Class matters The fight to get beyond race preferences, reduce inequality, and build real diversity at America's colleges

In this thought-provoking account, journalist Kahlenberg (Excluded) makes a convincing case that college admissions offices should give preferential treatment to applicants who are economically disadvantaged, and that such an approach is more likely than race-based admissions to achieve colleges' stated objective of having a diverse student body. He reached his conclusions before the Supreme Court banned race-conscious admission decisions in the 2023 SFFA v. Harvard and SFFA v. UNC decisions. Kahlenberg, who had a history of working for civil rights, including desegregating schools, was regarded as a turncoat by some on the left for his role as an expert witness in support of Students for Fair Admissions, the conservative group that challenged race-based affirmative action at Harvard and the University of North Carolina. Heeffectively pushes back on that critique by citing research to support his claims; by detailing the views of progressive icons who shared similar opinions, among them Bayard Rustin and Martin Luther King Jr.; and by grounding his analysis in profiles of low-income students who struggled at college because of the lack of economic diversity, like Edmund Kennedy, a Black undergrad who felt out of place at Amherst College, where almost all the other students of color came from affluent families. It's a provocative call to reconsider how diversity in higher education can be achieved. (Mar.)

Journalist/attorney Kahlenberg calls for college admissions policies based on economic class rather than race. Kahlenberg is well known--and a source of controversy--for having aligned, though a liberal, with conservative thinkers in arguing against the affirmative action of old. The goals of racially based affirmative action are, he writes, "valid": "It is crucial that in a multicultural democracy, students learn to appreciate and value individuals of all backgrounds." Yet, as constructed until recently, race-based affirmative action standards at state as well as private schools favored moneyed applicants, as well as legacy admissions. This may yield diversity of a kind, but it deprecates the efforts of economically disadvantaged students of whatever race. With a Duke economist, Kahlenberg gamed the results of class-based admissions at Harvard and the University of North Carolina (where, perhaps surprisingly, there are 16 times more students from wealthy than from poor backgrounds), and the two discovered that the outcomes would be more equitable than race-based admissions: "We found that universities could produce both racial and economic diversity and maintain high academic standards if they invested in this new approach." The keyword there is "invested," because with likely fewer legacy and donor funds, it would cost schools more to offer financial aid to the economically disadvantaged than to do things as usual. However, things as usual are changing, anyway: The Supreme Court has ruled against race-based admissions, which, Kahlenberg cogently argues, may usher in a "fairer form of affirmative action." He adds that this may also benefit progressives, who have been losing ground steadily among the electorate precisely because most Americans simply dislike race-based regulation. He also notes, in passing, that the "academic achievement gap," measured among other things by SAT scores, is twice as large when gauged by class as by race. A solid case for building diverse student bodies with closer attention to financial need than to ethnic background. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.