The relationship between our higher-ed system and the purportedly increasing wealth gap in society is the subject of my Clarion Call piece today.
Egalitarians and collectivists — which is to say, most of America’s “liberals” — bemoan the widening gap between the very rich (those 1 percenters) and the rest of us. Some pin the blame, at least in part, on higher education, which has been accused of cementing in place the class divisions that supposedly keep the rich rich and the poor poor. I don’t buy it and argue that higher ed is guilty of fomenting the credential mania that does limit opportunity for some poorer people, but not of the general charge of increasing social stratification.