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students from the richest one percent of families comes from the fact that they excel at some sort of sport. It's likely that kids are finding a recruitment advantage in expensive, elite sports, such as fencing, tennis, rowing or
lacrosse. Elite private colleges, after all, are
generally not known for their stellar football or basketball teams.
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help them engineer perfect resumes and personal statements. This explains about 30 percent of their advantage.
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The only conclusion one can reach is wealth matters. And the only means to really effectuate change is to look at the whole picture, not just one factor in isolation.
Create Opportunity, Embrace Creativity
Many of the changes mentioned above will certainly transform traditional institutions. But colleges and universities can do more to create opportunity and embrace creativity.
First, colleges and universities should build upon the trends in online learning to expand their notion of what is a college campus. Instead of a specific geographic location, a campus could be defined as the community of institutional members no matter their geographic location. This requires creating
highly robust learning environments, capable of creating teaching and learning 24/7 no matter the location – and training faculty, staff, and students in methods and practices that best utilize these environments – so to meet
students where they are to improve student learning.
This suggests naturally that online learning becomes a priority of colleges and universities. Online learning provides the flexibility required of today’s “new normal” previously discussed,
as well as a means through which institutions can connect with one another, creating pathways for high school students, sharing programs or service models with other colleges and universities, or engaging with corporations through executive training programs. This would combat the rise and influence of online platforms such as MOOCs, while expanding opportunities for recruiting new students. Finally, it would open the door to the integration of or partnership with new digital platforms, such as Minerva,48 that bring insight into the digital learning process.
For learning taking place on residential campuses, a great deal can be learned from work done on classroom design in both the K-12 and higher education space. Of note is the design thinking movement. Harvard Business Review defines design thinking as “a set of principles – empathy with users, a discipline of prototyping, and tolerance for failure chief among them” – that serves as a tool” for creating the kinds of interactions needed to develop a responsive, flexible organizational culture.49 Stanford’s d.shool stands out in this
What might a reimagined liberal arts college be?
It would be an open but safe, secure, and healthy community defined by its physical presence, online reach, and societal relevance.
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