Colleges all about the bottom line

By Natalie Hackett Abulhawa

The Philadelphia Inquirer

I am a senior in high school trying to figure out where and how I fit into the world as I look toward the next phase of my life. Applying to colleges has been a daunting and demoralizing start to this new chapter, and I can say with confidence that nearly all my friends feel the same way.

I had always thought college was a place that gathered kids from all backgrounds, abilities and economic circumstances and helped them begin or continue a journey of self-discovery and learning in an affirming environment. I naively thought that testing was meant to determine one’s truest abilities so colleges could better help students develop and nurture successful paths.

But what I have come to learn is that universities seem more interested in enhancing their school profiles and bolstering their bottom lines. I have heard the term “risk-averse” applied to admission committees, meaning they refuse to admit students who they think might not graduate. Rather than accommodate a wide range of personalities and skills, schools opt for the top students in their applicant pools. So those students go to the better schools — the ones with top professors, more funding, and greater access to economic and global opportunities. These students are often the ones who were smart enough, exceptional enough, or privileged enough to know and be more long before college, or even before high school.

The students who were not fortunate enough to be fully formed before the college application process go to what are considered the lower-tier schools. Colleges don’t seem to want to consider that these young people might change as they mature or that they might excel if given the chance, even if they didn’t start off in life with the advantages of some of their peers.

Numerical values

But students aren’t being looked at as individuals. Many schools rely heavily on a system of testing that reduces complex human beings to numerical values ultimately meant to quantify their worth. Using myself as an example, my grades indicate that I’m barely average, yet my standardized test scores put me in the top 12 percent. The numbers are absurd. I’m a person, not a mathematical equation.

Focusing on such numbers means less attention is paid in the application process to determining whether a person has any sense of social or environmental responsibility. There is little to indicate whether an applicant is the kind of person who will one day build a personal financial empire by ripping off the pensions of his or her workers. There is no numeric scale to show whether someone has any comprehension of oppression and privilege, or how racism manifests itself. The process doesn’t pay enough attention to finding out if the applicant would pull over to help a wounded animal or give up a train seat to someone who needs it more. I believe these traits are fundamental to a healthy society, but they seem to be ancillary considerations in the college application process.

Then there is the exorbitant cost. The application fees alone are staggering. Why does a university need $70 per application? Why does the College Board charge me $11.25 per school to send scores after I already paid $79 to take the SAT (and repaid it again to retake and retake) and then charge $16.25 per school to send my family’s financial aid profile? This is all sent electronically. And that’s all for the privilege of paying some schools nearly $200,000 for a four-year degree.

Helpless feeling

The worst part of it all is that I feel helpless to do anything about it. There has been nothing in almost 12 years of schooling to empower me to try to change my surroundings. I never had a class on organizing or unionizing. Lobbying, writing letters to elected officials and marching in the streets are not regular features of school curricula. To the contrary, the most consistent lessons that have been hammered into my brain since middle school have to do with the ideas of hierarchy, obedience to authority, and all the punishment and labeling that comes from questioning authority and pushing the boundaries. It therefore does not surprise me that we all accept an education system that is more and more exclusive, stratified, and out of reach.

I look at places like Germany, where higher education is regarded as a human right, free to anyone who wants it. They seem to value their children and invest in their welfare in a way our society does not. What does the U.S. approach mean for our future?

Natalie Hackett Abulhawa is a Philadelphia-area high school senior who wrote this for The Philadelphia Inquirer. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.