Let’s Pay More Attention to Colleges That Educate the Vast Majority of Americans - Commentary

Julie E. Wollman, faculty member at the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania and former president of Widener University (PA) and Edinboro University (PA), and Jacqueline M. Wallis, a Ph.D. student studying philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania, write:  There are about 2,800 four-year public and nonprofit private colleges and universities in the United States. Yet as we await the Supreme Court’s decision on the use of affirmative action in college admissions, the nation’s gaze is once again narrowed to the most elite and selective 100 institutions: the so-called top 5 percent. For the great majority of prospective college students in this country, however, none of this latest hand-wringing is relevant.