You can't ignore Reynold's Law

Reynold's Law:

The government decides to try to increase the middle class by subsidizing things that middle class people have: If middle-class people go to college and own homes, then surely if more people go to college and own homes, we’ll have more middle-class people. But homeownership and college aren’t causes of middle-class status, they’re markers for possessing the kinds of traits — self-discipline, the ability to defer gratification, etc. — that let you enter, and stay, in the middle class. Subsidizing the markers doesn’t produce the traits; if anything, it undermines them.

An article in the NYT illustrates this seductive confusion of cause and effect. From Generation Later, Poor Are Still Rare at Elite Colleges by Richard Perez-Pena.

A series of federal surveys of selective colleges found virtually no change from the 1990s to 2012 in enrollment of students who are less well off — less than 15 percent by some measures — even though there was a huge increase over that time in the number of such students going to college. Similar studies looking at a narrower range of top wealthy universities back those findings. With race-based affirmative action losing both judicial and public support, many have urged selective colleges to shift more focus to economic diversity.

This is partly because students are more likely to graduate and become leaders in their fields if they attend competitive colleges. Getting low-income students onto elite campuses is seen as a vital engine of social mobility.

The fulcrum of confusion is the last paragraph.

It is true that competitive universities have much higher graduation rates (greater than 95% for the most competitive) than those that are less than competitive. But that doesn't mean that all those admitted are equally likely to graduate. In fact, there is a fairly extensive literature at this point ranging from competitive state universities to most competitive non-profit research universities, that those who are admitted under special (i.e. relaxed) standards, no matter how well-intended, have much much higher drop-out rates.

I don't disagree that having a more diverse body of students (diverse in class, religion, income, etc. as well as the more traditional protected classes categories), likely is beneficial. But let's not forget Reynold's Law.

There's a lot of behavioral, experiential, skills and knowledge acquisitions that occur in a middle class family setting which have little or nothing to do with income. If the student has not had the benefit of acquiring those knowledge, skills, experience and behaviors, then they are unlikely to achieve the same outcomes. Simply getting students in to competitive universities without equipping them with those skills sets is a recipe for more of what we already know happens - excess failure rates, drop-out rates, and switch from hard to soft fields of study. No one wins in that scenario and the poor student loses (if they are absent those middle class attributes). It doesn't matter how good the intentions are, the bad outcome is still the same. You can't ignore Reynold's Law.