Tearing Down the Gates

Interview on Inside Higher Ed with the author of a new book, Peter Sacks, who argues that we need to focus on class barriers in higher education. Good, forceful argument.

"This uniquely American ideal — the promise of equal educational opportunity — is close to vanishing unless we change course. Education is becoming like health care and so many other aspects of American life where money rules the system. We are creating a system in which ability to pay is the main thing that separates those who go to college from those who don’t go to college.

Instead of a system of equal educational opportunity, we are creating a system of educational haves and have-nots that increasingly is based upon birthright. Yes, a system based upon class origins. For almost every measure of educational achievement and progress, the class divide between educational haves and have nots is getting worse — and getting worse at a time when we can least afford to waste an ounce of human talent as we head into the 21st Century."