Network Schools – Wayne Gerseny to https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/04/03/magazine/thomas-piketty-interview u w B l.html?h I’ll smid=url-share the Is for

An NYTimes article by Auburn graduate Drake Pooley in today’s paper describes a quick way to desegregate public Universities: admit the top 10% of each high school graduating class in the state to college:

We know how to bring about greater student body diversity, because some public universities have done it. When the University of Texas, Austin, started admitting the top 10 percent of every high school graduating class in the state in the late 1990s, it created pathways for schools in more historically disadvantaged communities to send students to that flagship university.

Over the next decade, the number of high schools in Texas whose graduates went there rose from 674 to 900. Once on campus, those students graduated at similar levels as all other students. This program increased earnings for these students with no significant harm to those who were “pushed out,” in terms of graduation rates and earnings, according to a 2020 working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research.

If such a plan were combined with an influx of federal funds specifically earmarked for need-based scholarships to colleges and junior colleges access to higher education would readily available even to those students attending public high schools in underfunded districts.