. Increasing the economic diversity on campus would vary the viewpoints to which students are exposed and from which they can learn.

But recent data shows that Penn struggles to attract students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. In his piece in the Almanac, Conn cited the statistic that only 8.2 percent of Penn students in the 2008-09 school year received money from federal Pell grants, ranking the University at a dismal 47th place out of the 50 wealthiest colleges in the country. This percentage was actually a decrease from 8.7 percent of students in the 2004-05 school year, meaning that economic diversity may have worsened over that time — a very discouraging finding.

Furda acknowledges Conn’s point but argues that the situation has since improved. The University has indeed taken some commendable steps to attract more financially disadvantaged students. Penn collaborates with the nonprofit organizations QuestBridge and the Posse Foundation to award full four-year scholarships to deserving students with financial need. Last year, it selected 17 QuestBridge and 11 Posse scholars to be a part of the current freshman class. And last semester, the University redesigned its financial aid brochure to help students from low-income families better navigate the college admissions process. In part for these reasons, the percentage of Penn students receiving Pell grants has increased steadily over the past few years, according to Furda.

Surely, there remains a lot of work to be done, and Penn can’t do it alone. The lack of economic diversity in elite schools presents a much bigger problem in higher education — one that has roots in troubles with the public education system as a whole and economic inequality in the nation overall. These problems are immensely complicated and require a fundamental shift in policy to solve.

Penn can’t find the solution itself, but it can definitely take the lead in improving economic diversity on its own campus. Doing so will only enrich its students’ experience and ultimately make it a stronger school.

There are, of course, sacrifices the University must make by giving this diversity precedence; every initiative it undertakes comes with an opportunity cost. But because so many people agree that economic diversity is an important goal, these sacrifices are worth making.

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Comments (3)

Economic diversity is a nice idea, but very difficult to implement on the scale you seek. Keep in mind that a family’s true economic situation is not always obvious. When I was at Penn, it was a running joke that students with parents who owned their own businesses often qualified for financial aid, whereas those with salaried parents often did not. I have a nephew who is on full aid, even though his parents make a great deal of money. They own their own business and hide a lot of their wealth in that business, however. I suspect most families who own their own businesses do the same thing. Another problem is that there is a direct coorelation between family wealth and SAT scores. For Penn to embrace the economic diversity you seek, the school would have to begin giving less weight to SAT scores (something I support, but which won’t be done as long as USNWR’s rankings rely on SAT scores). Thus, it’s a nice idea but very difficult to implement.

Scott Sontag’s comments are right on the mark, and I suspect reflect the opinion of many Penn alums on this difficult topic. While most would agree with the goal of economic diversity on Penn’s and other elite campuses, there is a lot between here and there.

For one thing, many Penn observers both alums an others, have felt for a long time that Penn is actually hyper-concerned with the currently de rigeur notion of University diversity, i.e. that it seems to have become some Holy Grail unto itself. There’s actually very little evidence that diversity in academia, no matter how socially fashionable, actually does improve the educational milieu for everyone else. And as Sonntage points out, economic standing may actually be in many cases a “marker” for higher innate ability, as opposed to just “good fortune”. So while the idea of “diversity” sounds good, esp. to those academics who currently seem obsessed with it as a Holy Grail unto itself, we need to examine analytically why we seek it and what price we’re willing to pay for it—both economically AND in potentially lowered academic standards. Think about it.

i would like to know exactly what sacrifices the university must make to achieve this economic diversity. how many economically challenged students are needed in each class to be properly diverse? if a large percentage of the economically challenged students turn out to be minorities is that racism? there is no proof that any type of diversity is ultimately important to the student.

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