U.S. News: Mortimer B. Zuckerman: A truly cruel college squeeze(3/8/04)

This is rapidly becoming the unequal opportunity society. Young people face a double whammy: Colleges are harder to get into, and only the well-off can afford a college education these days. The numbers could not be more clear. A mere 4.5 percent of young people from the lowest income quartile get a B.A. degree by the age of 24; 12 percent from the next quartile get one; 25 percent from the third quartile, and 51 percent of students in the top quartile. Could it be that America is now resegregating higher education, only this time not by color but by class?