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In October 2014, Barack Obama delivered a speech on the future of the American economy at Northwestern University, where I’m a student. He praised universities like mine for their ability to “shape the American economy and set the conditions for middle-class growth well into the twenty-first century.” In light of a recent report examining the concentration of wealthy students in American universities, calling Northwestern an incubator for middle-class renewal seems disingenuous. The report revealed that most college students at elite universities come from the upper echelon of American society. In fact, thirty-eight institutions enroll more students from the top 1 percent than students from the bottom 60 percent. Obama’s embrace of higher education — long touted by Democratic politicians as the key to a good, stable life — ignores the class dynamics at selective, high-tuition universities and reflects liberals’ silence around class issues more generally. At a time when most poor students can’t afford tuition at even underfunded public universities, this claim rings especially hollow. The United States’ elite universities aren’t engines for meritocratic uplift — they preserve and reproduce inequality.

Not Helping Wealthy parents can buy their children into a good school with a strong brand name and a $70,000-plus tuition bill without giving it a second thought. These schools admit and fund a handful of low-income students so they can call themselves economically diverse institutions, even as those students cannot afford to participate in many of their institutions’ quintessential experiences, such as study abroad trips or unpaid internships. A handful of inspiring stories, Barack Obama’s being perhaps the most visible, justifies a system that still prevents most low-income families from sending their children to top-ranked colleges. Northwestern’s numbers aren’t pretty: the median family income sits at $171,200, and two-thirds of students come from the top 20 percent. Of those, 14.1 percent come from the 1 percent —almost equal to the entire population of those from the bottom 60 percent, who only constitute 16.8 percent of the student body. And Northwestern doesn’t have the worst record. Colorado College, a small liberal arts school, had the second-largest split between high- and low-income students: almost a quarter of its students come from the top 1 percent and only 10.5 percent come from the bottom 60 percent. Most universities, Northwestern included, boast about meet[ing] the full demonstrated institutional financial need of our aid applicants” but then present low- and middle-income students’ families with their “Expected Family Contributions.” Countless parents either cannot meet those expectations or take out massive loans to cover the costs. Despite having a $10 billion endowment, Northwestern leaves its average student $23,051 in debt. Slightly less than the national average of $30,100, this burden nevertheless cripples students as they enter a still-shaky job market. The school recently announced that it would eliminate loans from their financial aid packages and replace them with grants, but it remains to be seen how the change will work in practice. Will it realign the school’s class ratio or will the Expected Family Contribution still be too high for most families? Today, many students accept that they must take on tens of thousands of dollars if they want a college degree. Obama knows this: between their undergraduate and law school educations, he and Michelle Obama carried more than $120,000 in student loan debt. They only paid off when he secured a million-dollar book contract. Rather than recognizing the unfairness of saddling students with unpayable debt (after all, how many of us get seven-figure book deals to wipe out our financial obligations?), Obama continued to insist that taking out loans was a good idea, rather than a product of a system designed to make a college degree a burdensome necessity. “It remains smart to spend on things that are going to increase your productivity and your income over the long term,” he said in a White House briefing. Never mind that the ratio of students from the top .1 percent who attend an Ivy League or other elite school — four in ten — matches the percentage of low-income students who attend any two- or four-year institution. Simply put, 60 percent of low-income students never have the opportunity to take out loans in the first place. Most elite schools claim that they evaluate students’ merits regardless of their financial situation — what they call need-blind admissions — but they nevertheless reward applicants for high SAT and ACT scores. All evidence shows those scores rise with family income and parental education. And most elite schools continue to use legacy admissions to give students with family alumni an extra advantage.

Class Confessions Northwestern’s low-income students have organized to demand more resources and support. In 2008, the school joined Questbridge, a network of universities that offer poor students full-ride scholarships. While it began as a scholarship program, student activists have transformed the group into a community space for all low-income students; it stands in stark contrast to other campus experiences like Ski Trip, a pricy weeklong binge in Colorado that regularly draws more than one thousand students. The divisions between the rich and everyone else became visible in 2014, when Questbridge launched NU Class Confessions, a Tumblr encouraging students to anonymously post comments on class issues. Several recurring themes emerged. Low-income students described the sacrifices they and their families made to pay tuition, racking up debt and sacrificing basic needs just to reach graduation. (Example post: “I’ve slept at O’Hare [International Airport] my freshman year spring break, with the dorms being closed and no money to fly back home.”) Wealthy students complained about the imagined benefits of receiving financial aid. “I know I shouldn’t judge, but it makes me mad when my friends with lots of financial aid seem to have more spending money than I do.” Some suggested that poor students should feel obligated to choose a “profitable” major like economics or biology. The university has not completely ignored this student organizing, creating an office called Student Enrichment Services to ensure low-income students can enjoy more of the school’s extracurricular perks. Still, it’s telling that an SES mentorship program is called Compass, reflecting that low-income students have to navigate a world not designed in their interests.