Diversity By the Numbers

How many times have we heard that diversity is the hallmark of a Harvard education? The admissions office says it. President Neil L. Rudenstine devoted a large report to its inherent value.

According to a New York Times Magazine article earlier this month, the admissions committee seeks diversity of all kinds. The College strives for a diversity of ethnic background, place of origin, religious background, academic interests and socioeconomic status, to name a few.

In the last area, Harvard is failing miserably, if the latest Independent poll is anywhere close to accurate. According to the survey, only 20 percent of students come from households that earn less than $50,000 dollars a year. Compare that to the group who said their families make more than $100,000: close to 45 percent.

Given those numbers, it is hard to argue that Harvard isn't dominated by the rich--which is pretty interesting, considering that the financial aid office claims that 70 percent of students are on some type of aid. If 75.6 percent of Harvard families are earning above $50,000, that's a pretty interesting overlap: a lot of students get aid, but most aid packages aren't very big.

I suppose it is possible that Harvard really has a mix of classes and that the students who filled out the survey lied outright. But that is at least as disturbing as a lack of socioeconomic diversity: why would people feel a need to inflate their families' income levels?

I suspect the Indy's numbers are close to correct, because they line up with my experience. How many Harvard students have engaged in dialogue like this: "Where do you go to school? "Massachusetts," "Boston," "Cambridge." And when the H-word is finally dropped, it often has as devastating an effect on the conversation as dropping the H-bomb.

Why is the Harvard name such a conversation-killer? Part of it, of course, is due to the stereotype of Harvard students as beyond brilliant. However, as much of it is due to the connotations of wealth and snobbery that are also attached to the College's name. I'm not sure I'd call those connotations a "stereotype" or "myth" anymore. Harvard's elitism is in the numbers.

Those kind of numbers might also explain why Harvard has managed to remain need-blind, something Dean of Admissions William R. Fitzsimmons '67 brags about at every turn. Need-blind admissions appears to be supported by a sizable group of rich people paying it all out and a small group of students whose education is largely funded by the federal government. Is that the kind of policy Harvard should brag about?

This brings in the sticky issue of how Harvard admissions manage to be both need-blind and ensure socioeconomic diversity. When Director of Admissions Marlyn McGrath Lewis was asked, her answer did not contain the words "need," "economic," or "income." Instead, she talked about racial and regional diversity as if they were the same thing.

I'm not sure the student body's wealth is the admissions office's fault. Poorer people tend not to go to the country's best schools, and applications from the lower income levels may be scarce. But it is about time the College admitted to its elitism and took "socioeconomic" off the list of diversities at Harvard.

Rudenstine was right in his report: diversity has an inherent educational benefit. Harvard's lack of socioeconomic diversity means a frightening gap in the education of tomorrow's leaders.

Many will never have lived with, much less been friends with, someone who is lower middle class (never mind at the poverty level). Those deciding about federal loans, welfare, health care, the minimum wage and environmental policies will have no idea how those who are affected by the policies really live. They will have no idea what having "no money" actually means.

As Ourania R. Tserotas '97 pointed out, varying class backgrounds result in "different ways of organizing one's world." If Harvard students are the ones organizing tomorrow's society, the world faces a frightening uniformity.

This is Valerie J. MacMillan's last column of the year.