Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited excerpt from pages 120-26 of Class Matters: The Fight to Get Beyond Race Preferences, Reduce Inequality, and Build Real Diversity at America’s Colleges (Public Affairs, 2025).
Efforts around the turn of the twenty-first century to add into college admissions considerations of socioeconomic diversity on top of racial diversity – an idea supported by many of my liberal friends – failed mostly because it did not grapple with the fundamental forces that drive university behavior. Universities deserve credit for recognizing that racial diversity is part of what makes them excellent, and they have woven a commitment to it into their DNA. But why did all the statistical analyses of admissions – including from strong supporters of racial affirmative action – find that universities pay so much less attention to class diversity for its own sake? Four explanations stand out.
