Opinion: Post-affirmative action, let’s look past our obsession with the Ivy Leagues and other elite schools

This Op-Ed was published February 5, 2024 on The Hechinger Report.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision striking down affirmative action in college admissions last June fueled heated debates and raised questions about the distribution of opportunities to attend highly selective education institutions.

Among them is: How will we ensure diverse leadership in this country if student diversity decreases at Ivy League and other top colleges?

That question, while well-intentioned, is overly narrow. We should instead be asking this: Why are we so laser-focused on the graduates of a tiny number of schools, presuming they are the rightful inhabitants of leadership posts in business and government?

As a professor, dean and now a college president with decades of experience at public and private schools (including the Ivy League), I’ve found that the most impressive students often come from less prestigious institutions.

So why are we unwilling to recognize that great leaders can and do come from a wide variety of educational backgrounds? And why do we lean so heavily into a highly flawed filtering system that privileges people of means and connection?

The answers are rooted in the mistaken but prevailing narrative that selectivity equals quality. We adhere to the notion that the more competitive an institution, the better it must be — and that students admitted into these coveted spots must be superior to those who are not.

Unfortunately, this is why many employers looking for the best talent narrowly focus on graduates of “elite” institutions. Research reveals the degree to which these schools fuel the pipeline for some of the most prestigious leadership roles in America.

A study found that although just 1 percent of U.S. students attend Ivy-Plus schools (the eight Ivy League schools plus MIT, Duke, Stanford, and University of Chicago), they account for more than 13 percent of those in the top 0.1 percent of U.S. income distribution, a quarter of U.S. senators, nearly half of all Rhodes Scholars, five of the last 12 U.S. presidents and almost three-quarters of Supreme Court Justices since 1963. And “Attending an Ivy-Plus college instead of a flagship public college triples students’ chances of obtaining jobs at prestigious firms,” the research found.

If we treat those outcomes as fixed, unless these schools diversify, we won’t have diverse leadership in government, business and academia.

But those outcomes are not fixed. The study’s authors didn’t question the imbalance of opportunities perpetuated by the heavy reliance on these 12 top schools out of thousands of other fine colleges and universities.

Why only 12? Tweaking the composition of the student body at only 12 elite institutions was never going to fix our diversity problem.

Countless outstanding graduates emerge from non-Ivy institutions that embrace students from varied backgrounds and with fewer resources.

Yes, these students frequently display incredible “grit” and “resilience,” but that praise is too-often offered as a kind of offset for an assumed talent deficit. That’s nonsense. Many students at more accessible institutions can run intellectual circles around their peers at “top schools.”

To disregard their talent because they don’t have the “right” degree is to leave acres and acres of human potential wasted.

We need to wash away the prevailing attitude — among those making hiring decisions, graduate school admissions decisions and other evaluations of college graduates — that attendance at an elite institution is a perfect proxy for excellence. This requires reformulating ranking systems that reward institutions for being exclusionary.

If everyone in a hiring position focused on individuals’ attributes, abilities and achievements, it would have an enormous impact on increasing diversity in leadership.

And diversity is what we’re looking for. Recent polling and research found that, when asked to evaluate how current business and political leaders are reacting to societal challenges, the vast majority of Americans somewhat or strongly agreed that “even great leaders are not suited to handle all crises” and that some emerging crises faced by society today require “a new crop of leaders to emerge with new skill sets.” Poll respondents also overwhelmingly indicated that “having more diverse leaders would allow for better outcomes in government, business, etc.,” and that “society would be better if we evolved past the ’traditional’ leader (e.g., male, white, older, etc.).”

Fortunately, it was never necessary to believe that 12 schools could alter the leadership landscape for our entire country. There are many colleges and universities working hard to foster diversity simply by increasing access to high-quality education. Just by leveling the playing field, they are producing a diverse set of highly capable graduates prepared and eager to make an impact on the world, and changing lives in the process.

Many of us are steadfast in our belief that accessibility and excellence must go hand in hand. Yet too often, our schools — and by extension, our students — remain in the shadow of a small but influential group of institutions built on histories of exclusion and privilege.

New Jersey’s second-largest higher education institution, Montclair State University, where I serve as president, is one of these overshadowed schools. Built on an ethos of inclusion and excellence, we are a minority-majority and Hispanic-Serving Institution.

Last year, 44 percent of our incoming class were first-generation college students, while 48 percent of our undergraduates received Pell Grants. Our accessibility does not undermine our results. Indeed, Montclair’s graduation rates and graduates’ salaries exceed national medians. And Montclair is far from the only university to defy expectations based on its broader accessibility.

There is no question that Ivy-Plus schools offer a small number of people a remarkable education — including me: I was fortunate to study at Harvard, and I’ve undoubtedly benefited from my association with this august institution. Those advantages have fueled my conviction that real progress requires broadening the pathways to power. To do so we must support the institutions that are cultivating new waves of talent reflective of the diversity of our country.