Dive Brief:
- Inside Higher Ed reports on a new survey from the National Association for College Admission Counseling, which shows that college admission rates have increased from 64.7% in 2014, to 65.8% in 2015.
- The selectivity of elite Ivy League schools is an anomaly against the rest of higher education, which shows that 39% of institutions admit between 50-70% of all applicants.
- The survey also shows that admissions officers are placing greater emphasis on grades than test scores in enrollment consideration.
Dive Insight:
We commonly look at Ivy League institutions as the standard of higher education in America, but the truth is that the majority of the nation's workforce, innovation identity and manufacturing futures are tied to those institutions which graduate outside of the realm of high achievers from wealthy families.
The truth is that everyone can't become a CEO or a lawmaker or a college president, and that those careers which are promoted and shaped at Ivy League institutions will not be able to survive without the presence of middle managers or front-line workers which help economies and industries to grow. These realities, on balance with the enrollment trends of most institutions working to counter slimmer budgets, suggest that the nation must reconsider how it invests in higher education, and which schools do the heaviest lifting to benefit the nation's interests.