It’s something of a breakthrough to see a chink in the armor of preferential admissions — a recognition that it doesn’t do anything for “blacks” for an elite university to bend its standards in order to admit a few more black students from prosperous families. The case for preferential admissions based on family income is no better, however, than the case based on ancestry. If a student from a poor family is able to get into a mid-range college, it does nothing to advance “social justice” (a term Hayek rightly called meaningless) for the likes of Harvard to bend its standards to admit him. I think its narcissism for the Harvards of the nation to think that they provide far better education and do much more to put students on the path to success in life than do our non-elite colleges and universities.