The Morning: An upward-mobility machine

Plus, Donald Trump, Ukraine and competitive quizzing.

View in browser|nytimes.com Continue reading the main story April 8, 2024 By David Leonhardt Good morning. We're covering a university that combines diversity and excellence — as well as Donald Trump, Ukraine and competitive quizzing. In New York City.  José A. Alvarado Jr. for The New York Times A reflection of New York City College of New York often serves as a nostalgic symbol of American higher education's past. The college did not charge tuition for decades, and its students, many of them poor, went on to become Nobel laureates, chief executives, civil rights leaders and more. By contrast, higher education today can seem both less accessible and less rigorous. But it turns out that the school that occupies City College's original 19th-century campus, on the East Side of Manhattan, has done a fine job of living up to its predecessor's legacy. That school is Baruch College, and it is an upward-mobility machine. More than 60 percent of Baruch students receive Pell grants, which means they typically come from the bottom half of the income distribution. About 75 percent of undergraduates are people of color. The average annual cost of attending Baruch for low-income students is less than $2,000. And Baruch's six-year graduation rate is 74 percent, well above the national average. When I asked S. David Wu, an engineering scholar who is Baruch's president, about City College's original vision of educating the masses, he told me, "In many ways, Baruch is realizing that vision, but in a 21st-century way." In today's newsletter, I'll tell you about a new report that tracks how other colleges are doing. At Baruch College.  José A. Alvarado Jr. for The New York Times A worrisome decline After Michael Bloomberg finished being mayor of New York City in 2013, he turned his attention to philanthropy and decided that increasing economic diversity in higher education was a priority. "America needs to have as big a pool of talented, hard-working, well-educated people as it can possibly get," Bloomberg told me. His main program is known as the American Talent Initiative, and its goal is to persuade colleges with high graduation rates to diversify. This morning, the group released its latest report, and it praises Baruch as a model college. "There are very few colleges in the country like Baruch," said Josh Wyner of the Aspen Institute, which helps run the American Talent Initiative. Indeed, among all U.S. colleges with a graduation rate above 70 percent, Baruch may be the most economically diverse. It both holds down tuition costs and creates clear pathways for students to earn degrees, Wyner said. Other parts of the new report, however, are worrisome. Bloomberg's group set a goal almost a decade ago: Lift the annual enrollment of low- and moderate-income students at colleges with high graduation rates by 50,000 — or roughly 10 percent. The group planned to do so partly by building a membership organization where colleges could share strategies. Initially, the progress was impressive. Enrollment jumped by more than 20,000 in the initiative's first three years, putting it comfortably on pace to achieve the goal within a decade. But momentum stalled in 2019-20. The reasons weren't completely clear, but I've noticed that economic diversity often declines when college administrators aren't paying close attention. Other priorities — sports teams, fund-raising, U.S. News's rankings — take over. Covid made the situation worse, by exacerbating K-12 inequality and preventing some lower-income students from making it to college. By fall 2021, all the early progress had been erased. Enrollment of lower-income students at colleges with high graduation rates was slightly below its 2015 level. In response, the initiative got tougher. To remain members, college now must commit to specific lower-income enrollment levels, rather than vaguely promising to make progress. A small number of colleges have since dropped out. Among them, according to public records, were Penn State and Virginia Tech, as well as several private schools, including Wake Forest, which is among the country's least economically diverse colleges, and Denison, in Ohio. (This Times feature lets you look up economic diversity at nearly 300 colleges.) But 125 colleges remained, including the entire Ivy League and the flagship state universities in California, Michigan, Texas and Wisconsin. About 15 schools more have recently joined. Baruch is among them, as are Colorado College, Illinois State and Towson. At these member schools, lower-income enrollment has fully recovered from its recent decline. Updated data isn't available for the roughly 200 other colleges with a graduation rate of at least 70 percent, but their trend is unlikely to be so positive: Source: American Talent Initiative | By The New York Times Successful strategies The new report cities several promising strategies for lifting diversity, such as: Reduce so-called merit aid, which tends to go to affluent students, and direct scholarships to students who demonstrate both academic excellence and financial need. Boston University has recently done so. Recruit more transfers from community colleges, where top students from modest backgrounds often start. Central Florida, Dayton, George Mason and the University of California all emphasize community-college transfers, and Princeton recently started a program. Help students navigate higher education. Its bureaucracy can be so maddening that it keeps students from graduating. In response, Baruch has created an office called BOSS — Baruch One Stop Shop — where students can get help enrolling in classes or filling out aid forms. The college has also created cohorts of first-year students who take classes together and can help one another. Baruch's mission, Wu told me, is to educate a student body that resembles society at large — and increase upward mobility as a result. "Our diversity," he said, "very much reflects the diversity of New York." For more Some colleges will soon charge $100,000 a year. My colleague Ron Lieber explains how it happened. President Biden will announce student debt relief for millions of borrowers in a Wisconsin speech. Continue reading the main story ADVERTISEMENT THE LATEST NEWS Israel-Hamas War In Khan Younis, southern Gaza. Agence France-Presse — Getty Images The Israeli military has reduced the number of troops in Gaza. Only a fraction of the soldiers that it deployed to the enclave earlier in the war remain. 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MORNING READS A watch party in New York. Adrienne Grunwald for The New York Times Away games: Meet a group of New Yorkers who pooled money to buy a Danish minor league soccer team. Health tech: Patients can pay to have artificial intelligence read their mammograms. Experts are both excited and concerned. Metropolitan Diary: Best taxi ride in 50 years. Lives Lived: Albert Heath was a virtuoso jazz drummer who collaborated with John Coltrane and Nina Simone. He died at 88. SPORTS South Carolina celebrates. Ken Blaze/USA Today Sports Women's college basketball: South Carolina beat Iowa, 87-75, to win their second national title in three years. Iowa's defeat comes days before Caitlin Clark is expected to be the No. 1 pick in the W.N.B.A. Draft. A G.O.A.T.: Dawn Staley, South Carolina's coach, thanked Clark for making women's basketball more popular. "She carried a heavy load," Staley said. Read about Clark's collegiate career. Men's college basketball: John Calipari is nearing a deal to coach at Arkansas. UConn: The Huskies face Zach Edey and Purdue with a chance to become the first repeat men's college basketball national champions since Florida in 2006 and 2007. Continue reading the main story ADVERTISEMENT ARTS AND IDEAS Brandon Blackwell  Elias Williams for The New York Times "University Challenge": The New Yorker Brandon Blackwell knew that if he wanted to have a career in competitive quizzing, he had to move to its epicenter: London. Despite already having a degree, he applied to Imperial College London to get a visa. Then, he competed for the college on the Britain's premier quiz show, "University Challenge." Blackwell's appearance on the show in 2020 turned him into a national figure and Imperial — which had not won the competition since 2001 — into a "University Challenge" powerhouse. 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See you tomorrow. — David Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Continue reading the main story Editor: David Leonhardt Deputy Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Need help? Review our newsletter help page or contact us for assistance. You received this email because you signed up for the Morning newsletter from The New York Times, or as part of your New York Times account. To stop receiving The Morning, unsubscribe. To opt out of other promotional emails from The Times, including those regarding The Athletic, manage your email settings. To opt out of updates and offers sent from The Athletic, submit a request. 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