Century Foundation Expert Says Tuition-Free College Wouldn’t Admit More Low-Income Students
Eliminating public university tuition for most families could encourage more low-income young people to pursue higher education by signaling them from a young age that they can afford it, notes Richard Kahlenberg, an expert on college access at the Century Foundation.
But tuition-free college, he says, wouldn’t address the principal reasons the top public schools don’t admit more applicants from disadvantaged backgrounds: their fear of falling in national college rankings if they accept students with lower test scores, and their reluctance to invest in the extra support often required to help such students succeed.
That’s money, Kahlenberg says, “not spent on reducing class sizes or other things that would increase your national rankings...”