> Some top colleges now admit much more economically and ethnically diverse students.
Yes, there are lots more black and Hispanic students than before, and since the universities refuse to share the data we can’t be sure that this increase in diversity mostly means more children of Nigerian doctors and Colombian lawyers, mostly paying full international student fees but that’s the way to bet.
Regarding economic diversity.
Harvard[1], Yale[2], Princeton[3] Stanford[4] all have average family incomes above $160,000. Less selective colleges with smaller endowments that need the money from fees more are not going to be more economically diverse if they can possibly avoid it.
Selecting by standardized test scores would result in a substantially less socially elite student body than the current system. A more Asian one. Stopping that is why there’s a movement to get rid of the SATs. Asians are being discriminated against now as Jews were in the early 20th century, for similar reasons.
[1] According to The New York Times, the median family income of a student from Harvard is $168,800, and 67% of students come from the highest-earning 20% of American households. About 15% come from families in the top 1% of American wealth distribution.
[2] According to The New York Times, the median family income of a student from Yale is $192,600. Roughly 69% of Yale students come from the highest-earning 20% of American households.
[3] According to The New York Times, the median family income of a student from Princeton is $186,100, and 72% come from the highest-earning 20% of American households
[4] According to The New York Times, the median family income of a student from Stanford is $167,500