The Declining "Equity" of American Higher Education

An analysis of three decades of data from national samples of entering college freshmen reveals that (a) there are substantial socioeconomic inequities in access to the most selective U.S. colleges and universities and that (b) American higher education is more socioeconomically stratified today than at any time during the past three decades. The increasing concentration of high-SES students in the most selective institutions appears to have come primarily at the expense of middle-SES students.