Access to Ivy Leagues is about more than ambition

0 Comments | USA TODAY, June, 2008

In the Forum piece "Yale, Harvard and the Oval Office," Michael Medved says the days of posh prep school grads easing into the Ivy colleges have ended. Thus, the overwhelming favoring of Harvard-Yale grads among presidential candidates reflects the ambition and achievement that access to those schools measure. Not quite (June 11).

Harvard Magazine boasts that families with annual income less than $180,000 will have their tuition capped at 10% of their income per year. Applause is due for that decision. But Harvard also discloses that about 50% of the current class comes from students whose families are among the top 5%-10% of families, measured by income, and therefore capable of paying the full annual cost of tuition.

OK, Mr. Medved, which is it:

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