The Author Responds

Abstract

Administrative practices, political initiatives, and budgetary concerns are eroding the ability of most universities to fulfill their mission as engines of meritocratic upward mobility. Colleges fulfilled this mission because they signaled that a student had acquired—or had always possessed—superior skills. Elite universities admit students who we know can succeed: Upward mobility occurred because other schools took chances on students whose backgrounds suggested that they might or might not succeed. Pushes to improve undergraduate retention and completion rates at these other universities result in a lowering of standards that threatens their signaling role, and with it, their ability to open doors for their students.