What College Admissions Offices Really Want

Is it diversity, academics or tuition revenue?

View in browser|nytimes.com SEPTEMBER 13, 2019

American colleges collectively now give more aid to each student with a family income over $100,000, on average, than they do to each student with a family income under $20,000.

In the cover story of this week's special Education issue, the journalist Paul Tough spends time with an admissions officer at Trinity College and writes about how many selective colleges end up prioritizing tuition revenue over diversity and academics.

OUR COVER STORY Photo illustration by Delcan & Company   What College Admissions Offices Really Want Elite schools say they're looking for academic excellence and diversity. But their thirst for tuition revenue means that wealth trumps all.

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MORE FROM OUR EDUCATION SPECIAL ISSUE Joshua Rashaad McFadden for The New York Times   I Was a Low-Income College Student. Classes Weren't the Hard Part. Schools must learn that when you come from poverty, you need more than financial aid to succeed. Photo illustration by Paul Sahre   The Koch Foundation Is Trying to Reshape Foreign Policy. With Liberal Allies. Charles Koch has spent a fortune pushing the American government to the right. Now his foundation is promoting a vision of U.S. power shared by many progressives: restraint. Diana Zeyneb Alhindawi for The New York Times   The Disappearing Schools of Puerto Rico Over the past three years, hundreds of schools have closed across Puerto Rico. Their ruins are among the most visible evidence of the island's vicious circle of poor governance, neglect by Washington and environmental catastrophe.

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