To the Editor:
I want to respond to the article and the editorial on need blind admissions which appeared in the Feb. 21 Review. The statistics published in the article, and the assumptions about diversity based on them, are misleading. The percentages for minorities are percentages based on the overall student body, and do not reflect the dropping minority enrollment of the entering classes of those years, pre- and post-need blind admissions. On Oberlin-On-Line, one can easily find data that contradicts the figures in the Review. For example, in 1990, 571 first-years were enrolled, 48 (8.4 percent) of which were African-Americans. In 1996, the last entering class which was admitted under a need-biased policy, of 671 first years that enrolled, 41 (6.1 percent) were African-Americans. We can all do the math. Even though the class size of first-years increased by 100 bodies, 7 fewer African-Americans were enrolled. In addition, a fact the Review doesn't divulge is that compared with 1990, in 1996, 35 percent more first-years who attended non-public high schools enrolled.
Despite these misrepresentations of the truth, the fight for a need-blind admissions policy is more than about figures and numbers. It is about access to education, not just the facade of equal opportunity, and about Oberlin's commitment to certain principles. With a tuition of almost $30,000, Oberlin College is certainly not the most economically accessible institutions of higher education. But Oberlin is a place for progressive ideas, where a "one person can change the world" philosophy is promoted (at least promoted by the administration and admissions department [to recruit idealists]), and where challenging the limited access of some groups to education (women and African-Americans) has been part of a rich, activist history.
Oberlin College needs to get its principles straight. In terms of a need-blind admissions policy, a fair financial aid policy, and a broadening of the curriculum to include multi-cultural studies, we need to rethink the value of an education and who deserves access to that education. Instead of building a new science building or a new (and unnecessary) student union, we can devote our time and resources to building up a strong endowment and expanding our limited curriculum. Oberlin can either perpetuate this society's stratification along lines of class, race, and gender, or actively take a stand for those less privileged and move to change the elite status of education.
The Oberlin Socialist Student Union, a diverse group of progressive students, will be fighting for greater access to higher education and a fair financial aid policy at Oberlin College this semester, in coalition with other campus groups and students.
In Solidarity,
Copyright © 1997, The Oberlin Review.
Volume 125, Number 16; February 28, 1997
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