To the Editor:
You recently published an opinion piece by Matthew Yglesias that audaciously proposes wealthy colleges could more effectively promote social justice initiatives by sharing their resources with less affluent institutions that serve a diverse population (“Rich Colleges Should Give Money to Poor Ones,” The Chronicle Review, February 26). Admirably, Yglesias does not mince words; the headline unabashedly declares that “rich” schools should consider giving money to “poor” ones.
I am the president of a college that would admittedly fall into the latter category, and while I blanche at the use of “poor” as an unfortunate misnomer, I do think this idea holds merit. Yglesias is correct that elite institutions have long served as finishing schools for the wealthy, and while their theoretical, symbolic, and policy-level efforts to advance social justice initiatives are necessary and well-intentioned, the fact is they are likely to have minimal real-world impact. Meanwhile, scores of colleges across the country engage in the daily work of admitting, educating, and supporting diverse, low-income, first-generation students, with little fanfare and even fewer resources. We often tout higher education as a vehicle of social mobility, and it is at these colleges — community colleges, state colleges, vocational schools, and small, mission-driven private colleges like my own — where that mobility actually occurs.
At my institution, Villa Maria College, in Buffalo, N.Y., we enroll 500-600 students per year, most of whom present substantial financial needs. Roughly 75 percent of our students are Pell eligible and just under half of our fall 2020 student body had an EFC of zero. Similarly, nearly half of the population is nonwhite, with over 30 percent being African-American. Almost 40 percent of our students reside in the City of Buffalo, annually ranked as one of the poorest cities in the country. Along with a few other local colleges, Villa accepts an unlimited number of Say Yes students, meaning that we provide full last-dollar tuition scholarships for graduates of Buffalo Public Schools, a considerable cost to the college. With our Say Yes partners, we have invested heavily in additional supports and wraparound services, including efforts to address concerns related to poverty, mental health, and diversity. As a private college supporting high needs students, our budgets are extraordinarily tight, year in and year out, and our diminutive endowment provides little relief. Our faculty and staff have a passion for our mission, making a commendable sacrifice to their incomes to improve our students’ lives. And they do. In the 2021 U.S. News & World Report Best Colleges rankings, Villa was ranked the #16 college in the North for social mobility.
Just a tiny fraction of the billions of dollars that elite institutions boast could transform my college, allowing us to serve this diverse but largely poor student body much more successfully. And yet, while I would never turn down an outright contribution from a wealthy university, I know it is not likely to happen anytime soon. For that reason, I suggest we reframe Yglesias’s thesis in more transactional terms: elite institutions could funnel a small percentage of their massive resources to socially committed, less-resourced colleges, which in turn could provide elite institutions their expertise in teaching and supporting first-generation, low-income students.
It might seem counterintuitive to suggest that my little college has anything to offer world-renowned research universities, but the fact is that every day for the last 60 years Villa Maria College has been doing what elite institutions are spending a lot of time talking about right now. We have valuable insights to share about developmental education; about helping students with food or housing insecurity; about revamping curriculum to embed necessary supports; about mental-health programming and supporting students with learning differences; about pursuing unconventional partnerships with high schools, social services, and other colleges; and about creating a welcoming and engaging culture for students for whom going to college is an ambitious and risky proposition.
Working together, wealthy institutions and colleges that serve as drivers of social mobility could pilot innovative programs, share best practices, conduct truly progressive research, bridge theory and practice, and, as Yglesias posits, pursue shared grants and fundraising opportunities. In the process, wealthy institutions could divert some resources to smaller colleges while learning much from them. Through this type of transactional relationship, both institutions would have much to gain and, most importantly, they would better serve the very students and better advance the very causes about which they genuinely care so much.
Matthew Giordano
President
Villa Maria College
Buffalo, N.Y.
