A Harvard Dropout’s Plan to Fix College Admissions With Video Games
L.A.-based startup Imbellus plans to upset the SAT and ACT’s monopoly with a test it says accurately gauges critical thinking
By Romesh Ratnesar
In statistical terms, this is the golden age of American higher education. More than 1 in 3 Americans has at least a bachelor’s degree, the most ever. Almost 70 percent of high school seniors graduating this spring will go to college in the fall, compared with about half during the mid-1970s.
The benefits of all that education, however, are highly uneven. The campuses of elite colleges remain disproportionately populated by the rich. At selective universities — ones that admit fewer than half of applicants — 3 out of 4 students come from the richest quartile of families. According to Opportunity Insights, a research group led by Harvard economist Raj Chetty, children from families in the top 1 percent of income distribution are 77 times more likely to attend an Ivy-plus school — Ivy League plus Duke, MIT, Stanford, and the University of Chicago — than those from the bottom 20 percent.
Put another way: Higher education in America is a racket.
