One of the many things we find hard to talk about — not only here in Princeton, but nationally — is class. That helps to explain why we do such a bad job when we try to talk about the social mission of elite universities. Take Drew Faust — the excellent historian who recently became president of Harvard. As a scholar and a writer, Faust uses words with great skill and care — so well that her most recent book was published by Alfred Knopf in New York, one of the few remaining bastions of quality in the trade. But when Harvard announced its new financial aid policy, aimed at students whose families earn between $120,000 and $180,000 a year, President Faust declared that by showing that higher education remains an "engine of opportunity," it would help a "middle-income group." In this case, her language was not its usual crisp and accurate self — and the fault is not hers alone, but one shared with most members of the chattering classes.
What does the phrase "middle-income" mean? Certainly not "in the middle of the American income pyramid." Americans don't earn that much (in fact, this year, for the first time since the 19th century, British average income will surpass ours). In 2006, the Census Bureau found that median household income was only $48,201 — the range where Harvard, like Princeton, offers not just help, but a full ride. Median income of households with children in college must be considerably higher — but I'll bet it's still comfortably below $120,000 a year.
Could "middle-income" be a code phrase for middle class? That's certainly possible. But are households with incomes in the range Harvard has targeted really "middle class?" In 2006, only 15.73 percent of households earned more than $100,000 a year, and fewer than a third of them, the top 5 percent, earned more than $157,176. The president of Harvard is saving the dream, in other words — for children whose families earn more than 95 percent or 96 percent of American households.
When we call families like these middle-class, we mean that they earn median incomes for wealthy communities — the communities from which Harvard, Yale and Princeton draw many of their students (you'll remember that 100 high schools, 90 of them private, provide 20 percent of the three schools' student bodies).
It's not hard to guess the occupations of some of the parents whose children will benefit. Professors, for example: The average salary for a full professor at a public doctoral institution in 2006-07 was $106,495. They will also include journalists, relatively well-paid senior school administrators and teachers, heads of religious congregations and government officials. There will also be a fair number of professionals who work in the public sector, or who live in parts of the country where even a low six-figure income puts a household very near the top of the tree.
It's true that people like these — people like me — feel as if they belong to the middle, not the upper class. Most professors, for example, live in normal rather than palatial houses, fly steerage when not instructed just to run behind the plane and own modest consumer durables. We also find it hard to pay private university tuition and fees. That's why we don't consider it bizarre when someone applies the term "middle class" to families like ours — and, for that matter, why most national journalists accepted Harvard's choice of terms without question.
But it's also true that our incomes are strikingly high by national standards. They're certainly lower than those of our friends who became surgeons, corporate lawyers, entrepreneurs and mystery writers (at least my friend who became a mystery writer — she's as rich as Croesus). But they're still high enough to let us give our children, if we have them, the opportunities that come from growing up in upper-class towns and neighborhoods: AP courses, student activities, trips abroad and, in many cases, private schooling. Seen in that light, the "middle class" label loses some of its plausibility.
Harvard — and Yale and Princeton, which will, no doubt, soon double down, since this game is very competitive — are opening doors to those who already possess many of the keys to our kingdoms. Even if their parents lack the financial capital that makes development officers' eyes gleam, they have substantial incomes. And they have the cultural capital that enables their children to compete effectively for admission to the most exclusive schools.
There's nothing wrong with fighting for a larger share of this cohort of students: Many of them are gifted, hardworking and superbly equipped to make use of a great university's resources. But let's say precisely what we're doing and why, and when we do so let's also think twice about the implications of our language. What do we mean when we tell students whose parents work in vital professions and earn more than the vast majority of Americans that their families have entered a financial crisis, but that universities can fortunately give them "opportunities" to do better? Are these families really in crisis? Or is the crisis that universities now charge so much that only the very richest Americans can readily afford to pay their fees? Anthony Grafton is the Henry Putnam University Professor of History. He can be reached at grafton@princeton.edu.
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