More Questions than Answers: A Review of Aiding Students, Buying Students and 147 Practical Tips for Teaching Diversity

by Mark Drozdowski
I’m always eager to sink my reviewing teeth into a new book on higher education, yet somehow the prospect of digesting one on the history of financial aid didn’t initially thrill me. While important, financial aid doesn’t rank among the sexiest topics. But Rupert Wilkinson pulls it off with his new book, Aiding Students, Buying Students: Financial Aid in America. Though it’s not The Da Vinci Code, this volume nonetheless keeps the reader engaged and manages to teach us a few things about who receives aid, why they do, and who supports them.
The history of student aid, writes Wilkinson, a former professor of American studies and history at the University of Sussex, is a roller coaster, not a straight line. Wilkinson begins our ride in 1641, when Ann Radcliffe of London shelled out 100 pounds to Harvard College for the “yearly maintenance [of a] poor scholler.” Financial aid in America had begun. The author also tells us that student aid was well-established in England by the 13th century, and that all three types of aid—grants or fee reductions, loans and jobs—trace their roots to medieval times, when a student might have gained employment as a bell-ringer.
Along with the growth of aid came dichotomous problems still prevalent today. Policies straddled a line between mission (i.e., high moral and social purpose, extending opportunity) and market (i.e., getting enough students, and the right ones). Beginning in the 19th century, scholarships based on need gave way to aid based on some form of merit, though need and merit were often intertwined. Still, the author notes that by the latter part of the 20th century, merit aid had become more common, especially among private colleges bidding for top students. Need-blind admissions policies, enacted to promote economic diversity, lost ground in some cases to “need-aware” practices that limited numbers of poorer students. To complicate matters for those on the lower socio-economic rungs, merit aid has increasingly supported more affluent students. Only the 30 or so wealthiest and most prestigious colleges remain faithful to need-blind admissions.
Conflicts, Wilkinson points out, “developed between the ‘extend opportunity’ side of college missions and the ‘seek excellence’ side, as both cost money.” Financial aid professionals, whose numbers rose as federal regulations became more complex, embody this dilemma. Their national association suggests their primary responsibility is to the needy student, but they answer to college managers “who require them to think first and foremost of the college and its standing vis-à-vis market rivals.” When mission and market collide, market usually prevails, and students who most need money often suffer.
Wilkinson’s coaster ride also tracks the emergence of such phenomena as the GI Bill, which, at its peak in 1947, supported just under half of all college students; Pell grants; the National Merit Scholarship Corporation; and the College Scholarship Service. He also provides background on how and why colleges shared financial information on common applicants in a collusive effort to limit aid awards. You may remember the Supreme Court slapping the collective hands of the “overlap group” featuring the Ivy League and MIT.
That case was big news in 1991, and indeed financial aid has exploded into a big business. Today, total aid expenditures exceed $100 billion annually, and reach over half of America’s undergraduates. Yet as the numbers and complexities have grown, ethical concerns have remained constant: Merit or need? Grants or loans? Federal or state? Access or excellence? Mission or market? Wilkinson lets us consider, or reconsider, those fundamental questions, and illustrates them through case studies of Swarthmore, Cornell, Harvard and Oberlin, among other schools.
He also attempts to answer some of these questions, suggesting strategies for reforming the system. For all his historical mastery of the subject, one might expect more penetrating insights. Instead we get broad strokes, simple generalizations. Excellence, he writes, should concede something to access. Curb this obsession with market forces. College policies should aim to reduce life’s inequities. The most selective colleges should “do better.” Hardly a blueprint for change.
And while there’s scant reason to fault his historical narrative, complete as it is, I did find it a bit nonlinear, and therefore confusing at times. Wilkinson organizes his chapters by theme; while the story does tend to flow chronologically, it often jumps back and forth between centuries and decades. Roller coasters, it seems, can cause whiplash.
Wilkinson’s various prescriptions would promote even more diversity in America’s college classrooms, no doubt posing additional challenges for the faculty who teach in them. Enter a compact little book titled 147 Practical Tips for Teaching Diversity from which to draw wisdom. In this sliver of a volume, a few Colorado State University professors cobble together suggestions culled from their experiences and those of peers.
At first I thought it odd to enumerate 147 tips. Couldn’t the authors divine three more? Then I discovered there must be something magical about the number 147. The figure is so powerful that it spawned an entire cottage industry honoring it. You can find 147 Practical Tips for Teaching Online Groups, 147 Practical Tips for Using Icebreakers with College Students, and 147 Practical Tips for Teaching Professors. Despite the inherent allure of 147, this pattern seems somewhat formulaic, not unlike the series for Complete Idiots.
Where Wilkinson gives us narrative flow, these authors spoon-feed us one bite at a time, one paragraph or two at a time. It’s about as engaging to read as the dictionary. I was reminded of Helpful Hints from Heloise—removing cranberry stains from Berber or ridding the microwave of burnt-popcorn stink.
Enough about format. Let’s get into content. I dutifully waded through all 147 tidbits searching for inspiration. The authors give us nuggets such as “challenge assumptions,” “seek closure” and “understand privilege,” especially “white privilege.” They exhort us to “connect teaching and learning,” to “be enthusiastic about teaching,” to “teach from the heart,” and to “practice professionalism.” After all, they contend, “this can be much fun!” I hadn’t realized.
Themes emerge. The authors tell us several times, in several ways, to foster a climate in which student can feel comfortable discussing sensitive issues; to encourage students to reflect on such issues through their own experiences; and to deconstruct stereotypes and explore commonalities instead of differences. They also suggest strategies for promoting respect for diversity across campus.
Throughout my reading, though, I kept wondering just what the authors were trying to convey. Are they telling us how to teach about diversity or within diversity? Much of the content suggests the former, which necessarily limits the audience. How many of us teach courses on diversity? And if it’s the latter, then something’s missing. Rarely do they acknowledge the challenge of teaching courses in specific subjects, such as engineering and chemistry (to cite their examples), where “it can mean a stretch for instructors to look beyond typical content coverage to find relevant and useful diversity issues.” Exactly. So why not tell us how? We can’t clearly see the connections in what’s presented here.
I also found some of their assertions rather peculiar. Here’s one: “[I think/feel] statements help us disagree with what has been said rather than argue with the person who has made the statement.” I would contend exactly the opposite. But maybe I’m missing something, or perhaps the page is—it ends mid-sentence and trails off into print oblivion.
Teaching diverse populations presents challenges for most instructors. Those struggling with such challenges might find a few helpful hints in these pages. But I can think of 147 reasons to find inspiration elsewhere.