educational opportunity essay

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How to Write the “Education Barrier” UC Essay

This article was written based on the information and opinions presented by Vinay Bhaskara in a CollegeVine livestream. You can watch the full livestream for more info.

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The best type of response.

• Different Types of Barriers

Writing About Covid

• Can Your Extracurriculars Be Barriers?

The University of California system requires you to answer four out of eight essay prompts. The fourth University of California prompt asks, “Describe how you have taken advantage of a significant educational opportunity or worked to overcome an educational barrier you have faced.”

In this article, we will discuss how to define these “Barriers” and how to approach your response. For more tips and advice on how to write the other UC essays, consider reading this article: How to Write the University of California Essays .

This prompt is asking you about an educational opportunity or educational barrier that you’ve overcome. The best kind of response to this prompt is usually about educational work done outside of the classroom. There are so many other places in the UC schools application to talk about your academic achievements inside of school, so take this chance to write about your education beyond the classroom. 

A lot of students get hung up on the word education here, and they think that their response has to be about an academic topic. That isn’t the case here. You can talk about learning a new life skill, taking care of your sibling, or your job. All of these topics are about learning experiences that aren’t necessarily linked to your academics but still contributed to your education. This prompt is going to involve a bit of brainstorming work as you may need to apply an academic mindset to a non-academic topic and think outside the box. 

Different Types of Barriers  

This is a good prompt to discuss structural, personal or environmental barriers to your academic development. A structural barrier could be something that’s happening in your community or in your family. Environmental factors could also encompass family problems or any illnesses you faced. If any of these barriers affected your academic performance, this is a good place to write about that. 

There might even be a specific weakness in your application. You might want to consider addressing the cause of that weakness in this essay if it was caused by a barrier you faced. 

Keep in mind that this approach doesn’t work as well when you’re talking about a specific class; this usage is a bit too cliche to work here as nearly every student has struggled with a specific class before. 

A topic that a lot of students think of with this prompt is the pandemic, or COVID-19. Of course, that is the environmental barrier that affected everyone for nearly two years, but because it affected everyone, this might not be your best approach. Admissions officers are reading hundreds of applications a day, and they are bound to read countless essays about the pandemic. While this is the most relevant barrier, writing about COVID is not the most unique answer, and you risk your essay being lost in the crowd. 

That being said, if writing about the pandemic really speaks to you, then you should go for it. You should, however, try to bring in a unique perspective to your experience. Maybe your parents were essential workers so you had to take care of your younger siblings. Or perhaps you could write about covid being an educational opportunity if you learned something  during the lockdown that you wouldn’t have otherwise.

Can Your Extracurriculars Be Barriers? 

To answer this question, it’s important to understand what a barrier is. A barrier is something outside of your control that impedes your ability to learn. Internships , extra classes, and coding courses are all considered opportunities. They allow you to learn even more than you might in school, so if you want to talk about your extracurriculars it should be in a positive light. 

This is different from writing about any difficulties you faced to get those extracurriculars. For example, writing about working an entire summer to pay for coding courses would be a better topic to write about than finding a coding course challenging. 

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Equality of Educational Opportunity

It is widely accepted that educational opportunities for children ought to be equal. This thesis follows from two observations about education and children: first, that education significantly influences a person’s life chances in terms of labor market success, preparation for democratic citizenship, and general human flourishing; and second, that children’s life chances should not be fixed by certain morally arbitrary circumstances of their birth such as their social class, race, and gender. But the precise meaning of, and implications for, the ideal of equality of educational opportunity is the subject of substantial disagreement (see Jencks 1988). This entry provides a critical review of the nature and basis of those disagreements.

To frame the discussion we introduce three key factors that underscore the importance of treating equality of educational opportunity as an independent concern, apart from theories of equality of opportunity more generally. These factors are: the central place of education in modern societies and the myriad opportunities it affords; the scarcity of high-quality educational opportunities for many children; and the critical role of the state in providing educational opportunities. These factors differentiate education from many other social goods. We follow this with a brief history of how equality of educational opportunity has been interpreted in the United States since the 1950s and the evolving legal understandings of equality of opportunity. Our subsequent analysis has implications for issues that are at the center of current litigation in the United States. But our philosophical discussion is intended to have wider reach, attempting to clarify the most attractive competing conceptions of the concept.

1.1 The Value of Education

1.2 the scarcity of high-quality educational opportunity, 1.3 the state regulation of education, 2. a brief history of equality of educational opportunity in the united states, 3.1 what is educational opportunity, 3.2 formal equality of educational opportunity, 3.3 meritocratic equality of educational opportunity, 3.4 fair equality of educational opportunity, 3.5 debates about fair equality of educational opportunity, 3.6 equality of educational opportunity for flourishing, 3.7 equality of educational opportunity for the labor market, 3.8 equality of educational opportunity for citizenship, 3.9 equality and adequacy in the distribution of educational opportunities, 4.1 education and the family, 4.2 disability, 4.3 the target of equal educational opportunity: individuals or groups, 5. conclusion, other internet resources, related entries, 1. equality of educational opportunity as an independent concern.

Education has both instrumental and intrinsic value for individuals and for societies as a whole. As the U.S. Supreme Court stated in its unanimous decision in Brown v. Board of Education (1954), “In these days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education”. The instrumental goals of K–12 education for individuals include access to higher education and a constellation of private benefits that follow college education such as access to interesting jobs with more vacation time and better health care; greater personal and professional mobility, better decision-making skills (Institute for Higher Education Policy 1998) and more autonomy at work. Research further shows that education levels are correlated with health and wealth: the more education a person has, the healthier and wealthier she is likely to be. At the same time, education is also considered intrinsically valuable. Developing one’s skills and talents can be enjoyable or good in itself and a central component of a flourishing life, regardless of the consequences this has for wealth or health.

In addition to the instrumental and intrinsic value of education to an individual, education is also valuable for society. All societies benefit from productive and knowledgeable workers who can generate social surplus and respond to preferences. Furthermore, democratic societies need to create citizens who are capable of participating in the project of shared governance. The correlation between educational attainment and civic participation is strong and well-documented: educated citizens have more opportunities to obtain and exercise civic skills, are more interested in and informed about politics, and in turn, are more likely to vote (Verba, Schlozman, & Brady 1995: 432–437, 445; Dee 2004).

It is therefore relatively uncontroversial to say that education is a highly valuable good to both individuals and to society, especially to democratic societies. This makes questions about who has access to high-quality educational opportunities, and how educational opportunities should be distributed, particularly important.

Questions about the just distribution of educational opportunity are especially vexing given the scarcity of resources allocated to education. Although developed societies provide some education for free to their citizens, funding for education is always in competition with the need to provide citizens with other social goods. As Amy Gutmann writes: “The price of using education to maximize the life chances of children would be to forego these other social goods” (Gutmann 1999: 129). Other basic welfare needs (e.g., housing, healthcare, food), as well as cultural goods (e.g., museums, parks, concert halls), must be weighed against public funds allocated to education, thereby making high-quality education—even in highly productive societies—scarce to some degree.

This scarcity is evident on several fronts with respect to higher education in the United States, which attracts applicants from all over the world. There is fierce competition for admission to highly selective colleges and universities in the U.S. that admit fewer than 10% of applicants. In this arena, wealthier parents sometimes go to great lengths to bolster their children’s applications by paying for tutoring, extracurricular activities, and admissions coaching—activities that can put applicants without these resources at a significant disadvantage in the admissions process. The recent “varsity blues” scandal, in which wealthy families paid millions of dollars to a college coach who promised admission to elite U.S. universities, is an extreme case in point about the degree of competition attached to selective universities.

A more urgent demonstration of the scarcity of educational opportunity in the U.S. and many other societies is evident in how access to high-quality primary and secondary education is effectively limited to children whose families can afford housing in middle-class neighborhoods, or who have access to private schools via tuition or scholarships. Despite the Brown decision’s eradication of de jure , or state-sanctioned, segregation by race in schools, public schools in the U.S. remain sharply segregated by race and by class due to de facto residential segregation. This segregation has significant consequences for poor and minority students’ educational opportunity. Given the strong correlation between school segregation, racial achievement gaps, and overall school quality, poor and minority students are disproportionately educated in lower performing schools compared to their white and more advantaged peers (Reardon 2015 and Reardon, Weathers, Fahle, Jang, and Kalogrides 2022 in Other Internet Resources ). The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated these systemic background inequalities, with prolonged school closures in the U.S. disproportionately impacting low-income children who rely on schools to provide an array of social welfare services, including meals (Levinson, Cevik, and Lipsitch 2020; Levinson, Geller, and Allen, 2021).

In view of the constellation of intrinsic and instrumental goods that flow from educational opportunity, and in the context of relative scarcity, questions about how educational resources should be distributed are especially pressing as a matter of social and economic justice.

A third consideration that underscores the importance of thinking about the distribution of educational opportunities is that in most developed societies, the vast majority of such opportunities are provided through and regulated by the state. All developed societies have a legal requirement that children attend school for a certain number of years. This means that, unlike other policy levers, education is typically under the control of state institutions and has the potential to reach the vast majority of the nation’s children across racial, religious, class, and gender-based divides. And given the myriad benefits that flow from education, it is arguably a state’s most powerful mechanism for influencing the lives of its members. This makes education perhaps the most important function of government.

Since education is an integral function of government, and because it is an opportunity that government largely provides, there are special constraints on its distribution. Justice, if it requires nothing else, requires that governments treat their citizens with equal concern and respect. The state, for example, cannot justly provide unequal benefits to children on the basis of factors such as their race or gender. Indeed, such discrimination, even when it arises from indirect state measures such as the funding of schools from property taxes, can be especially pernicious to and is not lost on children. When poor and minority children see, for example, that their more advantaged peers attend better resourced public schools—a conclusion that can be drawn in many cases simply by comparing how school facilities look—they may internalize the view that the state cares less about cultivating their interests and skills. Children in this position suffer the dignitary injury of feeling that they are not equal to their peers in the state’s eyes (Kozol 1991, 2005). This harm is especially damaging to one’s self-respect because it is the development of one’s talents that is at stake; whether or not one has opportunities to gain the skills and confidence to pursue their conception of the good is central to what Rawls calls “the social basis of self-respect” (Rawls 1999: sections 65 and 67; Satz 2007: 639).

Given the importance of education to individuals and to society, it is clear that education cannot be distributed by the market: it needs to be available to all children, even children whose parents would be too poor or too indifferent to pay for it. Furthermore, if education is to play a role in equipping young people to participate in the labor market, to participate in democratic governance, and more generally to lead flourishing lives, then its content cannot be arbitrary but rather must be tailored to meet these desired outcomes. We address considerations of education’s content in subsequent sections, turning first to how equality of opportunity has been interpreted in the U.S., where we can see some of the implications of a truncated understanding of equality of opportunity in stark form.

The United States Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education (1954) decision, in finding racially segregated public schools unconstitutional, declared that the opportunity for an education, when provided for by the state, is a “right which must be available to all on equal terms”. But de facto racial segregation persists in the U.S. and is coupled today with ever-growing class-based segregation (Reardon & Bischoff 2011). Black students are far more likely to attend high-poverty schools than their white peers (see school poverty, in the National Equity Atlas, Other Internet Resources ). The resulting, compounded educational disadvantages that poor, minority children face in the U.S. are significant. As research continues to document, the racial/ethnic achievement gap is persistent and large in the U.S. and has lasting labor market effects, whereby the achievement gap has been found to explain a significant part of racial/ethnic income disparities (Reardon, Robinson-Cimpian, & Weathers 2015; Reardon 2021 in Other Internet Resources).

Efforts to combat de facto segregation have been limited by U.S. jurisprudence since the Brown decision. Although the Supreme Court previously allowed plans to integrate schools within a particular school district (see Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education , 1970), in Milliken v. Bradley (1974) the Court struck down an inter-district busing plan that moved students across district lines to desegregate the Detroit city and surrounding suburban schools. This limitation on legal remedies for de facto segregation has significantly hampered integration efforts given that most school districts in the U.S. are not racially diverse. More recently, the U.S. Supreme Court further curtailed integration efforts within the small number of districts that are racially diverse. In its Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District decision (2006), the Court prohibited districts from explicitly using individual students’ race as a factor in school assignment plans, thereby condoning only race-neutral integration plans in what many regarded as the Court’s final retreat from redressing de facto segregation (e.g., Rebell 2009; Ryan 2007).

The persistence of race and class-based segregation in the U.S. and the educational disadvantages that follow are rooted in the U.S. system of geographically defined school districts, whereby schools are largely funded by local property taxes that differ substantially between communities based on property values. This patchwork system compounds the educational disadvantages that follow from residential segregation. The 50 states in the United States differ dramatically in the level of per pupil educational funding that they provide; indeed some of these interstate disparities are greater than the intra-state inequalities that have received greater attention (Liu 2006). The system for funding schools and the residential segregation it exacerbates—itself the product of decades of laws and conscious policies to keep the races separate—has produced and continues to yield funding inequalities that disproportionately affect poor Americans of color. The segregation of resources, with greater resources flowing to children from families in the upper quintiles of society, makes it highly unlikely that children from the lower quintiles can have an equal chance of achieving success. This is evident in research documenting the growing achievement gap between high and low-income students, which is now 30–40% greater among children born in 2001 than those born twenty-five years before (Reardon 2011: 91; Reardon 2021 in Other Internet Resources).

Given the judicial retreat from remedying de facto segregation, many advocates have shifted their attention to the school finance system. A landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in this arena was an initial setback to efforts to advance educational equality via federal school finance litigation. In this case, San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez (1973), the Court found that there is no federal right to education, and that funding inequalities among school districts due to variations in property tax revenue are not unconstitutional. This decision further entrenched the educational inequalities that follow from the geographic happenstance of a child’s home. In contrast to the U.S., many other countries do not finance their schools through local property taxes (e.g., Finland funds its schools at the national level based on the number of students they educate, and it provides more funding to schools that educate more students who are immigrants or whose parents are unemployed or uneducated; Sahlberg 2011). Many other societies distribute educational resources in a more centralized way than does the United States, which leaves educational funding, and even educational standards, to a large extent in local hands (for a recent volume on the idea of a federal right to education in the U.S., see Robinson 2019).

The U.S. Supreme Court did, however, leave an opening for state courts to act, and so legal advocates have adopted a state-by-state approach in the decades since Rodriguez . As this litigation has unfolded in almost every U.S. state, a policy debate with philosophical underpinnings has emerged around the question: Should educational resources be distributed on an equal basis (an equity model), or according to a sufficiency threshold (adequacy model)? State constitutions differ as to the basis they suggest for the state’s interest in funding education.

In the legal and political sphere, the adequacy approach has been more successful in school finance litigation at the state level. But the philosophical elaboration of equity and adequacy as competing ideals is somewhat distinct from how they are used in legal battles and political discourse. As we describe below, some theorists challenge the cogency of the sharp distinction often made between these two ways of justifying the distribution of educational resources.

3. The Meaning of and Debates about Equality of Educational Opportunity

Debates about the meaning and value of equality of educational opportunity—and about whether equal educational opportunity requires equality or adequacy—can be considered in the light of two questions.

The first question is that given the diverse goals of education—preparing individuals for the job market, for democratic citizenship, and to experience the intrinsic goods of education—is there only one justified rubric for distributing educational resources? For instance, distributional policies that support career preparation may be very different from those that support other goals like preparation for democratic citizenship. Since the labor market is a highly competitive sphere, education for labor market success appears to be a positional good, understood as a good whose value depends on one’s relative standing (i.e., the quality of my education for labor market success depends to a great extent on how good your education in this realm is since we will be vying for jobs). In a highly competitive job market with high stakes, distributing educational resources equally becomes especially important.

Conversely, education for human flourishing can be seen as a non-positional good because an individual’s attainment of the intrinsic goods of education (e.g., to enjoy literature, to be intellectually curious) is not compromised by others’ success in this realm; it is not a competitive field. In fact, one’s ability to enjoy the arts might be increased by others’ ability to do so too. An adequacy threshold for distributing educational opportunities directed at human flourishing may therefore be justified. As our educational goals vary, so too might the distributive principles for educational resources need to change.

The second question we must consider is about the best interpretation of the ideal of equality of educational opportunity. Is equality of opportunity achieved when everyone with similar talent gets the same results? When per pupil expenditures are equalized? When those with the same natural talent potential get the same opportunities?

Answers to these two fundamental questions enable philosophers to construct a conception of equality of educational opportunity. Of course, philosophical controversies remain even supposing the content of the conception can be settled. Some of these controversies concern clashes with other values, including that of the family and diversity: What limits do parental rights put on the pursuit of equality of educational opportunity? Is affirmative action required by or contrary to equality of educational opportunity? Other issues arise when we try to interpret what equality of educational opportunity means for those with disabilities, or when we attempt to define “merit” and “native talent potential”.

The following sections of this entry will describe the key maneuvers in different ways of answering these two questions: first, what the ideal can mean and what distributive principles realize it; and second, how to navigate tensions between this ideal and other values. The first section below introduces debates about the various definitions of equality of educational opportunity and its associated distributive principles. Some of the material covered in this section comes from the literature on equality of opportunity more generally, which we apply to educational aspects of these debates (for a recent article in this spirit written for the education policy and research community, see Levinson, Geron, and Brighouse, 2022). The subsequent section surveys debates about how to negotiate the challenges faced by those looking to realize the ideal of equality of educational opportunity, including whether equality of educational opportunity can be reconciled with respecting the private sphere of the family.

Before we can say what an equal educational opportunity is, we need to say what an opportunity is in general. Peter Westen (1985) provides a helpful definition of an opportunity that can be applied to the education sphere. For Westen, an opportunity is a relationship between an agent or a set of agents, and a desired goal, mediated by certain obstacles, none of which are insurmountable. For instance, Alice has an opportunity to become educated mediated by obstacles such as enrolling at a school, putting in hard work, and the quality of her teachers.

To employ this concept in the context of education, we need to answer questions about who the proper agents are, what the appropriate goal or goals are, and what, if any, obstacles are legitimate. For example, if we take admission at a highly selective college as our goal, and the citizens of some country as our agents, we might think that meeting a certain academic requirement, such as passing an entrance exam, is a relevant obstacle that should be permitted to stand in the way of the goal. In this context, we will also think that an applicant’s race, sex or religious affiliation should not be obstacles. When the appropriate group faces only the relevant obstacles with respect to the appropriate goal we can say that equality of opportunity obtains between the members of that group.

For instance, Alice and Belle have equal opportunity to attend a selective university if, all other things being equal, the only obstacle they face is passing an entry test, which is a relevant obstacle. They do not have equal opportunity if Alice also faces an irrelevant obstacle, such as race-based discrimination, that Belle does not face.

Educational opportunities are those opportunities that aim to enable individuals to acquire knowledge and certain skills, and to cultivate certain capacities. As noted above, we may value educational opportunity in some instances for the intrinsic value of acquiring knowledge, while in other cases we may care more about its instrumental effects on individual welfare (e.g., labor market success). Whatever our rationale for caring about educational opportunity, in order for an individual to be said to have this opportunity, she must have no insurmountable, irrelevant obstacles to the particular educational goal we have in mind.

Most commonly we associate the goals that constitute educational opportunities with access to educational institutions such as schools and universities, but apprenticeships and professional development and training also provide educational opportunities. In addition, there are many informal types of educational opportunity. These include public debates and lectures as well as time spent reading, practicing, or thinking outside of a school context.

Most contributors to debates about equality of educational opportunity focus on opportunities that are made available through public K–12 and higher education institutions. The reasons for this are similar to our reasons for being concerned with educational opportunity in the first place. Those institutional opportunities are more easily regulated and under the state’s control, they educate the vast majority of children in the developed world, and they have a profound effect on the quality of our lives. As a result, most of the literature primarily concerns K–12 educational institutions and colleges. Nevertheless, a crucial question concerns the extent to which the state should try to address inequalities in educational opportunities that are generated through the family. For example, we know that parents who read to their children give their children an educational advantage (Hutton et al. 2015). Should the state seek to correct for the disadvantages of those children whose parents could not (or would not) read to them? More generally, parents pass on not only genetic traits to their children, but also characteristics that differentially prepare children for success at school, and even at jobs. Again, how should the state respond to these and other factors that influence children’s likelihood of success at school? Are these appropriate obstacles for children to face or not?

The next sections survey different interpretations of equal educational opportunity in view of these questions.

Formal equality of opportunity is the view that formal rules that make reference to personal or ascriptive characteristics should not be obstacles to achieving certain goals. Such characteristics include race, socio-economic class, gender, religion, and sexuality. It is essentially a concept of equality before the law. It is often understood as an anti-discrimination principle (See the entry on equality of opportunity for more discussion).

As applied to educational opportunity, formal equality of opportunity requires the removal of formal obstacles, in the form of laws or entrance criteria for educational institutions, which refer to ascriptive characteristics. For instance, formal equality of opportunity is opposed to legally segregated schools whose admissions policy states that students be white, male or belong to a certain religion. This conception is likewise opposed to laws that endorse or require segregation in schools. The Brown decision is certainly consistent with at least formal equality of opportunity. At the same time, it is worth noting that formal equality of opportunity is at odds with the tolerant attitude many societies take toward schools and colleges that are segregated by sex and religion. One possible way in which these practices might be reconciled with formal equality of educational opportunity would be to argue that this principle applies only to public educational institutions and not private schools and colleges. Some people accept that formal equality of opportunity is a sufficient norm to guide the distribution of educational opportunities, but most political and moral philosophers accept it as necessary but not sufficient. A principle of non-discrimination leaves open whether and to what extent the state needs to provide the resources that are required for education, or how those resources should be distributed (see Gutmann 1999: 127ff). Since resources are necessary for education—whether in the form of books and materials, teachers, facilities, and so on—formal equality of opportunity is compatible with some children failing to actually receive an education. Formal equality of opportunity fails to provide effective equality of opportunity.

Additionally, formal equality of educational opportunity is not concerned with the informal rules, social norms, or private discrimination that people in a society face that can have a profound effect on a child’s opportunities for education. Consider that formal equality of opportunity is compatible with school segregation, if school attendance zones were determined by residence and residence were segregated by race and social class (as is typically the case in the U.S.). If integration is a moral imperative, formal equality of opportunity cannot achieve this goal (Anderson 2010). Many people believe that insofar as informal discrimination is an unfair obstacle to educational opportunity, it is a serious problem that requires policy attention.

Even if formal equality of opportunity could be defended as a just distributional principle outside of the educational context, perhaps because going beyond it violates certain rights (see Nozick 1997), it cannot be defended in the context of schooling. No democratic society can justify failing to educate the children of its poorest students. (Additionally, see Friedman & Friedman, 1990, for a libertarian argument for universal education based on its third party effects.)

Proponents of meritocratic equality of opportunity argue that no other obstacle besides merit should stand in the way of achievement of the desired goals. This view requires that educational goods be distributed solely in accordance with individual merit. In the context of education, merit is often measured by entrance requirements, aptitude tests, or grades on exams. Of course, merit could be defined in some other way—by how hard a student works, by how much a student improves, or by classroom participation, although all of these indicators pose measurement challenges.

Meritocratic equality of opportunity has well-known limitations, especially with respect to children. If educational opportunities should be given to those who have the most merit in terms of the best scores on entrance tests, we will overlook the fact that merit is endogenous to education, which is to say, educational opportunity itself creates merit (Satz 2007). The more educational opportunities an individual child has, the more “merit” that child may come to have. This might suggest that we should pay more attention to individuals’ underlying potential rather than to their assessed merit. Yet few people believe that we should give opportunities to those who have the most underlying but uncultivated ability at the expense of those who have less underlying ability or who are less qualified but have worked hard (Miller 1996).

To illustrate a second limitation with the meritocratic conception of equal educational opportunity, imagine that all highly selective university places have been awarded to members of the upper class through cronyism, and that a progressive new government is suddenly elected into power to enforce meritocratic admissions. After generations of consolidating superior education, jobs and wealth at the expense of the poor, the upper-classes are in a far better place, particularly if private schooling is available, to ensure that their children end up being the most meritorious, thereby preserving vast social inequalities between members of different classes. Although some opportunities are open to all equally, opportunities to develop “merit” are not distributed equally (Williams 1962). Intergenerational transmission of opportunities to cultivate merit would generate a deeply divided and unequal society, which is at odds with the ideal of equality of educational opportunity.

Two further limitations concerning meritocratic equality of opportunity in the context of education are worth noting, aside from the possible toxic consequences of engaging in meritocratic rhetoric (Young 1958; Sandel 2020). The first, as has already been mentioned, is that the definition of merit itself can be contentious. Is there an account of merit that is wholly independent of conceptions of justice (Sen 2000)? Is merit simply what maximizes productivity? Should merit be based solely on test scores or also take into account moral attributes like the ability to work cooperatively with others?

The second is that while conditioning educational opportunities on “merit” may look compelling when dealing with young adults, it is deeply problematic when applied to very young children. As Michael Walzer (1983: 203) notes, the job of the reading teacher is to teach children to read, not merely to offer the opportunity to learn to read. And this job presumably includes all children in a classroom—even those who are not especially “meritorious”. Perhaps this is also why the educational “tracking” of very young children on the basis of ability seems especially objectionable—there are certain capacities that need to be cultivated in all children (Satz 2007).

Because of the limits of formal equality of opportunity, John Rawls developed a conception he calls Fair Equality of Opportunity (FEO). FEO requires that social offices and positions be formally open to all, and that individuals who are similarly talented and motivated should have a roughly equal chance to attain these positions, independent of their social class background (Rawls 2001: 42–44). FEO holds that all citizens of a society count as the relevant agents, the desired goal is offices and positions, and the obstacles people should not face includes their social class background. The obstacles people may legitimately face include having fewer developed abilities or less willingness to use them.

When applied to education, this principle may support educational measures that close the achievement gap between the rich and the poor with the same high talent potentials, assuming that these children can be identified. This is because such students from poorer backgrounds should fare as well as their wealthier peers with the same potentials. The Rawlsian principle of FEO aims to eliminate the effects of social background and economic class on educational achievement. Fair equality of opportunity therefore offers a radical interpretation of equality of educational opportunity.

Debates about FEO have focused on the relative importance of the goods it regulates (i.e., access to offices and positions) and the fact that it regards inequalities in inborn potential as relevant obstacles generally, and in the education arena.

In A Theory of Justice , Rawls accords the fair equality of opportunity principle priority over access to other types of advantages such as income and wealth. Disputing this priority, some have argued that the opportunities that FEO regulates are not more important than these other goods and that we should prefer a principle (known, for example, in Rawls’ work as the difference principle) that ensures that the least advantaged are as well-off as possible in terms of income (or according to some critics, well-being) (Alexander 1985; Arneson 1999; Clayton 2001; Miklosi 2010). Richard Arneson presses this complaint forcefully in his paper “Against Rawlsian Equality of Opportunity”. Rawls’ argument for FEO over the difference principle comes from a commitment to individuals’ self-respect and the contribution that the ability to compete for offices and social positions on fair terms make to that self-respect. But Arneson argues that those among us with lesser capacities might reasonably reject according such weight to the self-respect of the talented. After all, the self-respect derived from the results of a “natural lottery” is unequally distributed. The untalented among us, Arneson argues, would prefer increases in well-being to a principle of self-respect that confers no benefit to them.

In terms of education, rather than ensuring that those with the same inborn talent potential and ambition have the same level of educational achievement, Arneson would emphasize that educational opportunities should aim at promoting the welfare of the least advantaged. This is more important, as he sees it, than ensuring that future competitions for jobs are fairly structured. But Rawls and his defenders have argued that wealth and welfare are different in kind from the goods that FEO regulates, and that FEO pertains to more important goods that are closely connected to autonomy, the social bases of self-respect, and what he calls the two moral powers. This explains their priority and irreducibility (Taylor 2004; Shields 2015; Shiffrin 2004). Further, if everyone had a decent minimum, then the additional contribution of wealth to well-being is less significant. In subsequent work however, Rawls does acknowledge that the priority of FEO over his difference principle may be less stringent than he thought.

Some philosophers criticize FEO as insufficiently egalitarian. This criticism has taken two forms. First, some claim that by making fair opportunities relative to motivation, FEO has insufficient bite in a non-ideal world in which inequality frequently produces diminished aspirations in the oppressed. If women have been socialized for centuries to think that certain positions in society are beyond their capacities, and accordingly they are not motivated to pursue such positions, does FEO have the resources to criticize this?

A second objection points out that inequalities in social luck (e.g., being born into a poor family, which FEO requires institutions to correct for) and inequalities in natural luck (e.g., being born with less talent potential, which FEO does not require institutions to correct for) should be treated the same. It is easy to think that both types of luck are equally arbitrary from a moral point of view, and that this arbitrariness is a source of injustice. Indeed, some of Rawls’ own remarks seem to suggest this. Why, we might ask, should educational institutions help close the gap between the talented rich and talented poor but do nothing to close the gap between talented and untalented students, when being untalented is, just like social class, totally unavoidable. Matthew Clayton and Richard Arneson press this complaint against Rawls. Clayton claims that Rawls’ own reasoning appears to privilege consistency about both types of luck. So Rawls should either accept a different principle applying to both natural and social luck, or else he must condone a type of natural aristocracy for both talent and wealth.

Part of a response to these objections would have to defend the resources that Rawlsian theory has for dealing with race and gender as obstacles to fair equality of opportunity as well as the importance of the specific goods that FEO protects. Rawls himself singled out certain goods as having a higher priority than the goods of income and wealth alone. In defense of Rawls on the first objection, Seana Shiffrin (2004) has argued that FEO is a “robust anti-discrimination principle”, which should not be read out of its context within Rawls’ two principles as a whole. Moreover, it

would be difficult to provide the sort of educational training necessary to fulfill the principle’s commands without thereby engaging in teaching that also combatted the stereotypes that produce significant differentiation of ambitions. (2004: 1650, fn31)

On her view, the social bases of self-respect require the robust anti-discrimination principle that FEO provides. In defense of Rawls on the second objection, Robert Taylor (2004) has attempted to show that self-realization has a crucial place in the hierarchy of goods on the Kantian interpretation of Rawls’ principles. He claims that FEO therefore has priority over the difference principle because it regulates goods that are more central to the exercise of our moral powers and our highest order interests. However, his defense of Rawls has been criticized for being overly perfectionist and therefore not politically liberal. If this criticism is sound, then it may seem to imply that while perfectionist Rawlsians can justify FEO, political liberal Rawlsians cannot. Liam Shields (2015) argues that there is a non-perfectionist account of self-realization and that this leads us to supplement the principle of FEO with a principle of sufficient self-realization. This may be one way to defend FEO against those who favor a strict focus on welfare.

However, these responses would not satisfy those who believe that we should adopt prioritarianism with respect to especially important goods, distributing them in a way that gives priority to those who have the least (Schouten 2012). Prioritarianism is a controversial view, and has some controversial implications for the distribution of K–12 education. For example, a prioritarian view might endorse providing no state supported educational resources at all for those who are extremely talented, unless it could be shown that doing so improves the lot of the least well off. But many people will reject this implication, believing that the state does have educational obligations to the talented in their own right. Prioritarianism is also inattentive to inequalities that obtain elsewhere in the distributional scheme, for example, between those at the median and those at the very top. Many egalitarians will be disturbed by disproportionate opportunities going to the top 1%, even if the very bottom of the distribution is improved. Rawls’ view is not a simple prioritarian one, but instead endorses a complex set of principles—some of which are egalitarian such as FEO, and some of which give special attention to the least well off, such as the difference principle.

A final issue with FEO concerns our understanding of, and ability to determine, natural levels of talent. It can be very hard to know who has the most potential even when children are well into their schooling. This suggests that it is not an appropriate or feasible benchmark for the regulation of social institutions since we could never know whether it was satisfied (Gomberg 1975). In addition, the focus on natural talents has led some to consider the interaction between epigenetic traits and social environmental factors, calling into question the integrity of this distinction. This expands our sense of the arbitrariness of natural inequalities and may provide important insights on how to redress these inequalities (Loi, Del Savio and Stupka 2013).

One goal of education is to enable young people to grow into adults who have flourishing lives. What would it mean to give children the equal opportunity for flourishing lives? Again, that depends on the view one should have about the appropriate obstacles. At the most extreme, some have argued all people should face only the obstacle of their own choices. The view makes sense of many of our intuitions. For example, we tend to think that victims of bad luck, those born with disabilities, or those who are severely harmed by natural disasters, are entitled to aid. Meanwhile, those who gamble and lose are not usually viewed as having any case for compensation.

The view so stated has very radical implications for educational institutions since it charges them with ensuring that all students have equal prospects for living well, regardless of differences in their natural potentials. Thus, educational institutions organized in accordance with equality of opportunity for flourishing would not only have to provide compensatory support and resources for those from disadvantaged family backgrounds, but also for those who have genetic disadvantages.

Many philosophers have taken issue with this general view. Some have argued that its unmitigated emphasis on choice and responsibility would lead to stigma (e.g., Anderson 1999; Wolff 1998). Imagine a letter to parents saying that the state is offering your child extra opportunities because your genes create significant disadvantages. Moreover, as has already been noted, any view emphasizing choice so heavily seems especially out of place when dealing with young children.

We also need an account of the flourishing that should be the aim of educational opportunities. Is it to be understood in terms of preference satisfaction? Or something else? Would it require autonomy? In choosing an account of flourishing, we have to respond to these questions and also be attentive to concerns about sectarianism. How can an undoubtedly controversial account of what makes a human life valuable (e.g., that a good life is an autonomous life) be a suitable basis for educational policy in a pluralistic society? Many liberals argue that families may justifiably reject, and request exemption from, an education that conflicts with their religious, cultural, or political views. They argue that an educational system driven by a principle of equality of opportunity for flourishing will not respect individuals’ entitlement to pursue their own account of how they wish to live, in accordance with their own reason (Rawls 2005). Of course, it might be pointed out in reply, that educational decisions made by parents affect not only their own views of how to live but also, and more importantly, their children’s.

A second key goal for education, which plays a prominent role in public discourse, is to prepare individuals for productive employment. Education for the labor market has significant benefits for the state (e.g., GDP growth) and for individuals (e.g., remunerative and rewarding employment and all its associated benefits, including more discretionary income, more leisure time, and in the U.S., better healthcare). This function of education is critically important as a matter of justice. Education aimed at preparing individuals for employment has become especially pressing in view of the income inequalities that leading economists have highlighted (Piketty 2014; Saez & Zucman 2014). And since education for employment is a highly positional good given a competitive labor market, it matters all the more how educational opportunity in this arena is distributed.

Although there is a clear correlation between educational attainment, income, and employment rates (see 2022 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Other Internet Resources ), the link between academic achievement as measured on tests and labor market outcomes has been found to be more attenuated (Bowles, Gintis, & Osborne 2001). Research has shown that “soft skills” (e.g., personality traits like tenacity; individual’s goals and preferences) may be more predictive of success than cognitive abilities measured by test scores (Heckman & Kautz 2012). Moreover, schooling that is most directly targeted at employment—vocational education—has a history in the U.S. of entrenching race and class-based inequalities (e.g., Oakes 1985). Although the relationship between traditional academic skills and labor market success may be less significant than previously thought, and despite the checkered history of vocational education, formal schooling still has a critical role to play toward equipping individuals for labor market success on several fronts.

First, students do acquire soft skills in formal school settings. One study found that student achievement on tests accounts for just 20% of the effects of educational attainment on earnings (Bowles, Gintis, & Osborne 2001), which indicates that schools are cultivating non-cognitive skills that tests do not measure, and that are consequential in the labor market (Levin 2012). Second, educational attainment has long been seen to have a signaling function in the labor market (Spence 1973), whereby employers rely upon job candidates’ educational credentials as a proxy for future productivity. Educational attainment itself, then, apart from applicants’ demonstration of particular skills, is central to screening and differentiating candidates. Finally, a college diploma has become especially consequential in recent years as the income gap between those with and without one has grown; individuals with a bachelors degree earn 84% more over their lifetime than those with just a high school diploma (see Carnevale, Rose & Cheah 2011). Lesley Jacobs’ notion of stakes fairness (2004) underscores the importance of equality of educational opportunity when it comes to preparation for the labor market. Ideally, the stakes attached to education for labor market success would not be nearly as high as they are now, whereby a winner-takes-all competition for a job can determine an individual’s access to social goods like healthcare, leisure time, and discretionary income. When the (non-ideal) stakes are this high, equality of educational opportunity matters all the more (Jacobs 2010).

Another important goal for providing educational opportunities is the development of students’ capacities associated with being a good citizen and maintaining democratic institutions over time (Callan 1997; Galston 2001; Gutmann 1999). It might be argued that just as equality of opportunity to become a flourishing individual is a matter of justice, so too is equality of opportunity to develop civic skills, and to participate effectively in political deliberations.

The structure and appropriate content of civic education is debated extensively. While some argue that citizenship education can be narrowly construed so as to not encroach upon individuals’ private commitments, others claim it is a far more demanding educational endeavor. A key part of this debate is the extent to which education requires the cultivation of autonomy, and if does, the nature of the autonomy that is required. Some claim that since some groups in pluralistic democracies reject the idea of an autonomous life, education for autonomy cannot be imposed upon them even for civic purposes, and so education should not entail the cultivation of individual autonomy (Galston 1989). Rawls’ own solution to the potential clash between civic education for autonomy and individuals’ private commitments is to advocate only a limited form of autonomy, political autonomy, which “leaves untouched all kinds of doctrines—religious, metaphysical, and moral” and yields a relatively thin civic education (Rawls 2005: 375). Others take issue with this view, arguing that civic education requires an encompassing form of autonomy that has unavoidable spillover effects into the private sphere of individuals’ lives, and that may clash with some religious convictions (Callan 1997; Gutmann 1995; see also Arneson & Shapiro 1996, for a discussion of Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972), a U.S. Supreme Court case about religious exemptions from compulsory education).

Another dimension of ongoing debates about equality in the realm of civic education concerns the scope of the community for which we are educating students to become members. Is the right unit of analysis a particular nation state or the global community? If it is a particular nation state, how can we cultivate in students a sense of their national identity and the disposition to respect their state’s institutions and laws (and to advocate reform when needed), while also making them sensitive to what they owe non-citizens as a matter of justice? A key component of this debate is whether students should receive a patriotic civic education—that is, one that prioritizes shoring up their allegiance to their state over their capacity to reflect critically upon its potential shortcomings. Galston (1989) has notably argued that students need a civic education that is more rhetorical than rational, while a number of liberal theorists have criticized his view on grounds of democratic legitimacy, its status-quo bias, and the related possibility of ossifying existing inequalities (e.g., Brighouse 1998; Callan 1997; see also the related entry on civic education ). On the other hand, if we instead have a cosmopolitan view of civic education and aim to cultivate “citizens of the world” (e.g., Nussbaum & Cohen 1996), what are the relevant capacities that need to be made effective? There is no world state for students to participate in.

Whatever one believes about the appropriate scope and content of civic education, a pressing issue is students’ extremely uneven access to educational opportunities that prepare them for participatory citizenship. Meira Levinson’s work on the “civic achievement gap” highlights this corollary to the much-more discussed achievement gap and underscores vast inequalities across student groups in terms of what youth know about how government works, and their ability to participate effectively in civic life (Levinson 2012). These low rates of participation and engagement also have consequences for how the interests of the poor are treated. Indeed, even if one rejects equality of opportunity in this domain, there is ample evidence that many societies are not doing enough to enable their poorer and less educated citizens to effectively and competently participate in public life.

A longstanding debate in the literature juxtaposes the view that we should prioritize equality in the distribution of educational opportunities with the view that an “adequacy” approach is the right one (on this debate, see Reich 2013). Those who advocate the equality view may insist on equal outputs (i.e., educational outcomes, like the mastery of particular skills) or inputs (i.e., educational resources, like equal per pupil funding or qualified teachers). The adequacy view, by contrast, is seen as holding that what matters most is meeting a specified educational threshold.

In the context of school finance litigation in the U.S., advocates often invoke these two distributive ideals together rather than regarding them as being at odds (Rebell 2009: 21–22; Ryan 2008: 1232–1238). Although most school finance litigation in the U.S. today is pursued from an adequacy framework given its greater political viability, litigators often make comparative claims about students’ educational opportunities to bolster their case. Conversely in contexts where lawyers pursue equality claims, they frequently appeal to a conception of educational quality (e.g., achieving literacy, numeracy, and civic skills) to anchor their claims, and to avoid the leveling-down problem whereby equality is achieved by making everyone worse off, without regard for the realization of particular educational goals.

Some philosophical work has similarly undercut the sharp equality/adequacy distinction and shows how the two ideals are closely intertwined in the pursuit of educational justice. These approaches (e.g., Satz 2007; Anderson 2007) argue that adequacy in education has a relative and comparative component because the educational threshold depends on the knowledge and skills that others have, and so it is necessarily a moving target. For example, what it takes to serve on a jury, or to have an adequate opportunity for college, depends on the knowledge and skill levels of others. This “relational” approach to adequacy can respond to one of the strongest concerns proponents of equality raise: that because many of the benefits of education are positional, which is to say, their value depends upon one’s position relative to others, equality is the right distributive principle for educational opportunities. The meritocratic distribution of jobs, where the most qualified candidate is appointed (rather than the individual who is merely well-qualified), ensures that positionality is decisive in many cases. Conceptions of adequacy that are attentive to relevant comparative claims can address this issue and thereby deflate the tension between adequacy and equality approaches to distributing educational opportunities.

However one interprets equality of educational of opportunity, a number of important challenges face anyone who believes that the ideal is a crucial component of a fair and just society. Several of these challenges are philosophical in nature. For instance, one can ask whether certain values (e.g., respecting family autonomy) compete with the demands of equality of opportunity in education in ways that trump or are trumped by concerns about educational equality. One can also ask whether equal educational opportunity requires affirmative action, and what it may require for students with disabilities and special educational needs. One can accept equality of educational opportunity with respect to some goods and adequacy of educational opportunity with respect to others (Callan 2016). There are other challenges that are not philosophical but practical, such as how we can convince policymakers to allocate sufficient funds to meet students’ educational needs, and how we might increase public support for the ideal of equality of educational opportunity more generally.

4. Equality of Educational Opportunity’s Tensions with Other Values

Family background has long been recognized as a source of significant inequalities. Even before we consider that children have quite different personalities and needs, inequality in family wealth and differences in family priorities and wield influence over a child’s prospects in the labor market, in civic participation, and in overall well-being. Although the number of parents who choose to pay tuition to have their children educated in private schools may be relatively small, purchasing elite private schooling can result in compounding advantages for some students (and thus relative disadvantages for others). Only about 10% of primary and secondary students in the U.S. attend private schools (see NCES’s the Condition of Education 2016 in Other Internet Resources ), while students who attended private secondary schools have comprised nearly 30% or more of matriculating classes at some highly selective American universities in recent years (see, for example, online profiles of the 2016 freshman class at Harvard, Stanford, and Yale listed in Other Internet Resources ). Students at some public schools may also suffer more immediate disadvantages from the absence of the positive peer effects of being in a school with higher achieving students and more engaged parents. Smaller class sizes, more highly qualified teachers, and more extra-curricular opportunities may enable private school students to benefit from the compounding advantages of greater success in the college admissions process and subsequent labor market. And since employment opportunities and elite college places are scarce goods that are closely linked to other benefits in health, wealth, and overall well-being, these inequalities can be highly consequential.

While some of these inequalities might be remedied by social policies that address employment practices, gender and racial inequality, and wealth inequality, we have reasons to think that some inequality in opportunity will remain in a just society simply because parents should be able to treat their children differently from other people’s children in ways that are to their children’s advantage. For example, a parent may read bedtime stories to his children but if he does he does not also need to read them to other children, even if a failure to read to everyone exacerbates inequality. There are limits to what the state can do without intruding on the life of the family. At the same time, concern for mitigating inequality that is rooted in familial relations has to grapple with the fact that different parenting styles have value as well as downsides, and that the middle-class norm of trying to maximize children’s potential (“concerted cultivation”; Lareau 2011) is no exception in terms of having certain disadvantages for children.

There are several possible approaches to the conflict between equal educational opportunity and the family. One approach subordinates our concern for equality of educational opportunity to our concern with the family. To support this view we might try to argue that the goods of family life are especially weighty, or, that as a matter of value pluralism, the state cannot impose complete uniformity on childrearing practices. Conversely, we could subordinate our concern for the family to our concern with equality of educational opportunity. If this were to happen, however, we could end up abolishing the family as we know it, since the family and partiality run contrary to equal opportunity. One cannot, it seems, have the family and have perfect equality of opportunity. Plato famously advocated raising children in common within communities in The Republic (though not out of concern for equality). But most philosophers, including Rawls, believe that abolishing the family is far too high a price to pay for equality (this is discussed in Munoz-Dardé 1999; Brighouse & Swift 2009; Schoeman 1980; Schrag 1976; see also Miller 2009 on different conceptions of equality of opportunity and how the family fits within them).

Alternatively, we might think that some careful weighing of the values at stake is required. For instance, we might think that only some of the demands of familial partiality, those related to intimacy such as reading bedtime stories, are sufficient to outweigh concern for equality of educational opportunity. Other aspects of familial partiality that appear to be unconnected to intimacy, such as paying tuition for private schools, would not be justified. This view would enjoin us to equalize children’s educational opportunities whenever we can, without sacrificing the goods central to the family (Brighouse & Swift 2014). Yet it can be very difficult in practice to determine whether an advantage parents provide their child is constitutive of the family or not.

Individuals with cognitive and physical disabilities have been marginalized, denied resources, and even denied an education. Can a conception of equality of educational opportunity accommodate those with cognitive and physical disabilities? Some critics claim that theories of justice focus unduly on meeting the demands of reciprocity and cooperation as a pre-condition to equal opportunity and other demands of justice, and in doing so, exclude some individuals with disabilities from those entitlements. Some argue that we need new theories (Kittay 1999; Barnes 2016) while others argue that existing theories and approaches can be applied to or extended to include individuals with disabilities (Stark 2013; Robeyns 2006; Brighouse 2001). In education, treating individuals with disabilities the same as those without does not always suffice to treat all equally, for disabilities sometimes give rise to special needs and requirements and this raises challenges for ‘inclusion’ (Warnock 2005). In order to avoid these challenges it seems that we might need to endorse differential treatment, which can lead to stigma and division and has been associated with educational segregation. This gives rise to what has been called the “dilemma of difference” and pertains to decisions about whether students with disabilities should be educated in the same class as students without disabilities. Placing disabled children in mainstream schools or classes may lead to bullying, as Mary Warnock (2005) has noted, but placing disabled children in separate settings may further entrench the wide-spread social stigma associated with disability, even when there is much that can be done to ensure disability is not an obstacle to learning. Further debates focus on the extent to which (at least some of) the disadvantages of disability may be detached from the disability itself and the extent to which they are attached only in virtue of social organization or social attitudes, which we could and should alter. For instance, if the dominant modes of communication in our society were sign-based rather than spoken, perhaps deafness would not be considered a disability. Likewise, where braille translations are readily available, the blind do not face a disability with respect to reading (Sparrow 2005). In the case of education, the design of the school or the curriculum can determine whether a disability is an obstacle to learning. For some discussion of this debate see Terzi 2005.

Disability may be thought to pose problems for various conceptions of equality of educational opportunity and can strengthen well-known objections. For example, it poses problems for those who endorse a meritocratic allocation of advantageous positions, such as FEO. If one of the primary goals of an education system is to ensure fair competition for jobs, many people with disabilities will likely face greater and even insurmountable obstacles to becoming the most meritorious candidate. Recall that FEO requires equal prospects for the equally naturally talented and ambitious. Some of those with disabilities do not have similar or equal natural talent with others vying for opportunities, even if these differences could be compensated for through education. Meritocratic equality of opportunity also appears to neglect some people with disabilities, by interpreting merit in terms of inborn potentials. FEO and meritocratic equality of opportunity are consistent with providing very low or even no educational opportunities to some cognitively disabled persons, but that hardly seems like an acceptable outcome. Adequacy accounts may also struggle to explain what to do when disabilities are so severe that individuals cannot achieve adequate educational levels, or do so only at enormous cost. If an adequate education involved at least acquiring a high school diploma, it is not possible for some cognitively impaired persons to reach this level. Since the focus of adequacy is on achieving that level, and these people cannot do so, it appears that when educational adequacy is set at these levels no entitlement to education for the cognitively disabled can be derived from it. This sort of example puts a lot of pressure on accounts of adequacy to explain at what cost adequacy is worth pursuing, and also challenge those who deny that native ability is relevant to equality of opportunity.

One way to avoid such outcome would be to supplement these views of equality or adequacy of educational opportunity with other principles. For example, it might be held that we owe some educational resources even to the severely cognitively disabled not on grounds of equality of opportunity but on grounds of humanity.

Opportunities belong to agents. However, when we are concerned with equality of opportunity we may be concerned that each individual has the same opportunities or that certain groups (classified by race, gender, socio-economic class, sexuality or religion) have the same opportunities. In other words, our concern may be that people’s opportunities are not affected by their membership of some disadvantaged group rather than being concerned that each individual has equal opportunity within groups. Imagine two societies. In society A , all those who gain entrance to selective colleges on the basis of test scores are white. In society B , all those who gain entrance on the basis of test scores are white or non-white in proportionate to their percentages in the overall population. Should we care about whether we are in society A or B ? If our concern is with individuals alone, then so long as our conception of equality of opportunity is met, then there is no difference between society A and B . Of course, we may suspect that society A violates our conception of equality of opportunity. But suppose that it does not.

Do we have any reason to favor a college admissions policy that moves us from A to B ? Those who advocate for affirmative action in admissions argue that we have reason to depart from a color-blind standard. Some of those arguments appeal to the illegitimacy of the standards used (e.g., tests scores), which critics say are biased. Others argue that we should expect to see equality of outcomes with respect to relevant social groups. For example, John Roemer (1998) defends a conception of equality of opportunity according to which members of groups that have been subordinated (women, racial minorities) should have the same probabilities of achieving success as the members of the dominant group. This is because he thinks the obstacles these groups face should be the same and if we assume that they have equal distributions of talent within them, then different outcomes means there are different obstacles. Roemer uses the example of smoking to illustrate this. Smoking rates vary by social class: the poorer you are, the more likely it is that you will smoke. On Roemer’s view, this means that it is harder for a poor person to stop smoking than a wealthy person. So we should not penalize a poor person who smokes to the same extent that we penalize a wealthy person. Of course, which social groups should be included in this exercise is controversial. Conservatives and liberals differ as to whether individuals face different obstacles simply by virtue of their group membership.

A different argument for moving to society B is given by Glenn Loury (1987) who argues that the dynamic effects of a society like A would prevent poor but talented minorities from achieving equality of educational opportunity because they would lack access to the social networks upon which jobs and other opportunities depend. In society A , disadvantages would cluster. Because equality of opportunity does not, as we have seen, easily extend to the private sphere of family and intimate associations, it is compatible with the continued practice of racial discrimination in such practices, even when there is legal, formal equality.

Loury thus sees a role for preferential policies in higher education that would move us from a society like A to a society like B . One of the more controversial reforms associated with higher education and equality of opportunity is affirmative action, which reserves preferential treatment for historically disadvantaged groups. Affirmative action has been criticized by those who think that merit, and not race or class, should be the only criterion for selecting college applicants. Others argue that it can lead to the unintended stigmatization of members of disadvantaged groups who attend college as not deserving of their place. However, this is to forget that opportunities to develop merit are themselves unfairly distributed between groups historically. Notwithstanding this response, affirmative action remains a controversial response to a very difficult social problem (Guinier 2016).

This entry has provided analysis of key positions in debates about equality of educational opportunity. We began by describing the reasons for being concerned about equality in this arena and then surveyed debates about the value and distribution of such opportunities. As the above discussion highlights, the realization of the ideal of equality of educational opportunity may be frustrated by competing conceptions of what equality itself entails, and also by other important values that are in tension with equalizing education opportunities (e.g., respecting family autonomy). Social scientific advances in recent years have clarified our understanding of the mechanisms behind children’s unequal access to educational opportunities, and the consequences of those inequalities for social mobility (e.g., Chetty et al. 2014; Duncan & Murnane 2011). This knowledge enables policymakers to target interventions to areas that will be most impactful (e.g., growing recognition of the importance of early childhood education). But value tensions of the sort highlighted in this entry will persist, and they warrant ongoing attention by philosophers as our understanding of the causes and consequences of educational inequalities sharpens.

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• Lareau, Annette, 2011, Unequal childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life , Oakland: University of California Press.
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• Levinson, Meira, 2012, No Citizen Left Behind , Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
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• Nussbaum, Martha C., 2007, Frontiers of Justice: Disability, Nationality, Species Membership , Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.
• Nussbaum, Martha C. and Joshua Cohen, 1996, For Love of Country? , Boston: Beacon Press.
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• Phillips, Anne, 2004, “Defending Equality of Outcome”, Journal of Political Philosophy , 12(1): 1–19. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9760.2004.00188.x
• Piketty, Thomas, 2014, Capital in the Twenty-first Century , Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Rawls, John, 1999, A Theory of Justice, Revised Edition , Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.
• –––, 2001, Justice as Fairness: a Restatement , Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• –––, 2005, Political Liberalism , New York: Columbia University Press.
• Reardon, Sean F., 2011, “The Widening Academic Achievement Gap Between the Rich and the Poor: New Evidence and Possible Explanations”, in Greg J. Duncan and Richard J. Murnane (eds.), Whither Opportunity? Rising Inequality, Schools, and Children’s Life Chances , New York, NY: Russel Sage Foundation, pp. 91–116.
• Reardon, Sean F. and Kendra Bischoff, 2011, “Income Inequality and Income Segregation”, American Journal of Sociology , 116(4): 1092–1153. doi:10.1086/657114
• Reardon, Sean F., Joseph P. Robinson-Cimpian, and Ericka S. Weathers, 2015, “Patterns and Trends in Racial/Ethnic and Socioeconomic Academic Achievement Gaps”, in Helen F. Ladd and M.E. Goertz (eds.), Handbook of Research in Education Finance and Policy (2nd Ed.) , New York, NY: Routledge, pp. 497–516.
• Rebell, Michael A., 2009, Courts and Kids: Pursuing Educational Equity through the State Courts , Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
• Reich, Rob, 2013, “ Equality, Adequacy, and K12 Education ”, in Danielle Allen and Rob Reich (eds.), Education, Justice, and Democracy , Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, pp. 623–648.
• Robeyns, Ingrid, 2006, “Three Models of Education: Rights, Capabilities and Human Capital”, Theory and Research in Education , 4(1): 69–84. doi:10.1177/1477878506060683
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• Sahlberg, Pasi, 2011, Finnish lessons , New York: Teachers College Press.
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• Sen, Amartya, 2000, “ Merit and Justice ”, in Kenneth Arrow, Samuel Bowles, and Steven Durlauf (eds.), Meritocracy and Economic Inequality , Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 5–16.
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• Terzi, Lorella, 2005, “Beyond the Dilemma of Difference: The Capability Approach to Disability and Special Educational Needs”, Journal of Philosophy of Education , 39(3): 443–459. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9752.2005.00447.x
• –––, 2010, Justice and Equality in Education: A Capability Perspective on Disability and Special Educational Needs , New York: Continuum.
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• Walzer, Michael, 1983, Spheres of Justice: A Defense of Pluralism and Equality , New York: Basic.
• Warnock, Mary, 2005, “Special Educational Needs: A New Look”, Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain.
• Westen, Peter, 1985, “The Concept of Equal Opportunity”, Ethics , 95(4): 837–850. doi:10.1086/292687
• Williams, Bernard, 1962, “ The Idea of Equality ”, in Peter Laslett and W.G. Runciman (eds.), Philosophy, Politics and Society, Second Series , Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 112–17.
• Wolff, Jonathan, 1998, “Fairness, Respect, and the Egalitarian Ethos”, Philosophy & Public Affairs , 27(2): 97–122. doi:10.1111/j.1088-4963.1998.tb00063.x
• Young, Michael, 1958,  The Rise of the Meritocracy, New Brunswick, NJ: Thames and Hudson.

How to cite this entry . Preview the PDF version of this entry at the Friends of the SEP Society . Look up topics and thinkers related to this entry at the Internet Philosophy Ontology Project (InPhO). Enhanced bibliography for this entry at PhilPapers , with links to its database.

Cited Court Cases

• Brown v. Board of Education (1954).
• Milliken v. Bradley (1974).
• Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District (2006).
• San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez (1973).
• Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education (1970).
• Yoder v. Wisconsin (1972).

Other Resources

• “The Condition of Education” , National Center for Education Statistics
• Reardon, Sean F., 2015, “School Segregation and Racial Academic Achievement Gaps” , (CEPA Working Paper No.15–12). Retrieved from Stanford Center for Education Policy Analysis.
• Reardon, Sean F., 2021, “ The Economic Achievement Gap in the US, 1960-2020: Reconciling Recent Empirical Findings ”, (CEPA Working Paper No. 21.09). Retrieved from Stanford Center for Education Policy Analysis.
• Reardon, Sean F., Erica Weather, Erin Fahle, Heewon Jang, and Demetra Kalogrides, 2022, “ Is Separate Still Unequal? New Evidence on School Segregation and Racial Academic Achievement Gaps ”, (CEPA Working Paper No.19-06). Retrieved from Stanford Center for Education Policy Analysis.
• National Equity Atlas , PolicyLink and the USC Equity Research Institute. In particular the entry on School Poverty
• 2022 US Bureau of Labor Statistics

affirmative action | childhood, the philosophy of | citizenship | civic education | disability: and justice | discrimination | economics [normative] and economic justice | egalitarianism | equality | equality: of opportunity | justice: distributive | luck: justice and bad luck | rights: of children

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How to Answer the UC Personal Insight Questions (with examples!)

Zach Skillings is the Scholarships360 Newsletter Editor. He specializes in college admissions and strives to answer important questions about higher education. When he’s not contributing to Scholarships360, Zach writes about travel, music, film, and culture. His work has been published in Our State Magazine, Ladygunn Magazine, The Nocturnal Times, and The Lexington Dispatch. Zach graduated from Elon University with a degree in Cinema and Television Arts.

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Cece Gilmore is a Content Writer at Scholarships360. Cece earned her undergraduate degree in Journalism and Mass Communications from Arizona State University. While at ASU, she was the education editor as well as a published staff reporter at Downtown Devil. Cece was also the co-host of her own radio show on Blaze Radio ASU.

Bill Jack has over a decade of experience in college admissions and financial aid. Since 2008, he has worked at Colby College, Wesleyan University, University of Maine at Farmington, and Bates College.

Maria Geiger is Director of Content at Scholarships360. She is a former online educational technology instructor and adjunct writing instructor. In addition to education reform, Maria’s interests include viewpoint diversity, blended/flipped learning, digital communication, and integrating media/web tools into the curriculum to better facilitate student engagement. Maria earned both a B.A. and an M.A. in English Literature from Monmouth University, an M. Ed. in Education from Monmouth University, and a Virtual Online Teaching Certificate (VOLT) from the University of Pennsylvania.

If you’re applying to a University of California campus, you may already know that you’ll need to respond to four (out of eight) personal insight questions. The UC personal insight questions will require a good amount of time and effort, but fortunately we’re here to help. In this guide, we’ll dissect each prompt and offer some tips on how to respond. And if you’re looking for a bit of inspiration, be sure to check out our example essays as well. Let’s get started!

Don’t miss: How to write an essay about yourself

“Describe an example of your leadership experience in which you have positively influenced others, helped resolve disputes or contributed to group efforts over time. (max: 350 words)”

You don’t have to be captain of a sports team or president of a school club to be a leader. Titles like those are great (and are definitely worth talking about), but leadership can be demonstrated in more subtle ways as well. Think about the times in which people have looked to you for guidance or support. It could be a group of friends, your coworkers, or even a younger sibling or family member. Whatever the case may be, you should write about what you accomplished and what you learned from the experience. This essay is a great opportunity to demonstrate your ability to make a positive impact outside the classroom. 

Questions to consider: 

• What does being a leader mean to you?
• How has your perspective on leadership changed over time?
• What qualities do you possess that make you a good leader?

“Every person has a creative side, and it can be expressed in many ways: problem solving, original and innovative thinking, and artistically, to name a few. Describe how you express your creative side. (max: 350 words)”

Creativity takes so many different forms. From music to cooking to fashion, there are countless ways to express creativity. Think about the area of your life in which you exhibit original ideas or unique ways of thinking. It may not be obvious for everyone, but chances are you’re creative in ways that you haven’t even realized. Any time you produce a new thought, idea, or concept, you’re being creative. Once you find your creative niche, focus on your motive. Why do you create? Does it bring you joy? Does it connect to your personal or professional ambitions? Ultimately, your goal in this essay should be to articulate the value of your creativity. 

• How do you define creativity? 
• How does being creative make you feel?
• What impact does your creativity have on yourself and others?

“What would you say is your greatest talent or skill? How have you developed and demonstrated that talent over time? (max: 350 words)”

Some people have a talent or skill that is central to their identity. Maybe you’re a gifted athlete or you have a knack for making people laugh. Maybe you’re a skilled communicator. Consider your greatest talents and what they mean to you. Think about how your talent has shaped your own life and how it has influenced others. It is important to remember to avoid coming across as boastful. You may be a talented soccer player, for instance, but don’t use the entire essay to talk about how good you are at playing goalie. Instead, focus on how soccer has had a positive impact on your life. 

• How has your talent influenced who you are as a person?
• How did you discover your talent, and how has it grown since then?
• How do you plan to continue to develop your talent?

“Describe how you have taken advantage of a significant educational opportunity or worked to overcome an educational barrier you have faced. (max: 350 words)”

This prompt is interesting because it gives students a couple of options. Students can choose to either write about an educational opportunity or an educational barrier. If you decide to write about an opportunity, think about the experiences that have better prepared you for college. Have you taken any advanced classes, enrolled in any academic enrichment programs, or completed any internships? If so, write about what you gained from the experience and what you learned. 

If you choose to write about a barrier, think about the times in which you’ve faced significant obstacles to your education. Obstacles could include a variety of things, such as family issues, switching schools, or lacking the money needed for school supplies. Whatever the case may be, it’s better to emphasize what you did to overcome the problem rather than focusing on the issue itself. This essay is the perfect opportunity to demonstrate your resilience to adversity. 

• In what ways have you gone above and beyond to further your education?
• Have you faced any disruptions to your education? If so, how did you react?
• How did your opportunity or barrier influence who you are today? 

“Describe the most significant challenge you have faced and the steps you have taken to overcome this challenge. How has this challenge affected your academic achievement? (max: 350 words)”

We all face challenges in life, but the key to overcoming any obstacle is the manner in which we react. Think about a setback in your life that could have derailed you, but instead you persevered. Examples include moving to a new school or town, coping with the loss of a loved one, or dealing with financial hardship. Describe the problem, but avoid lingering on the negative side of things. Similar to the fourth prompt, you should focus the majority of your response on what you actually did to overcome the challenge. 

• Have you ever turned a negative situation into a positive one?
• How have the challenges in your life made you better-equipped to deal with future setbacks? 
• Why are obstacles an important part of life? 

“Think about an academic subject that inspires you. Describe how you have furthered this interest inside and/or outside of the classroom. (max: 350 words)”

This is your chance to write about your academic passions. Think about your favorite field of study and what excites you about it. Discuss how your interest in the subject has taken shape over time, and what you have done to cultivate that interest. Have you participated in any activities outside the classroom — such as volunteer work, internships, employment, or student clubs — to learn more about your field? If applicable, you can also discuss how your academic interests connect to your future career goals. 

• What’s a topic or idea that you never get bored of? 
• What was the moment that sparked your interest in this subject?
• How do you plan to continue to develop your interest?

“What have you done to make your school or your community a better place? (max: 350 words)”

Colleges love to see candidates who have the potential to make a positive impact on campus, and this essay is a great chance to demonstrate that potential. When brainstorming ideas, remember that the word “community” can mean a lot of different things. It could refer to a sports team, a school club, a neighborhood, a family, a workplace, or even a group of friends. Think about the people and places that constitute your community, and consider what you have done to make a difference. 

• How have your actions benefited your community? 
• How does your community add value to your life? 
• How would members of your community describe you? 

“Beyond what has already been shared in your application, what do you believe makes you stand out as a strong candidate for admissions to the University of California? (max: 350 words)”

This is a great prompt for students who have a story or experience that doesn’t fit the mold of the other prompts. It’s essentially a catch-all prompt that allows you to write about anything you want. That being said, it’s important to find a focus and stick with it. Don’t let your essay become too broad. Instead, try to focus on one or two specific experiences and describe how they make you an excellent candidate for UC.

• What should UC know about you that they wouldn’t learn from the rest of your application?
• Do you have any amazing or exceptional stories that don’t fit the mold of the other prompts?
• What sets you apart from other candidates? 

Don’t miss: Tips for a successful college application

Example essays 

We’ve given you some tips on how to respond to each prompt, but sometimes it’s helpful to see how another person approached the prompt. Below you’ll find example essays for each of the eight UC prompts. Check them out if you’re looking for some inspiration! We’ve also included feedback on each example from our seasoned admissions expert Bill Jack .

“Describe an example of your leadership experience in which you have positively influenced others, helped resolve disputes or contributed to group efforts over time.”

Thirty-six hours to plan a triathlon with minimal course congestion and road closure time, write a 30-33 page solution to this problem, and address a two-page letter to the “mayor” summarizing our solution. This was our assigned task as part of the 2016 annual High School Mathematical Contest in Modeling.

This hypothetical triathlon was set to host around 2000 participants, all ranging in skill level. Further, the local roads surrounding the triathlon could only be closed for a maximum of 5.5 hours. Confronting this information, Daisy, Ellen, Megan, and I sat, perplexed. How could we prevent the less experienced competitors from potentially slowing down their faster counterparts? Allowing the less experienced competitors to start last wouldn’t work, we figured, as this would probably close the roads for too long.

After some thought, I figured that initially separating the participants by lanes and implementing a wave-start system would be the best way to go. If those faster competitors were separated from those slower at first, then they would be able to get ahead before the lanes eventually merged – preventing any participants from potentially hindering others’ progress.

While we celebrated having finally figured out an answer to the question, there was a lot of work to go. To me, it seemed reasonable that everyone do the work best suited to their strengths. My teammates agreed. After some deliberation, it was settled: I would complete the bulk of the writing, Ellen and Megan the math, and Daisy the graph and map-making. A mere 30-ish hours later, we were finished.

After a few read-throughs of the finished products, admiration of each other’s work, and an agreement that all looked good, we sent in the completed project. For our work, we were honored with “Meritorious” in the contest, the third-highest possible honor in the competition. Exchanging texts, Daisy, Ellen, Megan, and I took pride in such an honor. The project had not only given me practical knowledge on how to organize a triathlon, but also taught me leadership and teamwork skills that I hope to use in my future endeavors – hypothetical or not. (Word count: 349 words)

Expert analysis from an admissions professional:

While the person at UC who reads this might know about this particular mathematical contest, it is definitely wise to assume they know nothing.  It was super helpful that the writer chose to give some background about what exactly they were tasked to do.  Readers will glean many things in an application relative to a student’s leadership skills.  While leadership skills are certainly quite desirable to admission officers, one reason this personal insight response is particularly… well… insightful (!!), is because it speaks to how the person performs as part of a team. – Bill Jack

“Every person has a creative side, and it can be expressed in many ways: problem solving, original and innovative thinking, and artistically, to name a few. Describe how you express your creative side.”

A beautiful road, the darkness of the tall trees contrasting the bright orange, pink, and purples hues up above. These are the types of pictures I love on Instagram: beautiful scenes of nature, typically including trees. I am always delighted to see them on my screen, but rarely, if ever, do I get to see such scenes in real life. 

Such photos inspired me to try painting a similar landscape this past summer to capture the scenes I love so much. I decided to use acrylic paints throughout, from the mesmerizing sky, to the trees themselves. It turned out that this wasn’t the best idea; acrylics dry too quickly to be spread across a large area, which made it incredibly difficult to paint the vast, all-encompassing sky. Before moving on, I considered what to do next: keep trudging on, or start anew? 

Eventually, I added some water to the paint, unknowingly thinking that it would help the paint spread more easily. This did not help, and the painting turned out looking like a number of navy green blobs in front of another, pinker blob, rather than green fir trees in front of a beautiful evening sky. 

Despite this setback, I persevered and tried again. I used watercolors and smaller brushes instead, hoping to make the tree branches more distinct. The sky initially turned out better, with the colors mixing more easily this time. However, I hadn’t waited long enough to paint the trees. The dark green of the leaves had mixed with the hues of the far brighter sky, again making the trees nearly indiscernible.

Problem solving is a key part of doing something new. My lack of experience with painting forced me to put careful thought into what I was going to do next, teaching me that I should put more time into what I do, rather than rushing to finish as soon as possible. I hope that whatever comes next, whether it be painting another landscape or preparing for a marathon, is done with the same care and thought that I put into painting those exquisite fir trees. (Word count: 350 words)

Responses that can paint a picture allow the person reading the application to dive into the world of the student.  In this case, painting a picture is literally what is happening!  Using such good adjectives really does a great job describing why they started with acrylics and why they ended with watercolors.  Although the purpose of this response is to showcase the student’s creativity, it is neat how this response also happens to allow the reader to tap into their own creativity, too, because they are invited to imagine what the finished painting might look like. – Bill Jack

“What would you say is your greatest talent or skill? How have you developed and demonstrated that talent over time?”

Whether a love song by Taylor Swift or a story about George Orwell’s totalitarian Oceania, I have always enjoyed being completely absorbed in a story. Wanting to recreate this same feeling for others, at nine years old, I attempted to write a story about a little girl who had gotten lost in the woods. I only got a few pages through. However, my next protagonist, Phil the pig, would see some longevity. Whenever I was assigned a creative writing assignment in school, he was always at the forefront, angry. In my 8th grade science class, Phil was mad at some humans who had harbored his friend captive, and in my 9th grade English class, at a couple who robbed him. 

Thus, when I heard about a writing club being opened at my high school, I decided to join to see if my interest had survived. Luckily, it did. The club not only reaffirmed my passion for writing, but introduced me to new means of expression as well. From then on, I started to expand into different types of writing, putting it all down in a journal.

Around the same time, I developed an interest in classic literature. A project in English class had required us to read a classic on our own, then present it to the class in an interesting way. While my book was unique in its own right, nearly everyone else’s novels seemed more captivating to me. So, I took it upon myself to read as many classics as I could the following summer.

One of the books I read during the summer, funnily enough, was Animal Farm, which starred angry pigs, reminiscent of Phil. I had also started going over different ideas in my head, thinking about how I could translate them into words using the new skills I learned. While the club helped reaffirm my interest in writing and develop my abilities, my newfound affinity for classics gave me inspiration to write. Now, I am actually considering writing being part of my future, and hope that Phil will accompany me every step of the way. (Word count: 350 words)

Near the end, we learn that writing is likely to be part of the student’s future.  This is great to learn.  Too often admission officers might not know how a student’s current pursuits relate to their goals.  We learn here about Phil the pig, we learn about their interest in classic literature, and we learn why they joined the writing club.  We are taken on a journey that tells us how writing–and reading–has been part of their life, including how it has evolved and developed over the years. – Bill Jack

“Describe how you have taken advantage of a significant educational opportunity or worked to overcome an educational barrier you have faced.”

Nineteen ninety-nine marked the year my mom moved to the U.S. from South Korea. Stepping off the plane, my mom’s English level was impressive for someone who had never stepped foot outside her native country. Her English speaking skills were quite proficient, and she understood the language with ease. However, having aspirations of becoming a teacher in this new country, she knew she had to brush up on her English. Quick.

To accomplish this goal, my parents decided to speak English at home. Days and years of discussing shows, events, and daily tasks in English were a great source of practice. As my brother and I got older and saw improvements in our English, she did too. All was good.

That was until I realized I didn’t really “know” Korean. Besides the familial terms I used for my obba (older brother) and omma (mom) and a number of other food-related and random words, I was largely clueless. So, I decided it would be nice to be able to speak the native language of, not only my mom, but her entire side of the family.

As my high school didn’t offer Korean language classes, I figured that self-studying would be the best course of action. I did some research online and found an elementary-level Korean workbook. After outlining a quick “study plan,” the following summer was filled with hours of working in my Korean workbook. My mom helped, reading over my completed pages, alerting me to any mistakes I made, and setting me on the right path. 

Around the end of the summer, I was able to form simple sentences and even somewhat communicate with my Korean relatives. Self-studying also had its perks: I learned how to manage my time and motivate myself to study, something that might’ve surprised the former procrastinator in me. My mom was pleasantly surprised too, embracing her role as the teacher and I, the student. As I move into this next part of my life, I hope to continue following in her footsteps, using the new skills – Korean and otherwise – I learned that dear summer. (Word count: 350 words)

This response covers so much ground!  We learn about the student’s family background, about the family’s transition to the United States, and the student’s desire to connect deeper with their Korean culture.  We also learn about personal traits such as motivation, perseverance, and determination.  Often in college students will want to explore a subject further than the curriculum allows, and this response speaks loudly about what the student will do when faced with that barrier.  And that we got to learn a couple of Korean words is just a cherry on top! – Bill Jack

“Describe the most significant challenge you have faced and the steps you have taken to overcome this challenge. How has this challenge affected your academic achievement?”

New city, new school, new home — a lot of new things came into my life during my seventh grade year. It wasn’t easy getting used to so many changes, and the circumstances surrounding those changes were tough to wrap my head around. 

To give you some context, my dad was a carpenter and a year earlier he had fallen off a roof on one of his job sites. He severely injured his back, became unable to work, and our family fell into a tough financial situation as a result. Our house in Asheville met foreclosure and the only option was to move to Winston-Salem. Fortunately, my parents owned a second home there. The situation could have been much worse, looking back on it, but that didn’t change the fact that my life in Asheville had been uprooted.

In what seemed like the blink of an eye, all my friends were gone, and I was sitting among complete strangers at the lunch table. I was also navigating some unfamiliar cultural territory, being one of the few white students at a school that was largely black and Latino. I was completely out of my element, but looking back on it, it’s probably one of the best things that ever happened to me. 

During my first year in Winston-Salem, I was pushed out of my comfort zone in a way that I had never experienced before. To make new friends, I made a conscious effort to be more outgoing. I connected with my classmates, making jokes and striking up conversations. Eventually I formed some strong friendships, several of which I maintain to this day. On top of that, my new friends were a diverse bunch — black, white, Mexican, male, female — and as a result I gained a different cultural perspective that shaped the way I view the world today. 

The whole experience showed me that change brings discomfort, but it can also bring positive growth. I wouldn’t have become the person I am today if I had never left Asheville. I probably wouldn’t have been as open-minded, and I definitely wouldn’t have been as good at adjusting to new situations. As I prepare for my first year of college, I look forward to embracing all the changes that will come along with it. (Word count: 380 words)

The last sentence of this response really encapsulates why what we learn is relevant to the college search.  For people who work in education, we know all too well how lunchroom dynamics really do have a large impact on a high school student’s life.  As we learn, the student was uprooted, had to make new friends, and absolutely was not in their comfort zone.  Let’s face it: that’s your first semester of college.  Seeing that the student has had success already transitioning into an unfamiliar environment bodes very well for how their transition to college will be. -Bill Jack

“Think about an academic subject that inspires you. Describe how you have furthered this interest inside and/or outside of the classroom.”

I’ve always been fascinated by people. So has my dad. Not in a weird way, but rather in an isn’t-it-interesting-why-people-act-the-way-they-do way. Over the years, this has led to hours of discussing how the environment one grows up in, and a number of other factors, contribute to one’s general disposition. Perhaps expectedly, these talks led me to develop an interest in psychology.

However, they were not my only early exposure to the field. For as long as I can remember, I have tuned in to watch Criminal Minds on CBS at 9 p.m. every Wednesday. Particularly fascinating to me has been how J.J., Morgan, Reid, and the rest of the crew are able to use insights from psychology to create largely accurate assessments about suspects based on evidence alone.

Having gotten a little older, I now realize that this process is called “profiling” and that it shares similarities with abnormal psychology. Wanting to dive deeper and learn more about the subject, I was led to Dr. Roxane Gold’s psychology lab at the University of California, Irvine, the summer after my junior year.

Arriving at the lab, I was assigned to a project wherein participants were exposed to surprising or potentially stressful events through videos or pictures, all while their slight movements were tracked. As a research assistant, I was responsible for the movement data, tracking the peaks which signified surprise on behalf of participants. It was surprising to learn how repeated exposure to shocking or stressful media, even images, could have enduring negative impacts on people.

Such an experience certainly taught me a lot about the realities of conducting psychological research. The results, unlike the discussions with my dad, were not always so lighthearted. However, I hope to eventually use this experience to produce something more positive. If possible, I want to one day apply the knowledge I gained to my own research, to discover methods to help the people suffering from the psychological problems I study. As learning about psychology has brought me much joy, I hope to use it to do the same for others. (Word count: 348 words)

Citing television shows or movies can be risky because the reader might not be familiar.  (Criminal Minds is an awesome show, by the way!)  One reason this response works well is because it is not merely a report about the show.  It is not merely why the student likes watching it.  Instead they explain the show’s influence on their life: they have taken the initiative to be a research assistant already and they want to pursue their own psychology research.  And it is great to learn about their future plans: to bring joy to folks who might be suffering. – Bill Jack

“What have you done to make your school or your community a better place?”

Smiling faces, cheerful conversation, upbeat music – this was the scene surrounding me on that early April afternoon at Corpening Plaza in downtown Winston-Salem. I surveyed the bustling plaza, observing the many food truck vendors, musicians, and small business owners who had come together to celebrate Everyone Matters Day. I smiled to myself, knowing that it was the result of months of hard work.

But let’s rewind. Planning for the event was initiated almost five months earlier by the Winston-Salem Youth Advisory Council, a group in which I was involved for most of my high school career. Also known as YAC, the council is a space for high school students to actively engage the community in partnership with the city government. Throughout my three years on the council, I helped organize several community projects. One year we delivered school supplies and clothes to homeless children, and another year we filmed some commercials speaking out against bullying. 

But for several reasons, the downtown festival celebrating Everyone Matters Day is the project that I cherish the most. For one, I felt the project was especially timely. The idea for the festival spawned in late 2015, during a time when racial tensions in the U.S. were soaring. The council and I wanted to do something that would bring the city together and uplift residents in a positive way. We had caught wind of a recently established holiday called Everyone Matters Day — a day in which people around the world acknowledge everyone’s right to be who they are — and decided to host an event in honor of the day. 

The project was also particularly important to me because it was the one in which I was most involved. This was my third year on the council, and by this point I had taken on more of a leadership role. There was a lot of work that went into making the event a success, and I helped take the lead in the planning process. We needed a venue, volunteers, food truck vendors, live music, and the support of small business owners. It was a lot of hard work, but it paid off when April 2 finally rolled around, and our vision became a reality. For a couple hours, our festival brought joy and positivity into the lives of others, making those months of planning absolutely worth it. (Word count: 392 words)

Often the reader does not learn in great detail about what the student’s outside-of-school activities actually entail.  After all, the college counselor and the teachers might not mention these activities in their letters of recommendation.  So if given the opportunity to tell the reader about one of these activities, please do.  You almost certainly will end up sharing something that cannot be gleaned from other parts of the application, and as we learn here, the Youth Advisory Council clearly is an important part of the student’s life. – Bill Jack

“Beyond what has already been shared in your application, what do you believe makes you stand out as a strong candidate for admissions to the University of California?”

Many families have traditions. These range from those more common, like opening up Christmas presents at a specific time each year, to those more unusual – like choosing to ring in the holidays with the consumption of fruitcake. Probably amongst the nerdiest of such traditions, however, is what my family has done every Monday through Friday for as long as I can remember: tune in to watch Jeopardy.

Like a long-time friend, Jeopardy is something that has been by my side since childhood. Thus, tuning in and seeing Alex Trebek’s familiar face quiz contestants on a variety of random subjects is something that has brought me comfort throughout the years, even if I couldn’t always answer many of the questions. As a child, besides during the annual “Kids Week” tournament for those between the ages of 10 and 12, I was often clueless. The rest of my family would typically perform better, having more years of experience and knowledge under their hypothetical belts.

Being a young child, though, I didn’t take my mistakes or lack of knowledge so trivially. After all, how could a 12-year-old be unfamiliar with Harry Truman’s 1948 campaign song? I wasn’t sure, but I did know that I wanted to prove myself. 

So, from then on, I decided to take the pursuit of knowledge more seriously. Rather than learning just to test, I would try to retain the information I learned, putting it in context and understanding its importance. As the years went on, this strategy proved successful – to an extent. I still never quite excelled at the geography questions, but I was certainly able to answer more across the board. 

Today, while I still might not be able to answer every question about Shakespeare out there, Jeopardy has given me something that will likely outlast my retention of any trivia answer: a thirst for knowledge. As I move into this next chapter of my life, I plan to bring this useful tool with me, helping me better understand and appreciate what’s come before me, and what will come after. 

Thanks, Alex! (Word count: 345 words)

This response may not be a tribute to Alex Trebek in the traditional sense, but it certainly demonstrates the power of the show: developing a thirst for knowledge.  Many college and university mottos include “knowledge,” “learn,” or similar words.  As such, it is probably no surprise that an admission officer might be particularly drawn to a student like this because they seem to like learning for learning’s sake.  Clearly this student will be at college to make the most of what they are taught: not just to memorize facts but also to retain what they learn. -Bill Jack

A few last tips

We hope these essay examples gave you a bit of inspiration of what to include in your own. However, before you go, we’d like to send you off with a few (personal insight) writing tips to help you make your essays as lovely as the memories and anecdotes they’re based off of. Without further ado, here are some of our best tips for writing your personal statements:

1. Open strong

College admissions officers read many, many essays (think 50+) a day, which can sometimes cause them to start blending together and sounding alike. One way to avoid your essay from simply fading into the background is to start strong. This means opening your essay with something memorable. Whether an interesting personal anecdote, a descriptive setting, or anything else that you think would catch a reader’s attention (so long as it’s not inappropriate), make sure to “hook” your reader in. Not only might this help college admissions officers better remember your essay, but it will also make them curious about what the rest of your essay will entail.

2. Be authentic

Perhaps most important when it comes to writing personal statement essays is to maintain your authenticity. Your essays should ultimately reflect your unique stories and quirks that make you who you are. Most of all, though, they should help college admissions officers determine whether you’d truly be a good fit for their school or not. So, don’t stress trying to figure out what colleges are looking for. Be yourself, and let the colleges come to you!

3. Strong writing

This one may seem a little obvious, but strong writing will certainly appeal to colleges. Not only will it make your essay more compelling, but it may show colleges that you’re ready for college-level essay writing (that you’ll likely have to do a lot of). Just remember that good writing is not limited to grammar. Using captivating detail and descriptions are a huge part of making your essay seem more like a story than a lecture.

4. Proofread

Last but not least, remember to proofread! Make sure your essay contains no errors in grammar, punctuation, and spelling. When you’re done proofreading your essay yourself, we would also recommend that you ask a teacher, parent, or other grammatically savvy person to proofread your essay as well.

Final thoughts 

With those in hand, we hope you now have a better sense of how to answer the UC personal insight questions. While your grades and test scores are important when it comes to college admissions, it’s really your essays that can “make” or “break” your application. 

Although this may make it seem like a daunting task, writing an amazing personal insight essay is all about effort. So long as you start early, follow the advice listed above, and dedicate your time and effort to it, it’s entirely possible to write an essay that perfectly encapsulates you. Good luck, and happy writing!

Additional resources

If you’re filling out the UC personal insight questions, you are probably in the thick of your college applications. Luckily, we’ve got a host of resources to help you through the process! Check out our guides on writing a 250 word essay and a 500 word essay . We also have a guide to respond to the Common App prompts , as well as a list of California scholarships to pursue.

And even if you are set on a UC school, remember to apply to a wide range of schools. We can help you choose a school and find a financial safety school as well. Finally, to help you fund your education, check out our free scholarship search tool . It will custom-match you to vetted scholarships and automatically update as opportunities close and new ones open. Good luck!

Frequently asked questions about how to answer the UC Personal Insight Questions 

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• Feb 16, 2022

Guide to UC Personal Insight Question #4: Greatest Educational Opportunity/Barrier

Welcome to Thinque Prep's series on the UC Personal Insight Question responses. You can access other posts in the series at the following links...

10 Top Tips for Your Best UC Personal Insight Question Responses

Guide to UC PIQ #1: Leadership Experience

Guide to UC PIQ #2: Creativity

Guide to UC PIQ #3: Greatest Talent

Guide to UC PIQ #5: Greatest Challenge

Guide to UC PIQ #6: Favorite Academic Subject

Guide to UC PIQ #7: Community Service

Guide to UC PIQ #8: Free Response

This post will focus on the fourth Personal Insight Question option, which is concerned with educational opportunities/barriers.

Question Breakdown

Here's the text of PIQ #4 , straight from UC's website :

Describe how you have taken advantage of a significant educational opportunity or worked to overcome an educational barrier you have faced.

Let's establish one fundamental thing: this prompt asks that you write about an education opportunity OR barrier - not both! So you've got to make a choice. Before doing so, let me define what this PIQ's important terms even mean.

UC defines an "educational opportunity" as "anything that has added value to your educational experience and better prepared you for college." They provide a few examples: "honors or enrichment program[s], enrollment in an academy that's geared toward an occupation or major, or taking advanced courses that interest you."

I know I always benefit from a little more specificity, so let me provide a few more concrete examples of what an educational opportunity might look like:

A summer science program during which you created a research project in molecular biology

An internship with a state legislator that allowed you to pursue your interests in political science/law

Dual enrollment at a community college so you can take more advanced math courses than what's offered at your high school

To be honest, writing about an educational opportunity for PIQ #4 is easier if you already feel confident about your choice of major. This is because you can really demonstrate your interest in and dedication to your intended area of study. Of course, you can still write a good opportunity essay if you're undeclared, but if you're sure about your major and you have a suitable opportunity in mind, responding to this PIQ is a great choice.

Before getting into more detail about the educational opportunity option, let me first clarify this prompt's second part: the option to write about an "educational barrier." In their Guide for Freshman Applicants worksheet UC defines educational barriers as "any barriers or challenges related to school and/or your schoolwork." In other words, an educational barrier is something that interfered with your learning and performance at school.

Here's a list of examples that would qualify as educational barriers:

Your school didn't offer a particular AP you wanted to take

You had to take ESL classes before or alongside taking regular courses

You struggled with a learning difference like ADD, ADHD, or dyslexia

You had to care for your younger siblings over the summer, so you couldn't take part in a particular summer enrichment program you were interested in

That list is NOT exhaustive; even if none of the above apply to you, you can definitely still write a strong barrier essay. However, a couple of topics I notably excluded from the list are failing an exam and/or not doing well in a particular class because you didn't do your homework, ditched classes, zoned out during lectures, etc. Think of educational barriers as things that were outside of your control, not a result of your own behaviors.

What does have to do with your behavior is the way you overcame the barrier you encountered. If you choose to write about an educational barrier for this PIQ, its focus should be how you faced the problem and what you learned in the process.

Questions to Consider

If you choose to write about an educational opportunity, your response should address these essential questions:

What was the opportunity?

What did the opportunity allow you to do (IN DETAIL)?

How did you seize this opportunity to the fullest?

What did you learn?

How have you already applied what you learned?

How can you apply what you learned in the future?

*#6 is optional. Describing how you can apply what you learned in your academic/professional future is certainly on-topic, but I wouldn't say it's strictly necessary.

If you choose to write about an educational barrier, your response should address these essential questions:

What was the barrier?

What challenge did it present to your learning and/or performance at school?

What did you do about it?

What kinds of skills did you use or develop in the process?

What was the outcome?

How can you apply what you learned from this experience in the future?

Whether you choose to write about an opportunity or a barrier, I suggest you simply copy/paste the 6 questions appropriate to your topic in a document and start answering all of them with some brief sentences and/or bullet points. Don't rush. Don't be anxious about getting wording or structure "perfect." Be thoughtful. Take time for reflection.

Once you've thoroughly answered the questions above, you will have formed a solid rough draft. Just keep coming back to your writing, adding more detail, cutting material that might have gone a little off-topic, organizing your writing into paragraphs, and polishing your spelling and grammar.

My other suggestion? Ask someone to read your writing. Give them the 6 questions above and ask how thoroughly you answered each of them. Also consider showing them the thesis you came up with and asking them how well they think you stayed true to it throughout the essay. Friends and family can be excellent readers. You should also consider having a professional writing coach check out your work. Thinque Prep's college counseling and essay help services can help you out at any step in the essay-writing process, from brainstorming to your final draft.

Example PIQ #4 Response

Finally, let's check out a real example response to PIQ #4 .

Despite facing some initial prejudices, being a girl in the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) program has significantly built me up. Growing up as a Girl Scout, I was frustrated with the differences in programs offered to the boys and girls; I longed for the chance to get my hands dirty and participate in typically "masculine" activities. When I learned that BSA was accepting female members for the first time in history, I immediately joined.

However, excitement quickly turned to intimidation as the large group of all boys flaunted long lists of scouting achievements. I had no Boy Scout awards or badges to prove my worth as a girl in a traditionally boys' program; I stuck out like a sore thumb. At that moment, I decided that I would not try to blend in. I will always be the different one in the group due to my gender, and I will emphasize my differences by showing them that a girl can do all that they do and better.

I set my eyes on the Thomas Edison Award, the highest and rarest STEM award for Boy Scouts. Over the course of one year, I did all I could to be considered for the award. I completed Supernova-approved merit badges, worked on two STEM projects on the eruption patterns of the Old Faithful Geyser and on the science of movie-making, and entered in a regional science fair with a demonstration of the relationship between the width of planes and their gliding time. Afterwards, I organized a Space Exploration day for cub scouts and researched G5 technology, presenting my hypothesis on how it might further affect our society.

I loved the combination of STEM and outdoor work that Boy Scouts offered, completely immersing myself in these offerings. My hard work finally paid off, and I was honored to receive the award in 2020! Besides proving that I was just as capable as the boys, my journey taught me that opportunities will present themselves to those who seek them, and that I have a life-long responsibility to develop myself and learn all I can.

Ready to get more in-depth with the next question? Check out Guide to UC Personal Insight Question #5: Greatest Challenge for more insight on how to make your UC application essays shine.

Nina Calabretta is a college English instructor, tutor, and writer native to Orange County, CA. When she’s not writing or helping students improve their skills as readers, writers, and critical thinkers, she can be found hiking the local trails with friends and family or curled up with a good book and her cat, Betsy. She has been part of the ThinquePrep team since 2018.

With offices located in beautiful Orange County, ThinquePrep specializes in the personalized mentorship of students and their families through the entire college preparation process and beyond. With many recent changes to college admissions - standardized tests, financial aid, varied admissions processes - the educational landscape has never been more competitive or confusing. We’re here from the first summer program to the last college acceptance letter. It’s never too early to start thinking about your student’s future, so schedule your complimentary consultation today!

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[This article is part of a new series where we will be dissecting each of the UC essay prompts in depth, providing examples and tips on how you can make your application stand out.]

Click here to read yesterday’s post about UC Prompt #3.

Prompt #4: Describe how you have taken advantage of a significant educational opportunity or worked to overcome an educational barrier you have faced.

Struggling with writing your college application essay?

Read our Ultimate Guide to Stand Out College Essays to learn the tips and techniques on writing a winning essay and maximize your college admission chances!  

As UC admissions officers have stated, you only have to answer either the education opportunity or the education barrier part of the prompt; it’s completely okay if you’ve experienced on and not the other.

Educational Opportunity

So what exactly counts as a “significant educational opportunity?” A good way to start brainstorming is to write down all the moments in your life where you can vividly remember learning something meaningful or feeling intellectually stimulated. Ideally, this would be a learning experience that can be related to your field of study, but it could also just be an experience that changed how you view the world.

The trap many fall into with this prompt is simply being too boring. Far too many essays begin with some variant of “AP Literature was my favorite class in junior year, because I love reading a variety of books…”

Instead, you need to focus on showing your love of a certain class or subject rather than telling. What this means is maybe you start by describing how you feel when you’re lost in a specific book that you read in that class, or you draw parallels between a certain plot and your own life. Then you have room to expand into your love of the overall topic and be more general. The latter half of this essay should be about how this educational experience has impacted your life and how you want to approach the future.

How to structure this essay:

Start with a descriptive anecdote that shows your love of an educational moment

Connect this educational experience to how you are as a person

Wrap up by explaining how you can apply what you’ve learned to the future

Educational Barrier

The barrier prompt is much more open to interpretation, because the challenges that we face in life vary so dramatically. Essentially, they’re looking for you to write about any obstacles you’ve faced while learning what you love, and more importantly, how you overcame them. Your challenges could range from something as small as a single problem that you just could not figure out to something more ongoing like a family circumstance that inhibits your learning.

Describe the problem. Ideally in a descriptive way that makes the reader feel your emotions

Explain your thought process as you began to deal with this issue

Describe how you ended up figuring it out

Reflect on what you learned in the process and how you’ll apply it to the future

The bottom line is, whichever part of the prompt you choose to write about, UCs want to know what you took away from each of these experiences.

If you found this article helpful, check out the rest of our series on UC Prompts below!

UC Essay Prompts Explained Writing UC Prompt 1 Tips: Leadership Experience Writing UC Prompt 2 Tips: Your Creative Side Writing UC Prompt 3 Tips:  Greatest Talent Writing UC Prompt 4 Tips:  Educational Experiences Writing UC Prompt 5 Tips:  Significant Challenge Writing UC Prompt 6 Tips:  Favorite Subject Writing UC Prompt 7 Tips:  Improving your Community Writing UC Prompt 8 Tips:  How do you Stand Out?

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UC Prompt #4: Embracing Opportunities, Overcoming Barriers

• October 7, 2023
• College Essays

UC prompt #4: Describe how you have taken advantage of a significant educational opportunity or worked to overcome an educational barrier you have faced.

This one is a double prompt, so choose your own adventure. You could write about your favorite honors course, a special trip you took, an after-school activity, or anything else that shaped you into the student you are today. On the other hand, you could write about a time you had to dig deep to achieve success despite the odds. Either path is fine.

But it might be worth considering why the UCs are inviting you to address this prompt in the first place. Think about it from their point of view: to offer someone admission to the best public university system in the country is a pretty significant educational opportunity, right? If they sense that you are someone who can take full advantage of their courses, programs, and resources, they’re more likely to let you in.

On the flip slide, first-year college students can face any number of challenges: new expectations, difficult courses, the exciting but also grueling process of choosing a different major. These universities want to know that you have what it takes to persevere in tough situations.

Here are a few tips to make your UC Essay Prompt #4 stand out:

• If you write about an educational opportunity, be sincere. An essay that truly communicates what the opportunity meant to you will be stronger than one that simply mentions an honors course or a school trip without much reflection.
• If you write about an educational barrier, don’t forget the part about overcoming that barrier—or at least your effort to do so. What aspects of your character did you draw on? What did you learn? How? Make sure to be specific.
• As always, try not to repeat material from your other UC essays.
• Remember your audience. These colleges want to know about the experiences that shaped you into the student you are today—and also the student you might become once you step foot on their campus.

UC Essay Prompt 4: Educational Experiences

by j9robinson | Apr 30, 2016

University of California Personal Insight Question 4: A Chance to Showcase Your Field of Interest

(For those of you just starting the UC application for 2016-17, incoming freshman pick four essays—each under 350 words—out of eight all-new prompts, known as Personal Insight Questions . I’m writing separate posts on ideas about how to write about all eight of them.)

If you know what you want to study in college, I would seriously consider writing about UC essay prompt 4.

It’s your chance to show the University of California that you already know something about this field and were serious enough to learn about it.

They love seeing students who already have some idea of what they want to pursue in college.

If you are uncertain about your future major, you can certainly write about this prompt, too.

Personal Insight Question 4:

Describe how you have taken advantage of a significant educational opportunity or worked to overcome an educational barrier you have faced.

The new University of California essay prompt 4, also known as Personal Insight Question 4, contains two different but related topics.

One asks about an educational opportunity and the other about an educational barrier.

Pick one to write about.

From UC Admissions: “Feel free to speak about either an opportunity or a barrier. It’s OK if you’ve experienced one and not the other.”

Both topics want to know about an experience related to your education so far, which can be your school work, or anything related to academics.

My personal opinion is that writing about the educational barrier would produce a more interesting essay since it will have a storyline.

A “barrier” (obstacle) is a form of a problem, and when you write about a problem , things automatically get more interesting.

“A Significant Educational Opportunity” for UC Essay Prompt 4

Start by trying to recall an interesting experience related to academics where you learned something meaningful.

If this experience, and what you learned from it, ties to what you plan to study in college, or the field that interests you at this point, all the better.

It also could simply be an experience that had a meaningful impact on how you see the world.

The most important factor is what you learned from it.

The main pitfall to watch out for with this prompt is writing something super boring.

The best way to nail this prompt is to think of it in two parts.

First, describe the opportunity. Even better, try to think of something specific that happened that involved this experience to start your essay and give it interest.

You don’t want to start something like, “During junior year, I took AP chemistry and really loved it. I liked all the experiments in the lab and … ”

That’s too broad and generic. Sheer dullsville.

Instead, start with one specific experiment or challenge that you participated in, and then go into the overall course and why you liked it.

The second part of this essay needs to go on to explain what you learned from that experience, and briefly how you will use what you learned in the future.

SAMPLE OUTLINE FOR UC ESSAY PROMPT 4

• Describe the educational experience. If possible, start with something specific that happened , then go onto to explain the background of this opportunity. (A paragraph or two.)
• Explain what you learned from this experience. End by sharing how you plan to use what you learned in your future college and career goals. (A paragraph or two.)

Here are the extra suggestions that the UC admissions provided along with this part of UC essay prompt 4:

An educational opportunity can be anything that has added value to your educational experience and better prepared you for college. For example, participation in an honors or academic enrichment program, or enrollment in an academy that’s geared toward an occupation or a major, or taking advanced courses that interest you — just to name a few.

This is from the freshman guide from the UC admissions to help you brainstorm UC Prompt 4:

Educational opportunities: List any programs or additional classes that have better prepared you for college:

How did you find out about these programs or classes?

How did you take what you learned and apply it to your schoolwork or other aspects of your life?

An “Educational Barrier” in UC Essay Prompt 4

Here’s how I would start to brainstorm ideas to write about an educational barrier:

Think of a time in school, or during any school-related activity, where you faced some type of problem.

Again, it’s optimal if you can write about one of your main areas of interest, although it’s not necessary.

Remember, problems come in many forms, such as a challenge, an obstacle, a mistake, a personal hang-up, flaw or phobia, a change, a set-back.

Don’t get hung up on the word “barrier.” Just replace that with “problem,” and you will be on the right track.

The reason they want you to share a time you faced an education-related problem is that you can then elaborate on how you dealt with it and what you learned.

• Start by describing the problem. If possible, share a specific example of the problem, and then background it. (A paragraph or two.)
• Explain how you handled it, what personal quality you used or developed in the process, and what you learned in the process. End with how you plan to use what you learned in the future. (A paragraph or two.)

Here’s the additional questions the UC admissions folks included with this UC essay prompt 4:

If you choose to write about educational barriers you’ve faced, how did you overcome or strived to overcome them? What personal characteristics or skills did you call on to overcome this challenge? How did overcoming this barrier help shape who are you today?

Here’s the additional brainstorming questions the UC admissions shared in the freshman guide  for UC prompt 4:

Educational barriers: Have you faced any barriers or challenges related to school and/or your schoolwork?

How did you overcome or strive to overcome them?

List three personal characteristics or skills you had to call on to overcome this challenge:

How did overcoming this barrier help shape who are you today?

Some Red Flags

I must warn you that I believe there are a lot of potential cliche or overdone topics that students would write about for this topic, such as times they flunked a test or got a terrible grade.

Like all topics, what counts the most is what you have to say about your experience. So focus on what you learned about yourself, others and the world—even if what happened wasn’t the most unique experience.

Writing about UC essay prompt 4 is your best chance to showcase your main academic interest, such as computer science, history, business, fashion, art, engineering, etc.

So spend time thinking about any and all past experiences you have had that related to your interest, including ones that inspired you or helped your understand it better or improve your skills at it.

Write it up and chances are it will be a strong piece for your set of four essays (Personal Insight Questions) for the UC application.

Check out these 21 Tips for UC Personal Insight Questions to help you think about how to write four essays that complement each other and together form a “personal statement” that helps set you apart from other students.

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34 Comments

Hi! Is a Carnegie course considered a educational opportunity?

Hi! Is Carnegie course considered an educational opportunity?

Yes, I would think so. JR

Hello, does an internship count as an educational opportunity?

Hi Sabrina,

Yes! If you can learn from the opportunity, it can be considered educational. Good luck! Janine

Would talking about having an opportunity at education at all be considered an educational opportunity? I am from a whole different country where women are oppressed and do not have the opportunity to an education, (gender and women’s studies is my major btw) but I am afraid this isn’t specific enough?

For the educational barrier question can I write about how I’m not good at science and describe the courses I took and how I struggled to get by but also show that I didn’t give up and that I ended up taking an AP science course?

Would medical camps count as an educational opportunity? I primarily shadowed doctors, but a lot of the doctors sat down and explained a lot about anatomy and other things.

In general, I think that any experience where you learned something, especially in a deliberate fashion, could be considered educational. JR

Hi, is mathematics module considered as an educational opportunity?

Math module in my college is a series of practice exercises that allows students to re-take placement exam.

I finished the module and took a placement exam that earned me the highest possible placement in the class. ( I skipped 3 classes as a result)

Hi, I was just wondering if what I was thinking of writing about was a good idea. My freshman year I went to a National Student Leader Conference (NSLC) for Engineering at Berkeley and that’s what made me fall in love with the idea of doing that as my major. Is the fact that it was at a certain UC school too specific i.e. will it turn away other UC schools? Obviously my focus isn’t on the fact that it was at Berkeley, but I just want to make sure I’m not inadvertently making a mistake.

Is Internship an educational opportunity? Thank you.

Would being rescinded from a school before going to community college be considered an educational barrier?

Would visiting another school not in the UC system be considered an educational opportunity?

I don’t think that’s what they have in mind; unless you attended some type of internship or educational program there. Good luck. JR

Hi! Would having an intimidating math teacher and struggling in that subject be an educational barrier?

I am in the Medical Academy and we get to do experiments and learn about different careers. I also got to shadow a nutritionist at a hospital for a day through the academy. Should I talk about how the academy allowed me to shadow her, even if I don’t want to major in nutrition? (I wasn’t able to choose who I wanted to shadow)

Is moving to US from a different country to attend high school considered an educational experience?

Would attending a college-prep school be an educational opportunity?

Would volunteering in community service be considered an educational opportunity?

Hi May, Yes, I believe it would be if you learned something. That’s how I define an “educational opportunity”–as an activity or experience where you had the chance to learn something, about yourself, others and/or the world. Janine

Hello! I attended a one week camp about learning leadership skills, do you think this would still be considered an “educational opportunity” if it doesn’t directly connect to my field of interest (a biological science)?

Hi Ann, Yes, I think you could write about what you learned at this camp as an “educational opportunity.” I would make sure to make what you write highly personal and share what you learned. You could also use this for UC Prompt 1, I would think. I don’t believe these prompts all need to directly link to your field of interest, although that’s optimal if you can swing it. Good luck! Janine

Hi Is summer session in duke university considered an educational experience?

hello, is writing about getting a job considered educational experience?

Hi, does taking college courses at a local college while in high school count?

Is a dual enrollment course an educational experience?

I would think so.

I believe so. If you learned something from an experience, it’s educational.

Hello, is a diagnosed illness considered an educational barrier if it affected my academics as well

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What I’ve Learned From My Students’ College Essays

The genre is often maligned for being formulaic and melodramatic, but it’s more important than you think.

By Nell Freudenberger

Most high school seniors approach the college essay with dread. Either their upbringing hasn’t supplied them with several hundred words of adversity, or worse, they’re afraid that packaging the genuine trauma they’ve experienced is the only way to secure their future. The college counselor at the Brooklyn high school where I’m a writing tutor advises against trauma porn. “Keep it brief , ” she says, “and show how you rose above it.”

I started volunteering in New York City schools in my 20s, before I had kids of my own. At the time, I liked hanging out with teenagers, whom I sometimes had more interesting conversations with than I did my peers. Often I worked with students who spoke English as a second language or who used slang in their writing, and at first I was hung up on grammar. Should I correct any deviation from “standard English” to appeal to some Wizard of Oz behind the curtains of a college admissions office? Or should I encourage students to write the way they speak, in pursuit of an authentic voice, that most elusive of literary qualities?

In fact, I was missing the point. One of many lessons the students have taught me is to let the story dictate the voice of the essay. A few years ago, I worked with a boy who claimed to have nothing to write about. His life had been ordinary, he said; nothing had happened to him. I asked if he wanted to try writing about a family member, his favorite school subject, a summer job? He glanced at his phone, his posture and expression suggesting that he’d rather be anywhere but in front of a computer with me. “Hobbies?” I suggested, without much hope. He gave me a shy glance. “I like to box,” he said.

I’ve had this experience with reluctant writers again and again — when a topic clicks with a student, an essay can unfurl spontaneously. Of course the primary goal of a college essay is to help its author get an education that leads to a career. Changes in testing policies and financial aid have made applying to college more confusing than ever, but essays have remained basically the same. I would argue that they’re much more than an onerous task or rote exercise, and that unlike standardized tests they are infinitely variable and sometimes beautiful. College essays also provide an opportunity to learn precision, clarity and the process of working toward the truth through multiple revisions.

When a topic clicks with a student, an essay can unfurl spontaneously.

Even if writing doesn’t end up being fundamental to their future professions, students learn to choose language carefully and to be suspicious of the first words that come to mind. Especially now, as college students shoulder so much of the country’s ethical responsibility for war with their protest movement, essay writing teaches prospective students an increasingly urgent lesson: that choosing their own words over ready-made phrases is the only reliable way to ensure they’re thinking for themselves.

Teenagers are ideal writers for several reasons. They’re usually free of preconceptions about writing, and they tend not to use self-consciously ‘‘literary’’ language. They’re allergic to hypocrisy and are generally unfiltered: They overshare, ask personal questions and call you out for microaggressions as well as less egregious (but still mortifying) verbal errors, such as referring to weed as ‘‘pot.’’ Most important, they have yet to put down their best stories in a finished form.

I can imagine an essay taking a risk and distinguishing itself formally — a poem or a one-act play — but most kids use a more straightforward model: a hook followed by a narrative built around “small moments” that lead to a concluding lesson or aspiration for the future. I never get tired of working with students on these essays because each one is different, and the short, rigid form sometimes makes an emotional story even more powerful. Before I read Javier Zamora’s wrenching “Solito,” I worked with a student who had been transported by a coyote into the U.S. and was reunited with his mother in the parking lot of a big-box store. I don’t remember whether this essay focused on specific skills or coping mechanisms that he gained from his ordeal. I remember only the bliss of the parent-and-child reunion in that uninspiring setting. If I were making a case to an admissions officer, I would suggest that simply being able to convey that experience demonstrates the kind of resilience that any college should admire.

The essays that have stayed with me over the years don’t follow a pattern. There are some narratives on very predictable topics — living up to the expectations of immigrant parents, or suffering from depression in 2020 — that are moving because of the attention with which the student describes the experience. One girl determined to become an engineer while watching her father build furniture from scraps after work; a boy, grieving for his mother during lockdown, began taking pictures of the sky.

If, as Lorrie Moore said, “a short story is a love affair; a novel is a marriage,” what is a college essay? Every once in a while I sit down next to a student and start reading, and I have to suppress my excitement, because there on the Google Doc in front of me is a real writer’s voice. One of the first students I ever worked with wrote about falling in love with another girl in dance class, the absolute magic of watching her move and the terror in the conflict between her feelings and the instruction of her religious middle school. She made me think that college essays are less like love than limerence: one-sided, obsessive, idiosyncratic but profound, the first draft of the most personal story their writers will ever tell.

Nell Freudenberger’s novel “The Limits” was published by Knopf last month. She volunteers through the PEN America Writers in the Schools program.

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Why Is Education So Important in The Quest for Equality?

Gerald Nelson | April 14, 2022 | Leave a Comment

Image: Pikist

Education is vital. We can all agree on this but where we fall out of the agreement is why exactly education is so necessary for equality. Without education, there can be no progress, no development, and no improvement. 

In today’s world, we are ever more aware of the issues surrounding sexism, racism, and inequality, allowing for a greater understanding of the importance of educating people to avoid these biases occurring in the first place.

What is Educational Equality and why is it necessary? 

Equality isn’t always so simple. Some may assume, for example, that educational equality is as simple as providing children with the same resources. In reality, however, there’s a lot more to it than this. We will check what governments are doing to achieve this goal. What actions they are taking to advance the cause of equality? Education is crucial because it’s a toolkit for success:

• With literacy and numeracy comes confidence, with which comes self-respect. And by having self-respect, you can respect others, their accomplishments, and their cultures.
• Education is the fundamental tool for achieving social, economic, and civil rights – something which all societies strive to achieve.

Educational Inequality is usually defined as the unequal distribution of educational resources among different groups in society. The situation becomes serious when it starts influencing how people live their lives. For example, children will be less likely to go to school if they are not healthy, or educated because other things are more urgent in their life.

Categorical Educational Inequality

Categorical Education Inequality is especially apparent when comparing minority/low-income schools with majority/high-income schools. Are better-off students systematically favored in getting ahead? There are three plausible conditions:

• Higher-income parents can spend more time and money on private tutoring, school trips, and home study materials to give their children better opportunities. Therefore, better-off students have an advantage due to access to better schools, computers, technology, etc. (the so-called opportunity gap).
• Low-income schools lack the resources to educate their students. Therefore their students tend to have worse educational outcomes.
• Although the public school system is a government-funded program to allow all students an equal chance at a good education, this is not the case for most schools across third world countries – see UNESCO statistics below:

How Educational Inequality is fueling global issues

Educational inequality is a major global crisis. It has played a role in economic problems, amplified the political deadlock, exacerbated the environmental predicament, and threatens to worsen the human rights crisis. If equality in education is not addressed directly, these crises will only deepen because: 

• Educational Inequality is also about  race and gender . Those who are less privileged are condemned to poverty and unemployment because of a lack of quality educational resources. 
• Without a sound education, people have  less knowledge  of the world around them or the issues facing their communities. They are less likely to vote or to pay attention to politics. This leaves them vulnerable to manipulation by those who represent narrow interests and promote fear, hatred, and violence. The result is an erosion of democratic values and an increase in authoritarianism.
• Without correction,  human rights abuses  will continue due to a lack of legal representation among those with no or low education levels.
• Poverty, unemployment, crimes, and health issues: A lack of education and skills forces children into poverty because they can’t get jobs or start a business. It also leaves them without hope and is one of the reasons for unemployment, lower life expectancy, malnutrition, a higher chance of chronic diseases, and crime rates.
• Limited opportunities: The most significant issue is that lack of education reduces the opportunities for people to have a decent life. Limited options increase the division of social classes, lower social mobility, and reduce the ability to build networks and social contacts. Students in poor countries also spend a lot of time working to support their families rather than focusing on their school work. These factors also worsen the upbringing of coming generations.
• Extremism:  Inequality can also lead to increased violence, racism, gender bias, and extremism, which causes further economic and democratic challenges.  
• Inability to survive pandemics:  Unlike developed nations after COVID, underdeveloped countries are stuck in their unstable economic cycles. Inequality causes a lack of awareness and online educational resources, lower acceptance of preventive measures, and unaffordable vaccines, for example. According to the  United Nations , “Before the coronavirus crisis, projections showed that  more than 200 million children would be out of school , and only 60 percent of young people would be completing upper secondary education in 2030”.
• Unawareness of technological advancements: The world is becoming more tech-savvy, while students in underdeveloped countries remain unaware of the latest technological achievements as well as unable to implement them. This also widens the education gap between countries.
• Gender inequality in education:  In general, developing countries compromise over funds allocation for women’s education to manage their depletion of national income. As such, they consider women less efficient and productive than men. Meanwhile, many parents do not prefer sending their daughters to school because they do not think that women can contribute equally to men in the country’s development. However, if we have to overcome this, there should be an increase in funding and scholarships for women’s education.
• Environmental crises:  People are usually less aware of the harmful emissions produced in their surroundings and are therefore less prepared to deal with increased pollution levels. This also affects climate change. The less educated the children, the more likely they are to contribute to climate change as adults. This is because education is not just about learning facts and skills but also about recognizing problems and applying knowledge in innovative ways. 
• A child who has dropped out of school will generally  contribute less to society  than a child who has completed secondary school. A child who has completed secondary school will contribute less than a child who went to university. This difference increases over time because those with higher levels of education tend to be more open-minded, flexible thinkers and are therefore better able to adapt to changing environmental conditions.

Equality in education is therefore essential for addressing international issues including economic inequality, climate change, social deprivation, and access to healthcare. Many children in poor regions are deprived of education (see chart below) which is the only way out of poverty .

Proposed Solutions 

The United Nations Development Program says that access to education is a human right, and should be individually accessible and available to all by 2030. It demands:

• International collaborations to ensure that every child has the same quality education and to develop joint curricula and academic programs. The quality of teaching methodologies should not be compromised and includes providing financial assistance and tools for equal access.
• Running campaigns to discourage race, gender, and ethnicity differences, arranging more seminars to reach low-income groups, and providing adequate financial assistance, training, and part-time jobs for sole earners.  
• Modifying scholarship criteria to better support deserving students who cannot afford university due to language tests and low grades. 
• Increasing the minimum wage so that sole breadwinners can afford quality education for their children.  
• Schools should bear transportation costs and offer free grants to deserving kids from low-income families.
• Giving more attention to slum-side schools by updating and implementing new techniques and resources. 
• Allowing students to learn in their own language with no enforcement of international languages and offering part-time courses in academies and community colleges in other languages. 

Resolving educational inequality has many benefits for the wider society. Allowing children from disadvantaged backgrounds to get an education will help them find better jobs with higher salaries, improving their quality of life, and making them more productive members of society. It decreases the likelihood of conflict and increases access to health care, stable economic growth, and unlimited opportunities.

Conclusion:

It’s been said that great minds start out as small ones. To level the playing field, we need to focus on best educating our next generation of innovators and leaders, both from an individual and a societal standpoint. If we want equality to become a reality, it will be up to us to ensure that equality is at the forefront of our education system.

References:

Environmental Conscience: 42 Causes, Effects & Solutions for a Lack of Education – E&C (environmental-conscience.com)

School of Education Online Programs: What the U.S. Education System Needs to Reduce Inequality | American University

Educational Inequality: Solutions | Educational Inequality (wordpress.com)

Giving Compass: Seven Solutions for Education Inequality · Giving Compass

Science.org: Polarization under rising inequality and economic decline

Research Gate: Inequality and Economic Growth

University of Munich: pdf (uni-muenchen.de)

Research Gate: Effects-of-inequality-and-poverty-vs-teachers-and-schooling-on-Americas-youth.pdf (researchgate.net)

Borgen Magzine

United Nations: Education as the Pathway towards Gender Equality

United Nations Sustainable Development Goals – Education

This article has been edited in line with our guidelines

Gerald Nelson is a freelance academic essay writer at perfectessaywriting.com who also works with several e ducational and human rights organizations. 

The MAHB Blog is a venture of the Millennium Alliance for Humanity and the Biosphere. Questions should be directed to [email protected]

An Introduction to Equality of Opportunity

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Freedom and equality are foundational values that we draw upon when envisioning a better society. Equality of opportunity is a social ideal that combines concern with freedom and equality, and this social ideal provides a vision of how we ought to live together.

At first glance, the value of equality can seem to demand uniformity that seems dystopian. For instance, if everyone were forced to wear the same clothes, pursue the same hobbies and have the same number of children, we would think this was intolerable. However, we should be careful not to reject equality entirely on this basis. Equality is still attractive if we limit its scope to some areas. For instance, equality before the law and equal rights to vote seem to be at the heart of our convictions about how we should live together. Inequality in these areas seems as intolerable as sameness in dress, family size or in our choice of recreational activities.

Freedom or opportunity may explain where and when equality seems most important. Our equal rights to a fair trial, to vote in elections, to association, speech and religion are each an equal right to a sphere of freedom. Part of what we value in this mixture is the protection from interference and having others dictate our lives to us and the other part of what we value is that we enjoy this protection on equal terms. In the sphere of religious worship, for example, individuals decide what religion they will worship. Unequal freedom, where some have freedom of religion and others do not, strikes us as wrong because it is unequal. Whereas Equal Unfreedom, where we are all slaves or lack basic rights, strikes us as wrong because it is unfree. A combination of freedom and equality, then, promises to describe a fitting social ideal for people who disagree about important, religious, moral and political questions, and yet want to live together in mutual respect.

Equality of Opportunity is one such combination and it has been a rich source of academic and political debate, a political slogan, and a widely held conviction about how human beings should live together. At its most basic, Equality of Opportunity requires that all human beings are equal in the sphere of opportunity. Equality of opportunity is usually opposed to slavery, hierarchy and caste society, where social positions, life prospects and individual freedoms are determined by membership of some group that you are born into, such as the aristocracy. Our acknowledgement of the importance of freedom and equality motivate the theory and practice of Equality of Opportunity. But before we go any further we should ask, “What is Equality of Opportunity?”

What is Equality of Opportunity?

When we ask what equality of opportunity is we could be asking two questions. First, we could be asking about the concept of equality of opportunity. If so, we are asking for the idea in its most general form. We are asking what kind of features must a statement have to count as a statement of equality of opportunity rather than a statement of something else. Second, we could be asking for the correct conception of equality of opportunity. The term 'conception' refers to a specific interpretation of a notion or idea. It is a particular way of understanding the kind of equality and the kinds of opportunities that are most valuable or more important. While there is only one concept of equality of opportunity, there are many different conceptions.

The concept of Equality of Opportunity has been examined by philosopher Peter Westen. Westen shows that an opportunity is a three-way relationship between a person, some obstacles, and a desired goal. However, a person only has an opportunity if she has a chance of achieving that goal. One cannot have an opportunity if one faces insurmountable obstacles that make it impossible to secure the goal. For instance, one cannot have an opportunity to become the president of the United States if one is not a natural born citizen. Many people, therefore, have no opportunity to become president of the United States. A person can have an opportunity even in the face of many, quite serious, obstacles. So, a natural born US citizen has the opportunity to become president, but she faces serious obstacles, such as accruing the relevant number and distribution of votes, as well as winning primaries. So, to have an opportunity means to face no insurmountable obstacles with respect to some important or desired goal, but what about having an equal opportunity?

In order for opportunities to be equal within a group, each member of that group must face the same relevant obstacles, none insurmountable, with respect to achieving the same desirable goal. In our example, all natural born citizens of the US have an equal opportunity when irrelevant goals, such as race, gender and religious affiliation are removed and when relevant obstacles, such as being democratically elected, remain.

Some critics have doubted the importance of mentioning equality when thinking about opportunities within a group. They argue that the only equality here is universalism, meaning that the opportunity is had by all. We can see why one might be drawn to the idea that equality plays little role in this ideal since we could say that everyone should have an opportunity to become president and this seems to do the job as well as saying that everyone should have an equal opportunity to become president. Equality appears to be doing no work, and this may lead us to question whether this expresses the value of equality.

However, this analysis misses something of significance, which is the fact that all people should have the same opportunity, and not merely an opportunity. While everyone could have an opportunity, and each face different irrelevant and relevant obstacles, equality of opportunity requires that no one face any irrelevant obstacles. If women were prohibited from becoming president, or if they had to win a greater proportion of the votes to be elected than men, then they would face an irrelevant obstacle that men do not. Thus, men and women would not enjoy equal opportunity with respect to the good of political representation in this society. This aspect of equality of opportunity is important for a social ideal because it expresses part of the moral value of equality.

At this point we do well to contrast equality of opportunity with equality of outcome. Equality of opportunity requires only that people be free from certain obstacles to pursue their own happiness and success. As such, Equality of Opportunity is not opposed to different outcomes of the conscientious, but fair pursuit of jobs, health, wealth, education and other goods that people value, so long as everyone faces the same obstacles. Sometimes this idea is known as the level-playing field because its main concern is that no one is unfairly advantaged before they even start out. It is in stark opposition to games that are rigged in favor of some over others. By contrast, Equality of Outcome insists that everyone do equally well with respect to some of the goods that individuals value, regardless of their effort, talents, and whether they wish to pursue it. This sort of equality can seem undesirable, but it can also be understood as one that is impossible to achieve because people are unequal in so many of the respects that affect outcomes, such as natural talent, health, their attitudes to hard work and in their interests and preferences. This can lead us to favor equal opportunities and to allow the inequality of outcomes. However, we should note that equal outcomes may still be very important indicators of inequality of opportunity, and that equal outcomes may be appropriate for children and others who lack responsible agency.

The bare concept of Equality of Opportunity as a relation between agents, obstacles and goals, leaves a lot to be filled out. There are many different ways in which we could all face the same obstacles with respect to the same goals. By varying the different goals and obstacles we vary the conception of Equality of Opportunity and different views will offer different guidance, and some will be more attractive than others. Different goals can make a difference in the following way. Opportunity for undesirable or irrelevant goals, such as opportunities to be mugged or to count grass, will not be included. Some goals may be trivial and it may not matter whether people have different opportunities with respect to those goals. For instance, opportunities to tie your shoe laces or grow a tree in your garden are less important than opportunities to find meaningful work or get a good education. We will have to think hard about exactly which ones do matter and which do not. In addition, we must think carefully about the kinds of obstacles that are morally relevant and the ones that are morally irrelevant with respect to the goal. For instance, we might think that race, religion and sexuality should not affect one’s opportunities to go to college, but that hard-work and ability to learn should. As such, ability to learn would be an obstacle that is relevant to the distribution of opportunity to go to college, but sexuality, religion and race would not. Which obstacles are morally relevant will depend on a more substantive account of what matters morally in each case. Different accounts of what are relevant and what goals matter are offered by rival conceptions of equality of opportunity.

Conceptions of Equality of Opportunity can be more or less demanding. The obstacles may be more or less difficult to overcome or the goals may be more or less difficult to achieve. For instance, if we think that obstacles such as social class, in addition to race, gender, sexuality and religious belief, are irrelevant to the goal that is desired, then we will have to try much harder to minimize differences in social class or minimize the effect social class has on the distribution of these goods. We could also specify the nature of the obstacle in different ways, such as formal or legal racial discrimination rather than explicit or implicit bias. The view can also be more or less demanding in terms of the goals we specify. So, for instance, we might think that everyone should have an equal opportunity to reach a basic standard of living or that everyone should have an equal opportunity to reach a high or equal standard of living. These views would support different policies and may require much more of our institutions, and greater individual effort, than others. They may also reflect the values of individual freedom and equal respect better or worse.

We will now briefly focus on two influential conceptions of Equality of Opportunity and show how they differ in their demandingness. We then go on to explain the special relationship that conceptions of Equality of Opportunity have with education and schooling.

Different Views of Equality of Opportunity

Formal Equality of Opportunity is arguably the least demanding conception of Equality of Opportunity. It focuses on the formal rules that stand in the way of achieving particular goals, such as employment and admission to schools.  Different types of formal equality of opportunity can focus on many or few goals. What unites these views is a focus on formal discriminatory rules as an irrelevant obstacle to some role. Policies that are related to this conception include requirements that advertisements for jobs do not specify racial, religious or gender characteristics. They must be perfectly general such that anyone can apply without violating the formal rule. This vision of a free and equal society can be satisfied merely by ensuring that formal rules are properly general. So long as there are no formal rules that stand in the way of some individuals’ achievement of some goal those individuals have equal opportunity. The view is therefore compatible with private discrimination, implicit bias, and unequal distributions of resources.

On the other hand, Equality of Opportunity for Welfare is perhaps the most demanding conception of Equality of Opportunity. It focuses on welfare, or how well a person’s life actually goes, and not minimal welfare but equal welfare. Individual choice is the only relevant obstacle. So, the only thing that should stand in the way of an individual’s achievement of equal welfare should be their own voluntary choices. In other words, a person should be no worse off than others through no fault or choice of their own. If a person chooses to take risks or gambles, any resulting inequality would not be problematic, but if a person is a victim of bad luck, such as a natural disaster or disability, then any resulting inequality would need to be remedied for equality of opportunity to be fully realized.

This view is highly demanding and would require a radical redistribution of wealth to both those who are less naturally talented and to those who are otherwise disadvantaged through no fault of their own, for example, through upbringing, through natural bad luck as well as social class, racism, sexism and religious discrimination. Addressing these inequalities may require investing in schooling, sports facilities and social networks as well as healthcare and assistance for the disabled and heavily regulated jobs markets.

It should be noted that the more demanding the view the greater the encroachment on some putatively valuable forms of individual freedom. For instance, in order to ensure that wealth, social background and natural luck do not act as an obstacle for the poor it may be necessary to tax the earnings of the well-off. Some will claim that this violates the entitlements of the rich to their resources, and is therefore too high a price to pay. This may lead those people to accept a less demanding conception of Equality of Opportunity. Others will claim that taxing the wealthy is an acceptable price to pay to ensure that poor people have substantively equal opportunities to secure good jobs, adequate healthcare and education and to have means to support their families and live a decent life.

There are other conceptions of Equality of Opportunity that are only moderately demanding. The two extreme views above, however, help us to see and make sense of dominant ideologies on the left and the right, and therefore historical public political disagreements. We can characterize much of contemporary political argument as being about what the best conception of Equality of Opportunity is, which partly explains why it is such an important idea to understand.

Defenders of small government and individual responsibility on the right may be drawn to something resembling the conception of Formal Equality of Opportunity because going further requires interference with individual entitlements and a bigger state. They may go further than Formal Equality of Opportunity and instead favor the Meritocratic Conception of Equality of Opportunity, which requires redistribution to ensure that hard work and talent, and not discrimination and favoritism, determine hiring practices.  Those who believe in meritocracy may consider some taxation to be a price worth paying for fairer hiring practices.

Defenders of more substantive equal chances, who care about equalizing school quality and school funding, as well as providing for health care, will be drawn to more demanding ideals that more closely approximate Equality of Opportunity for Welfare. They may be put off by the demandingness of the conception of Equality of Opportunity for Welfare, and instead favor the conception of Fair Equality of Opportunity, which condemns inequalities in social background as obstacles to achieving valuable goals in life. Such a view will require redistribution to ensure that hard-working and talented individuals from the working class have the same chance of success as similarly hard-working and talented individuals from the middle and upper-classes. This kind of view may advocate increased per pupil funding for the working-class. Evaluating the appropriateness of these ideals will be determined both by how well they express our commitment to freedom and equality, and whether they lead to sacrifice of other values that we view as more or less important than that commitment.

These different conceptions of Equality of Opportunity offer us very different guidance and assessment of our societies. The contemporary USA undoubtedly satisfies some conceptions more than others. In this way, we can see that which view is the best conception of Equality of Opportunity will determine how much work we have to do to make progress and in which direction we need to go, whether that is breaking down formal barriers, eradicating nepotism and informal discrimination, or something more demanding like mitigating wealth inequality and the inequalities that follow from social class distinctions and natural disadvantages.

Applying the Ideas to Education

The focus of this project is on the application of conceptions of Equality of Opportunity to education. Though the types of policies and reforms that will be favored depend on the conception of Equality of Opportunity that is most defensible, we can say that educational institutions will have a central role to play in better realizing equality of opportunity. This is because education is valuable for a wide range of goals that we think are important, such as employment, health, wealth, welfare and citizenship. Moreover, almost all contemporary societies compel school attendance for all young children and so education can be offered to all and across many of the irrelevant obstacles, such as race, sexuality, religious affiliation, social class and natural talent. Of course, it may be that the highest gains could be had by focusing on pre-K education, or that non-educational levers would be most effective if politically feasible, but, to some extent, we have to think about what is best given the current institutional arrangements. As such, educational institutions are one lever that we can use to try to redress imbalances and inequalities and to help members of disadvantaged groups overcome those obstacles. Education, and schooling in particular, may be a much more politically feasible lever than pure redistribution or cash transfers and other more controversial public policies such as minimum wage legislation, affirmative action and further intervention in markets. Focusing on reform of educational policy, therefore, may be the best thing to focus on today. Nevertheless, reforming society through education can be an extremely difficult undertaking and background inequality and poverty can restrict even its efficacy. We should bear in mind, however, that some conceptions of equality of opportunity may be particularly inappropriate when applied to children. For instance, Equality of Opportunity for Welfare focuses on individual choices, because it emphasizes responsibility, but we don’t usually hold children responsible for the choices they make because their capacities are so under-developed. Also, Meritocratic Equality of Opportunity may seem to be ill-suited to educational institutions because educational institutions are supposed to cultivate merit. In applying conceptions of Equality of Opportunity to education, we must show an awareness of these and other concerns.

To illustrate more clearly some of the benefits and concerns of using education as a lever for achieving equality of opportunity, I want to explore one particular conception of equality of opportunity. Let’s assume that we accept the conception of Fair Equality of Opportunity as determining an important part of how we should live together and hold that social class should not affect who gets jobs, but that the most meritorious candidate should get the job. Failure to address this issue would be a failure to take into account that social class should not affect job prospects.

There are broadly two types of strategy we could adopt, each of which has its own pitfalls and each of which uses educational institutions. The first strategy is to focus resources on trying to correct inequalities by providing extra schooling to those who are disadvantaged by social class. This aims to address the inequality of opportunity that is caused by institutions other than educational ones. The second strategy is to focus on attempting to correct inequalities in the social background, which may include inequality in educational opportunity and access to good schools, as well as unemployment and poverty in general.

We know that family background can greatly affect the development of capabilities and skills, and ambitions to go to college and get high-status jobs. Knowing this, and being committed to fair equality of opportunity, we could attempt to redress the issues around unequal childhoods by offering extra schooling to children who come from disadvantaged backgrounds. This could either be achieved by targeting additional resources, tutoring, and extra classes at those who are poorer within the school, or it could be achieved by providing greater resources to those schools that educate a greater proportion of poorer children.

However, operating at this level treats the symptoms rather than the cause and, in the society that allows private schooling and tolerates huge wealth inequalities, additional investment in the education of poorer children can become an arms race that the government cannot win. Put simply, the better-off could always invest more and more into the education of their children and will do so because they want their children to secure places at the elite colleges and in the top professions. If rich parents invest more and more in their children’s education, the government must attempt to keep up if it is going to succeed in equalizing opportunity. As the government spends more and more to narrow the gap, education budgets, and taxation must increase, but it is very difficult to sustain ever-increasing budgets and taxation consistent with winning democratic elections. This threatens the political feasibility of such measures, though significant improvements may be made in the process.

An alternative strategy, which treats the causes of social class as an obstacle to equality of opportunity, is available. Looking to education we may wish to ensure that all schools are equally well-resourced. As we saw above, one way of doing this is to devote increasing resources to poorer schools. An alternative is to limit the resources that can be spent on private education, or to abolish elite private schooling all together, as it threatens equality of opportunity. However, such measures will likely be insufficient, even if feasible and effective. This is because parent-child interactions as innocent as reading bedtime stories can enhance child development unequally. Interfering in the family is both politically difficult to justify and may be morally suspect as it compromises the values that the family embodies and promotes.

A radical alternative is available, but it requires the eradication of social class and anything other than minimal wealth inequalities. In such a society, no one would be so much better off than others that they have more free time, resources, better housing and health care so that their children develop to a greater extent or more quickly than others. This would be to address the causes of inequality of opportunity, but it would likely be highly unpopular with the electorate and some will argue that an economy where workers are paid roughly equally for different work, will be painfully inefficient. Whether this is true cannot be proved here, but each of these strategies may be rejected on the grounds of being ineffective, infeasible or of compromising more important values, such as the value of the family or economic efficiency. Nevertheless, the first strategy appears to be the most promising and our commitment to equality of opportunity of some sort suggests that where we fall short of respecting freedom and equality in our society today, the educational institutions will be our first and most promising levers.

In addition, we need to think about the goal that we are trying to achieve within education, not only the goal that we care about for Equality of Opportunity in general, i.e. the conception that we think is correct. Disagreement about this concerns whether we should be concerned with equality of educational outcomes, equality of opportunities, or merely adequacy, and is partly motivated by the problems with meritocracy and responsibility noted above.

Different standards of education might be appropriate for different types of equality of opportunity goals. For instance, with respect to jobs, we might be very concerned that equally hard-working and naturally talented students achieve equal outcomes on standardized tests, since being the most qualified candidate usually gets you the job. However, being a good citizen perhaps is independent of how well informed you are relative to others, so long as you are well-informed about various candidates and about how to spot a bad argument. Moreover, with respect to young children, we might think that outcomes, not opportunities are best in some areas, such as basic reading skills. What we want, with respect to literacy, is not that children have equal opportunities to read, but that they actually learn to read, even if this comes at great cost. We should note that achieving equal outcomes will be differently costly for different individuals due to ranges of ability and the quickness with which children pick up certain skills. At the most extreme end of this spectrum are severe cognitive disabilities, which may render it very difficult or impossible to achieve equal outcomes. As such, a desirable view of equality of opportunity may have to answer special sorts of questions around the appropriate education for those who have severe disabilities. Whatever the correct answers, we can only make progress on these questions by thinking seriously about the issues many of which are presented here in a way that is widely accessible.

Our focus is on the application of conceptions of Equality of Opportunity to education, but there are many other goods that people value and should have equal opportunity to pursue. For instance, most people value healthcare as it is important no matter what their ambitions and life plans are. Access to good doctors and basic medical treatment could be evaluated in terms of equality of opportunity. So, if some people face greater obstacles than others in getting to see a good doctor. If basic healthcare is expensive, then poorer people will face greater obstacles than the rich. If few doctors are willing to work in rural areas, then those in rural areas will face greater obstacles than those in urban areas. These unequal obstacles may be condemnable, depending on the conception of Equality of Opportunity that is most desirable. Moreover, rather than focusing on particular goods, such as education and health, we may prefer to focus on happiness itself, since it seems to be the fundamental value that people care about. Such a focus would enable us to condemn obstacles that stand in the way of health or education only insofar as those goods affect the happiness of those individuals. This makes an important difference if people wish to pursue health or education to different extents. One person’s happiness may hinge on her access to education far more than another’s persons. We can say the same about health.

The intention of this brief introduction to equality of opportunity and education was to introduce beginners to the ideal of equality of opportunity, its place within contemporary political debates and its history. At this stage we might ask: why should anyone care about equality of opportunity? This takes us back to the start of the introduction. If you believe that all of us are equal in some important ways and if you think that freedom to pursue one’s plans without interference from others is important, then equality of opportunity is very important indeed.

Arguing about equality of opportunity is really an argument about how best to understand the kind of society we should be striving for, one where free and equal persons live together. Although other ideals may also be worth striving for, equality of opportunity offers important guidance and a standpoint for criticism of contemporary societies, their politicians and our own personal conduct. It enables us to judge some change as progress or backsliding. Educational institutions, in particular, are well situated to make those changes and failure to utilize them for this end can be judged to have been a further opportunity missed.

What can be found on this website is a summary of different academic debates about equality of opportunity and education and an annotated bibliography of some of the key books and articles on the topic. I start with a beginners reading list below, and go on to explain the crux of some key debates. The debates are divided into the following sections. The first section addresses the concept of equality of opportunity and equality of outcome. The second section considers different conceptions of equality of opportunity and debates about their relative merits. The third section covers debates about education and educational policy, including: school choice and the family, higher education, and whether adequacy or equality should be the principle for distributing educational resources and the aim of schooling.

Arneson, Richard. “Equality Of Opportunity”. Edited by Edward N Zalta. Stanford Encyclopedia Of Philosophy. Stanford Encyclopedia Of Philosophy, 2002. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2008/entries/equal-opportunity/ . Google Scholar

Brighouse, Harry, and Kenneth Howe. Educational Equality. Continuum, 2010. Google Scholar

Gutmann, Amy. Democratic Education. Princeton University Press, 1998. Google Scholar

Jencks, Christopher. “Whom Must We Treat Equally For Educational Opportunity To Be Equal?”. Ethics, Ethics, 1988, 518-533. Google Scholar

Kittay, Eva Feder. “At The Margins Of Moral Personhood”. Ethics, Ethics, 116, no. 1 (2005): 100-131. Google Scholar

Kymlicka, Will. In Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Introduction. Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Introduction. Oxford University Press, 2002. Google Scholar

McKinnon, Catriona. Issues In Political Theory. Oxford University Press, 2012. Google Scholar

Parfit, Derek. “Equality And Priority”. Ratio, Ratio, 10, no. 3 (1997): 202-221. Google Scholar

Swift, Adam. Political Philosophy: A Beginners' Guide For Students And Politicians. Polity, 2013. Google Scholar

Williams, Bernard. “The Idea Of Equality”. In Philosophy, Politics, And Society, 110-131. Philosophy, Politics, And Society. London: Basil Blackwell, 1962. Google Scholar

Section 1: Equality of Opportunity and Alternatives »

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Sat / act prep online guides and tips, what is eop your guide to educational opportunity programs.

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Traditionally, low-income students have been excluded from higher education, or they have faced obstacles that make graduating from college extremely difficult. Programs like the Educational Opportunity Program are designed to provide the necessary support to disadvantaged students to enable their success in college and beyond.

In this article, I'll describe EOP, detail the advantages of participating in an Educational Opportunity Program, and let you know how to enroll .

What Is EOP?

The Educational Opportunity Program, or EOP, is a counseling and academic support program designed to help low-income and first generation college students succeed in college . (A student is first generation if neither parent went to college.) EOPs are state programs, and they're typically only for in-state residents of public colleges.

The purpose of these programs is to help students who face additional obstacles in higher education succeed academically and graduate. There are EOPs in a number of states, but it's not available in every state or at every college. Look at a school's website or contact its admissions office to see if it has an EOP.

Here's what we mean: in California, multiple universities have EOP programs. EOPs are available at California State University and University of California campuses. However, while each California State University campus has an EOP, the only University of California schools that have an EOP are UC Berkeley, UC Davis, UC Santa Barbara, and UC Santa Cruz. Luckily, there are comparable programs at the other UC schools.

The same is true at New York schools. There are EOPs at State University of New York ( SUNY ) schools and in New Jersey at schools like New Jersey Institute of Technology , Rider University , and Seton Hall University . There are similar programs at state colleges in New Jersey through the Educational Opportunity Fund ( EOF ).

I also found EOPs at Oregon State and University of Washington . This is all to say that if you're interested in taking advantage of an EOP, make sure you do your research before you start applying to schools.

Most campuses that offer EOP provide a summer program for EOP students to help them transition to college and prepare for college life . The students get to live on campus and strengthen their academic skills before college ever starts.

During the academic year, EOP offers counseling, mentorship, and academic advising for enrolled students to help them succeed academically . Furthermore, EOP offers students career advice and preparation for graduate studies. Also, some programs provide financial assistance, including offering grants and waiving or deferring certain fees.

Each EOP is a little bit different in terms of the services and opportunities it offers its students, but they all share the same goal: to help traditionally underserved students earn a college degree.

Steven Depolo /Flickr

How Is EOP Eligibility Determined?

Eligibility does vary by campus, but it's typically based on income requirements , meaning that your family's income must be below a certain amount for you to qualify for the program. Each state's income threshold is slightly different.

For example, at California State University schools, you must meet specific EOP income criteria to be eligible for EOP. If your family income exceeds the guidelines, you may still be considered for EOP if your demonstrated Expected Family Contribution is less than $1,500.

Generally, EOP eligibility guidelines are less strict at UC campuses. At UC Berkeley, any low-income, first generation, or historically underrepresented students (African-American, Chicano/Latino, and Native-American) are eligible for EOP . At UCSB , EOP services all students but focuses on low-income and first generation undergraduates.

The income criteria is a bit different for EOPs at SUNY schools. Check this page for the income requirements, which are broken down by family size. At SUNY schools, EOP is also designed for students who don't meet the normal admission requirements but show academic promise.

For most EOPs, only in-state residents and US citizens or permanent residents are eligible for EOP . In California, undocumented immigrants who qualify for in-state tuition through AB540 are also eligible for all California EOPs. You can find out more about how undocumented students can qualify for the EOP here .

Like we mentioned earlier, you'll need to check with your school's EOP office to see if you qualify.

Why Should You Join EOP?

If you apply to a school that has an EOP and you're eligible, I highly recommend trying to join the program. Not only can you receive financial benefits, but the transitional summer program and advising can help jumpstart your success in college...and beyond!

Many EOP students come from under-resourced schools and don't enter college as prepared as their more affluent peers. Furthermore, because these students may not have parents or family members who are knowledgeable about college, they're not able to get the same guidance as other students unless they participate in programs like EOP. EOPs give capable students who might not have the same resources or social privileges the support they need to be successful in college.

Also, low-income, first generation college students can feel isolated on college campuses and have a hard time relating to their fellow students who come from more privileged backgrounds. An EOP can help you find a community of students with backgrounds similar to yours, and you can receive counseling and mentorship to help you deal with the struggles that can come from being a low-income or first generation college student.

Ralph Daily /Flickr

How Do You Enroll in EOP?

Typically, there is an application process to become part of EOP . Your financial information may be verified from your/your parents' tax returns or the information you provide on your FAFSA . Check a school's website or contact the EOP office if you have any questions.

For CSU schools, if you are interested in enrolling in EOP, you must complete a supplemental application, which is more demanding than most schools'. In addition to providing basic information, you have to provide recommendations and answer short answer questions. Not only do you have to meet the basic requirements, but you have to demonstrate that you're a motivated student who would appear to benefit from EOP .

For UC schools, you just have to enter additional information on your UC application if you're interested in EOP. Also, you should indicate your interest in the EOP in your UC personal statement .

For SUNY schools, you'll submit the regular application and indicate your interest in EOP. You may be asked to fill out additional forms and provide documentation.

Remember: these are just a few schools that have EOP. Be sure to check with your individual institution to see how to apply to their EOP (if they have one).

What If a School Doesn't Have EOP or You're Not Eligible?

If you're interested in participating in EOP but the schools you want to apply to don't have an EOP or you're not eligible , you may still be able to take advantage of support services to help you succeed in college.

Many schools have offices dedicated to helping underserved students find success in college. Look on the school's website for support services. If you're a low-income or first generation student, you can contact the admissions office to ask about specific support programs for low-income or first generation students.

On Big Future , you can search for schools with support services for low-income or minority students . Additionally, on each school's profile, you can view the types of support services that are available. Knowing which of your schools offer support.

The big takeaway is this: just because your school doesn't have a formal EOP doesn't mean there won't be services and organizations there to help you succeed.

Paul Townsend /Flickr

What's Next?

If you're stressing the cost of college , read this article to learn how to get a full ride scholarship .

Maybe you're still wondering whether or not college is right for you. Make an informed decision and decide for yourself if you should go to college .

Finally, make sure you know how to research and choose a college. Picking a college that's a good fit for you is key to your future success!

Justin has extensive experience teaching SAT prep and guiding high school students through the college admissions and selection process. He is firmly committed to improving equity in education and helping students to reach their educational goals. Justin received an athletic scholarship for gymnastics at Stanford University and graduated with a BA in American Studies.

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Objective: To describe the distribution of pediatricians and family physicians (child physicians) across school districts and examine the association between physician supply and third-grade test scores.

Data Sources and Study Setting: Data come from the January 2020 American Medical Association Physician Masterfile, the 2009–2013 and 2014–2018 waves of American Community Survey 5-Year Data, and the Stanford Education Data Archive (SEDA), which uses test scores from all U.S. public schools. We use covariate data provided by SEDA to describe student populations.

Study Design: This descriptive analysis constructs a physician-to-child-population ratio for every school district in the country and describes the child population served by the current distribution of physicians. We fit a set of multivariable regression models to estimate the associations between district test score outcomes and district physician supply. Our model includes state fixed effects to control for unobservable state-level factors, as well as a covariate vector of sociodemographic characteristics.

Data Collection: Public data from three sources were matched by district ID.

Principal Findings: Physicians are highly unequally distributed across districts: nearly 3640 (29.6%) of 12,297 districts have no child physician, which includes 49% of rural districts. Rural children of color in particular have very little access to pediatric care, and this inequality is more extreme when looking exclusively at pediatricians. Districts that have higher child physician supplies tend to have higher academic test scores in early education, independent of community socioeconomic status and racial/ethnic composition. While the national data show this positive relationship (0.012 SD, 95% CI, 0.0103–0.0127), it is most pronounced for districts in the bottom tertile of physician supply (0.163 SD, 95% CI, 0.108–0.219).

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To download a data file with the gender achievement gap estimates produced in this paper, please click here to sign the data use agreement. Upon signing, you will be redirected to the Stanford Education Data Archive where you can download the data file from this paper.

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Test-score data show that both low-income and racial-minority children score lower, on average, on states’ elementary-school accountability tests compared with higher-income children or white children. While different levels of scholastic achievement depend on a host of influences, such test-score gaps point toward unequal educational opportunity as a potentially important contributor. This report explores the relationship between racial and socioeconomic test-score gaps in New England metropolitan areas and two factors associated with unequal opportunity in education: state equalizing school-aid formulas and geographic segregation of low-income students. The underlying methods do not allow a strict causal interpretation; however, both aspects are strongly related to test-score gaps, with poverty segregation between school districts especially important in New England.

The report first explores the degree to which state school aid is progressive, that is, distributed disproportionately to districts with high fractions of students living in poverty; more progressive distributions are associated with smaller test-score gaps in high-poverty metropolitan areas. All U.S. states distribute some state revenue to support local school districts, but the extent to which such aid is focused on districts with greater concentrations of poverty varies considerably. The relationships estimated in the empirical analysis suggest that New England metro areas with high average district poverty in states with more progressive aid distributions, such as Springfield, Massachusetts, should see somewhat smaller racial and socioeconomic test-score gaps than metro areas with lower district poverty in states with less progressive school aid, such as Burlington, Vermont; that predicted difference in white-Black test-score gaps amounts to about one-quarter of the actual difference between Springfield’s gap and Burlington’s gap.

The second factor explored is poverty segregation; test-score gaps are larger in metropolitan areas where, compared with white children or higher-income children, minority children or lowincome children go to school with, or are in school districts with, more students from low-income families. Partly because school districts (and cities and towns) are relatively small geographically in New England, poverty segregation in the region’s metropolitan areas is most pronounced between districts, not between schools within school districts. The sizes of the estimated relationships suggest that metro areas with the highest between-district poverty segregation, such as BridgeportStamford-Norwalk, Connecticut, should have markedly larger test-score gaps than metro areas with moderate poverty segregation between districts, such as Manchester-Nashua, New Hampshire; those predicted differences amount to 60 percent to 90 percent of the actual test-score gap differences between the Bridgeport and Manchester metro areas.

Parents’ Online School Reviews Reflect Several Racial and Socioeconomic Disparities in K–12 Education

Identifying Progress Toward Ethnoracial Achievement Equity across U.S. School Districts: A New Approach

Effects of Four-Day School Weeks on School Finance and Achievement: Evidence from Oklahoma

The Reversal of Mount Laurel’s Regional Contribution Agreements and the Impact on White-Black Academic Achievement Gaps Across New Jersey: 2008–2014

Status, Growth, and Perceptions of School Quality

The opioid crisis and community-level spillovers onto children’s education

Universal Access to Free School Meals and Student Achievement: Evidence from the Community Eligibility Provision

Personal Belief Exemptions for School Entry Vaccinations, Vaccination Rates, and Academic Achievement

Bias in the Air: A Nationwide Exploration of Teachers' Implicit Racial Attitudes, Aggregate Bias, and Student Outcomes

Crime and Inequality in Academic Achievement Across School Districts in the United States

County-Level Rates of Implicit Bias Predict Black-White Test Score Gaps in U.S. Schools

Are Achievement Gaps Related to Discipline Gaps? Evidence From National Data

The Effects of Student Growth Data on School District Choice: Evidence from a Survey Experiment

Immigration Enforcement and Student Achievement in the Wake of Secure Communities

Seda 2022 special release technical documentation.

Using Pooled Heteroskedastic Ordered Probit Models to Improve Small-Sample Estimates of Latent Test Score Distributions

Can Repeated Aggregate Cross-Sectional Data Be Used to Measure Average Student Learning Rates? A Validation Study of Learning Rate Measures in the Stanford Education Data Archive

Stanford education data archive technical documentation.

The Stanford Education Data Archive (SEDA) is part of the Educational Opportunity Project at Stanford University (https:\edopportunity.org), an initiative aimed at harnessing data to help scholars, policymakers, educators, and parents learn how to improve educational opportunities for all children. SEDA includes a range of detailed data on educational conditions, contexts, and outcomes in schools, school districts, counties, commuting zones, and metropolitan statistical areas across the United States. Available measures differ by aggregation; see Sections I.A. and I.B. for a complete list of files and data.

By making the data files available to the public, we hope that anyone who is interested can obtain detailed information about U.S. schools, communities, and student success. We hope that researchers will use these data to generate evidence about what policies and contexts are most effective at increasing educational opportunity, and that such evidence will inform educational policy and practices.

Validation methods for aggregate-level test scale linking: A case study mapping school district test score distributions to a common scale

Using Heteroskedastic Ordered Probit Models to Recover Moments of Continuous Test Score Distributions from Coarsened Data

Practical Issues in Estimating Achievement Gaps from Coarsened Data

Estimating Achievement Gaps from Test Scores Reported in Ordinal "Proficiency" Categories

Long-Term Trends in Private School Enrollments by Family Income

Income Segregation between Schools and School Districts

60 years after brown: trends and consequences of school segregation.

Since the Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, researchers and policymakers have paid close attention to trends in school segregation. While Brown focused on black-white segregation, we review the evidence regarding trends and consequences of both racial and economic school segregation. In general, the evidence regarding trends in racial segregation suggests that the most significant declines in black-white school segregation occurred at the end of the 1960s and the start of the 1970s. Although there is disagreement about the direction of more recent trends in racial segregation, this disagreement is largely driven by different definitions of segregation and different ways of measuring it. We conclude that the changes in segregation in the last few decades are not large, regardless of what measure is used, though there are important differences in the trends across regions, racial groups, and institutional levels. Limited evidence on school economic segregation makes documenting trends difficult, but in general, students are more segregated by income across schools and districts today than in 1990. We also discuss the role of desegregation litigation, demographic changes, and residential segregation in shaping trends in both racial and economic segregation.

One of the reasons that scholars, policymakers, and citizens are concerned with school segregation is that segregation is hypothesized to exacerbate racial or socioeconomic disparities in educational success. The mechanisms that would link segregation to disparate outcomes have not often been spelled out clearly or tested explicitly. We develop a general conceptual model of how and why school segregation might affect students and review the relatively thin body of empirical evidence that explicitly assesses the consequences of school segregation. This literature suggests that racial desegregation in the 1960s and 1970s was beneficial to blacks; evidence of the effects of segregation in more recent decades, however, is mixed or inconclusive. We conclude with discussion of aspects of school segregation on which further research is needed.

The widening academic achievement gap between the rich and the poor

Publication: Community Investments: Summer 2012

Almost fifty years ago, in 1966, the Coleman Report famously highlighted the relationship between family socioeconomic status and student achievement. Family socioeconomic characteristics continue to be among the strongest predictors of student achievement, but while there is a considerable body of research that seeks to tease apart this relationship, the causes and mechanisms of this relationship have been the subject of considerable disagreement and debate. Much of the scholarly research on the socioeconomic achievement gradient has focused largely on trying to understand the mechanisms through which factors like income, parental educational attainment, family structure, neighborhood conditions, school quality, as well as parental preferences, investments, and choices lead to differences in children’s academic and educational success. Still, we know little about the trends in socioeconomic achievement gaps over a lengthy period of time.

The question posed in this article is whether and how the relationship between family socioeconomic characteristics and academic achievement has changed during the last fifty years, with a particular focus on rising income inequality. As the income gap between high- and low-income families has widened, has the achievement gap between children in high- and low income families also widened? The answer, in brief, is yes. The achievement gap between children from high- and low-income families is roughly 40 percent larger among children born in 2001 than among those born twenty-five years earlier.

Brown Fades: The End of Court-Ordered School Desegregation and the Resegregation of American Public Schools

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Education and Opportunity

By Erika M. Kitzmiller

In the twentieth century, many urban school districts, which had been among the finest in the nation, became some of the most challenged. The Greater Philadelphia region reflected this trend. In 1900 the region’s school systems consisted of largely uncoordinated public, parochial, and private schools. Between 1900 and 1965 politicians, educational administrators, and civic leaders trained in the tenets of scientific administration worked tirelessly to centralize control and expand access so that families in Philadelphia’s outlying districts (which included West Philadelphia and Germantown), suburban communities, and rural outposts could attend modern primary and secondary schools. While reorganization led to new educational opportunities, these changes simultaneously increased educational inequality among the region’s youth because only some had access to its finest schools.

Before Pennsylvania state legislators passed the Reorganization Act of 1905 and Martin G. Brumbaugh (1862-1930) became Philadelphia’s school superintendent in 1906, corrupt budgetary and hiring practices plagued the School District of Philadelphia. Under Brumbaugh’s guidance, the board of education replaced its ward-based governance system with one that gave the superintendent the power to systematize and standardize the public schools. As superintendent, Brumbaugh obtained public funds to build additional primary and secondary schools, reform academic programs in the high schools, and raise teacher salaries. These policies increased access to educational institutions for Philadelphia youth, particularly those living in West Philadelphia, Frankford, and Germantown—beyond the city’s core—and alleviated overcrowding and part-time attendance patterns in the city’s primary schools. At the same time, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia expanded its school system to attract families who wanted their children to attend Catholic schools.  These policies increased racial segregation in the city’s schools as white ethnics—primarily Italians and Irish—enrolled their children in parochial schools. African American families never enjoyed the same educational opportunities. For decades, the School District of Philadelphia maintained specific policies and informal practices that segregated Black and white youth and discriminated against Black teachers.  African American leaders and concerned residents challenged these racist practices by forming grassroots organizations, such as the Educational Equality League, and mounting fundraising campaigns through the city’s Black newspaper, the Philadelphia Tribune .

The Great Depression brought new challenges to Philadelphia and suburban communities. As men and women lost their jobs and homes, the tax revenues for education plummeted. The School District of Philadelphia had faced fiscal difficulties before, but the Great Depression brought unprecedented challenges. To reduce costs, the board of education eliminated positions, cut salaries, and slashed programs.

During the 1930s, the region’s schools, like others in the nation, witnessed a dramatic increase in student enrollment. The Great Depression decimated the nation’s labor market, forcing thousands of working-class youth to enroll in school. As economic conditions worsened, some of Philadelphia’s upper class families had to transfer their children to the local public schools because they could no longer afford the tuition charged by private schools. As a result, students poured into public schools in the city and surrounding communities, creating overcrowded classrooms and underfunded schools. Both educational opportunity and inequality increased simultaneously.

World War II boost

World War II brought Philadelphia’s economy back to life—at least temporarily. The School District of Philadelphia created accelerated secondary school programs so that students could earn their diplomas before enlisting in the nation’s armed services or securing employment in a variety of wartime industries. As families moved to the region to find work and as youth returned to the labor market, student enrollment decreased at the secondary level even as it increased in elementary schools. The School District of Philadelphia did not have the budget or the resources to build new schools during the war, and thus primary school children, particularly African Americans, found that racial segregation in the region’s housing market barred them from the best schooling options.

When the war ended, Black leaders such as Floyd L. Logan (1901-78) and Cecil B. Moore (1915-79) urged local governments to provide Black children with greater access to educational opportunities by desegregating the region’s public schools. In the postwar period, boroughs and townships on the edge of Philadelphia and Camden expanded as GIs returned from duty and used their benefits to purchase suburban homes for their young families. Communities such as Levittown, Pennsylvania, were transformed from rural outposts to planned neighborhoods.  These suburban communities provided young families with many advantages—sprawling landscapes, new schools, and modern shopping centers. But real estate agents and local homeowners routinely refused to sell homes to Black buyers and thus created suburban communities that were reserved almost exclusively for white upper- and middle-class residents.

As this suburban expansion and white flight from the city occurred, urban public schools systems like Philadelphia’s lost the tax revenues that white families had contributed. They also witnessed a dramatic increase in the number of Black youth in the public schools. This combination, coupled with the Philadelphia City Council’s failure to raise the revenues the schools actually needed, created an untenable situation. The school district could not hire enough teachers or build enough new schools. When they did find the land and money to build new schools, these new institutions often reinforced inequality by creating distinct schools for Black children in North Philadelphia and white children in predominately middle-class white communities such as Mount Airy and Overbrook. The school district’s policies and practices often left African American children in schools that were much more crowded than those attended by their white counterparts. School choice played a role, as well, as white Catholic families sent their children to parochial schools rather than their local public schools.

Desegregation Pressures

The pressure to desegregate mounted after the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education (1954), which stipulated that separate but equal educational institutions were unconstitutional. Civil rights activists in Philadelphia and suburbs like Abington, Pennsylvania, and Mount Holly, New Jersey, called for the desegregation of public schools. But those in charge of those schools routinely replied that the conditions were beyond their control. In 1959, Philadelphia’s Board of Public Education passed a resolution stating that the school district did not discriminate against anyone on the basis of race, color, religion, or national origin. Civil rights leaders pressed the board to do more, and in the mid-1960s, the school district finally admitted that Philadelphia’s public schools were indeed segregated. It commissioned several studies, such as the Report of the Special Committee on Nondiscrimination (sometimes referred to as the “Lewis Report” for the committee’s chairman, board Vice President Ada H. Lewis) whose findings the district’s leaders largely ignored. In 1967, Philadelphia youth staged a demonstration to urge the district to adopt Black history and a more Afrocentric curriculum. When Police Commissioner Frank Rizzo ordered his officers to use brutal force to quash this peaceful demonstration, it became more apparent than ever that equal educational opportunity was not a reality in Philadelphia.

In 1983, a commission convened by President Ronald Reagan issued A Nation at Risk, a report that emphasized the failures of the American educational system and ushered in a wave of local, state, and federal efforts to improve the nation’s schools. While it raised new concerns about the economic viability of American schoolchildren, the report did little to change the educational opportunities in the region despite the efforts of some civic leaders, concerned residents, and urban youth. Public schools in Philadelphia; Camden, New Jersey; and Wilmington, Delaware, still lagged behind their suburban counterparts with regard to per capita funding, academic achievement, and extracurricular activities. The racial segregation that had existed in the City of Brotherly Love since the beginning of the twentieth century had spread beyond Philadelphia. In 1997, Camden had a student population that was 57.7 percent Black and 38.1 percent Latino while most school systems in its adjoining suburbs were predominately white. The court-ordered reorganization of the public schools in Delaware’s New Castle County led to the creation in 1981 of four school districts that encompass Wilmington and its suburbs. The racial segregation in these school districts was not so blatant. For example, the Christina School District to the south was 33.4 percent Black and 4.2 percent Latino in 1997. The Red Clay School District to the north was 29.7 percent Black and 12.7 percent Latino.

In the first decades of the twenty-first century, some of these urban school systems welcomed charter management organizations in the hopes that market-driven solutions could alleviate inequities that had existed for decades. Educational opportunity is clearly greater today than it was at the beginning of the twentieth century, but along with these changes, the level of educational inequality has also increased, creating gross economic, political, and social inequities between youth who have access to first-rate educational institutions and those who do not.

Erika M. Kitzmiller is a historian of race, social inequality, and education who served as an assistant clinical professor at Drexel University and is currently the Caperton Fellow at Harvard University’s W.E.B. Du Bois Institute.  She received her Ph.D. in History and Education and Master’s in Public Policy from the University of Pennsylvania and her B.A. from Wellesley College. (Author information current at time of publication.)

Copyright 2014, Rutgers University 

Logan Demonstration School

PhillyHistory.org

As many of Philadelphia's public schools cut programs during the Great Depression in their struggle to stay open, sights such as this art class at the Logan Demonstration School in 1933 became rare. The Logan Demonstration School acted as an institution for teachers around the Greater Philadelphia area to learn and develop new techniques as part of their education. The school, located at Seventeenth Street and Lindley Avenue in the city’s Logan section, is now known as James Logan Elementary School.

Martin G. Brumbaugh

Library of Congress

Before becoming superintendent of the Philadelphia public school system in 1906, Martin G. Brumbaugh was a prominent member of the education and teaching community for more than twenty years. After growing up on his family's farm in Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania, Brumbaugh received his teaching certification from Brethren Normal School (later named Juniata College) and became the superintendent of the Huntington County public school system. He also ran multiple teaching institutes in Louisiana in the 1880s. Brumbaugh became president of the Juniata College soon after earning his Ph.D. in education from the University of Pennsylvania in 1894, then left the position in 1900 to become the commissioner of education in Puerto Rico. By 1902, Brumbaugh developed a popular series of educational books called the Brumbaugh Standard Readers, which taught children reading, writing, and arithmetic with patriotic themes.

Brumbaugh became the superintendent of Philadelphia's public school system in 1906 and drastically reorganized the ways schools operated and taught children by building additional primary and secondary schools, reforming academic programs in the high schools, and raising teacher salaries. Brumbaugh served as the superintendent of the Philadelphia School District until 1914, when he ran a successful campaign to become governor of Pennsylvania. This image of Brumbaugh was taken in 1914 as part of the election campaign. After Brumbaugh's term ended in 1919, he became the president of Juniata College again from 1924 until his death in 1930.

Thomas Durham Elementary School

More than forty elementary and secondary schools were built during the tenure of Philadelphia school system Superintendent Martin G. Brumbaugh from 1906-1915. The Thomas Durham Elementary School, located at Sixteenth and Lombard streets, was part of Brumbaugh's push to create more institutions for the children of Philadelphia. The school was named after Thomas Durham, who was president and director of the seventh section (bordered by South, Spruce, Seventh, and Twenty-Second streets) of the Philadelphia School District throughout the 1880s and 1890s. Construction began in the fall of 1909 and the school opened to students in November 1910. This image of the building during construction is from May 1910. The school became part of the National Register of Historic Places in 1988, but closed as a public school in the 1990s. The school became the Independence Charter School in 2001.

1967 Student Demonstration

Although Philadelphia's Board of Education passed a resolution in 1959 against discrimination based on race, many of Philadelphia's schools remained segregated. Philadelphia's public schools were predominantly African American in the 1960s and had to conform to curricula and policies established by white educational leaders. In 1967, around 3,500 Philadelphia high school students walked out of their classes and staged a demonstration in front of the Board of Public Education, pictured here on Twenty-First Street and Benjamin Franklin Parkway. The demonstrators urged the district to adopt a more Afrocentric curriculum, teach black history, and rename some high schools after prominent African American leaders. Police Commissioner Frank Rizzo ordered two buses of police officers to watch over the peaceful demonstration and later use force to quash it. Twenty-two people were injured in front of the School Board building and 57 people were arrested. Some arrests occurred when students left Twenty-First Street and vandalized cars and other property as they fanned out into the surrounding neighborhood and the downtown shopping district.

Related Topics

• Greater Philadelphia
• Philadelphia and the Nation
• City of Neighborhoods
• City of Brotherly Love

Time Periods

• Twentieth Century after 1945
• Twentieth Century to 1945
• Center City Philadelphia
• Charter Schools
• Chester, Pennsylvania
• Community Colleges
• Educational Reform
• Fair Housing
• Girard College
• Opportunities Industrialization Center (OIC)
• Private (Independent) Schools
• Public Education: High Schools
• Public Education: Suburbs
• Public Education: The School District of Philadelphia
• Roman Catholic Education (Elementary and Secondary)
• School Naming
• Women’s Education
• Deafness and the Deaf
• Salem (City), New Jersey
• Lutherans and the Lutheran Church

Related Reading

Bauman, John F.  Public Housing, Race, and Renewal: Urban Planning in Philadelphia, 1920-1974. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1987.

Clapper, Michael.  “The Constructed World of Postwar Philadelphia Area Schools: Site Selection, Architecture, and the Landscape of Inequality.”  Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 2008.

Franklin, V. P. The Education of Black Philadelphia: The Social and Educational History of a Minority Community, 1900-1950 . Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1979.

Issel, William H. “Modernization in Philadelphia School Reform, 1882-1905 .” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 94, no. 3 (July 1970): 358–383.

Katz, Michael B., Mark J. Stern, and Jamie J. Fader. “The New African American Inequality .” The Journal of American History 92, no. 1 (June 1, 2005): 75–108.

Labaree, David F. The Making of an American High School: The Credentials Market and Central High of Philadelphia, 1838-1939. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988.

Levenstein, Lisa. A Movement Without Marches: African American Women and the Politics of Poverty in Postwar Philadelphia . Chapel Hill: University of  North Carolina Press, 2009.

Licht, Walter. Getting Work: Philadelphia, 1840-1950. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992.

Neckerman, Kathryn M. Schools Betrayed: Roots of Failure in Inner-City  Education. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007.

Phillips, Anne E. “A History of the Struggle for School Desegregation in Philadelphia.”  Pennsylvania History 72, no. 1 (Winter 2005): 49–76.

Countryman, Matthew J.   Up South: Civil Rights and Black Power in Philadelphia. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006

Related Collections

• Annual Reports of the Board of Education, Camden, New Jersey (1933, 1934)
• Annual Reports of the Board of Education, Newark, New Jersey (1914, 1916)
• Annual Reports of the Board of Public Education of the First School District of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: 1907, 1915, 1930)
• Citizen's Committee on Public Education in Philadelphia, 1965-1986 Temple Urban Archives
• Floyd L. Logan Papers Temple Urban Archives
• Gladys Palmer Papers University of Pennsylvania - Van Pelt Library
• Philadelphia Tribune

Related Places

• The Concord School House
• West Philadelphia High School
• Germantown High School

Backgrounders

Connecting Headlines with History

• In Camden, Marian Wright Edelman decries 'new American slavery' (WHYY, April 2, 2014)
• 'Election season' in North Philly: parents hear pitches on charter conversion (WHYY, April 16, 2014)
• Touring a North Philly Renaissance school, a microcosm of the city's education debate (WHYY, June 4, 2013)
• Philly Futures helps college-bound Northeast High student defy expectations, odds (WHYY, June 10, 2014)
• William Penn Foundation and Drexel University Partner to Improve Early Education in West Philly Promise Zone (NewsWorks, September 14, 2014)
• College Possible helping students be first in their family to attain higher ed (WHYY, November 20, 2014)
• Philly schools adopt five-year plan with minimal 'ask' of $30 million (WHYY, December 19, 2014)
• Nearly half of Camden's graduates get diplomas by appeal (WHYY, February 9, 2015)
• How is special education paid for in Pennsylvania public schools? (WHYY, April, 29, 2015)
• Philadelphia's universal pre-K commission begins work (WHYY, June 30, 2015)
• Rutgers-Camden to cover tuition for low-income students (WHYY, October 26, 2015)
• Area near Drexel in West Philly wins big school grant (WHYY, December 22, 2016)
• Philly approves one new charter school, rejects another two (WHYY, February 9, 2017)
• Pennsylvania Education Directory/Maps (Pennsylvania Department of Education)
• List of Schools In New Jersey (New Jersey Department of Education)
• Delaware School and School Districts (Delaware Department of Education)
• School District of Philadelphia
• Central High School (PhilaPlace)
• Education in Philadelphia (ExplorePAHistory)

National History Day Resources

• Benjamin Rush, “A Plan for Establishing Public Schools in Pennsylvania,” from Essays, Literary, Moral, and Philosophical (Internet Archive)
• Benjamin Rush, "Thoughts Upon the Mode of Education Proper in a Republic," from Essays, Literary, Moral, and Philosophical (University of Chicago)
• Horace Mann, Lectures on Education (Internet Archive)
• Complaint in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 1951 (DocsTeach)
• Report of the Special Committee on Nondiscrimination of the Board of Public Education of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1964 (ERIC)
• A Nation At Risk, 1983 (HathiTrust Digital Library)

Connecting the Past with the Present, Building Community, Creating a Legacy

ReviseSociology

A level sociology revision – education, families, research methods, crime and deviance and more!

Assess the view that education policies since 1988 have improved equality of educational opportunity (30)

Table of Contents

Last Updated on May 22, 2023 by Karl Thompson

If you get a question on education policies, the chances are you will be asked about ‘education policies since 1988’. This post is designed to get you thinking about how you could use the info on the New Right’s 1988 Education Act and New Labour’s policies from 1997 onwards to answer an exam question in this area.

The New Right’s 1988 Education Act

Not interested in equal opps, mainly interested in raising standards… 

• Parentocracy – parents get to choose schools • Marketisation – schools have to compete like businesses for students • League tables to be published • The above should raise standards as no parent would send child to failing school • National Curriculum – ensures all schools teach core subjects • OFSTED inspections

How 1988 worsened equality of opportunity… 

• Middle classes had more choice – cultural capital/ skilled choosers • School/ parent alliance (Stephen Ball) • Also selection by mortgage • Polarisation of schools – sink schools

New Labour’s Policies

More interested in equal opps  

• Academies (Mossbourne) – set up in poorer areas • EMA • Sure start • Expanded Vocationalism

Other aims of New Labour/ criticisms of the idea that New Labour’s policies raised standards

• Sure start didn’t work • EMA did work but the Tories have now scrapped it • Academies did work but new Tory academies are more selective • Vocationalism offers more opportunities to the lower classes, but it is regarded as inferior.

The coalition government

• Introduced the pupil premium which was extra funding for schools to take on disadvantaged pupils, with the funding being spent specifically on disadvantaged pupils.
• HOWEVER in the long run there is mixed evidence the pupil premium works as the funding sometimes gets spent generally, rather than on disadvantaged pupils.
• The coalition scrapped the EMA, one of the few policies which seemed to have worked to promote equality of opportunity.

The Tory government since 2015

• T-levels may promote equal opportunity by offering more choice for non academic students, this may also help raise the status of academic subjects, breaking the traditional view that they are inferior to academic A-levels.
• Lockdown policies harmed equal opportunities as poor students lost out on more learning than rich students and then covid-catch up policies were insufficient to actually help students catch up.
• Funding cuts to education over several years harm equal opportunities as state schools fall further behind private schools.
• The tories expanded grammar schools by stealth – this harms equal opportunities as grammar schools are over-attended by the the middle classes.

Other Information you could include…

• Compensatory Education – lots to say here….

• You could talk about Gender and Ethnicity too….

Conclusions: have education policies promoted equality of opportunity?

• The main policy of the last 40 years has been marketisation which allows middle-class parents more freedom to exercise their cultural, material and social capital to get their children into the best schools, which works against equality as it favours the rich.
• There have been policies such as the EMA/ Sure Start and Pupil Premium designed explicitly to tackle inequality but these have mostly been short lived or underfunded and failed to make any significant difference.
• However the attainment gap overall has decreased slightly which suggests that these policies haven’t harmed equal opportunities too much.
• The continued existence of private schools is the policy which harms equality the most as these institutions are vehicles of privilege for the wealthiest to hot house their average kids into the best grades and the top jobs they don’t deserve.

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How To Stand Out In The Ivy League During Your Freshman Year

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Harvard College

This spring, many students felt the relief and exuberance that comes with an acceptance letter from one’s dream school. Many students attending Ivy League and other top universities are valedictorians and leaders in their high school communities; they excelled throughout their high school careers and graduated with the accolades to prove it. Yet, these students are often in for a rude awakening when they arrive on campus. Though they were exceptional at their high schools, they are a dime a dozen in the Ivy League. This realization can cause many students to feel imposter syndrome and wonder how they can stand out and make an impression on their professors and peers in such a competitive environment.

The more that students prepare themselves for this adjustment, the better. Standing out in college is a different endeavor than standing out in high school—it requires time, intentionality, and a willingness to be uncomfortable and challenge yourself. Most importantly, it takes practice, and if students seek to hone this skill from their first semester on campus, they will set themselves up for success for the next four years.

For students preparing for their first semester in college, here are five strategies to navigate the transition into the Ivy League with confidence, purpose, and distinction:

1. Make your voice heard in the classroom

At Ivy League and many other top schools, faculty-to-student ratios and class sizes tend to be small, allowing greater opportunity for you to establish yourself in the classroom and engage with your professors directly. Many students are weighed down by self-doubt and the desire to avoid making mistakes in their first semester, and as such, they are reluctant to raise their hands or offer their input. But one of the best ways to establish connections with professors is to use your voice in the classroom—college is about learning and growing, so don’t be afraid to get a question wrong or develop your ideas through conversation. Doing so will allow you to connect with others in class, build your intellectual skill set, and demonstrate your curiosity and earnest desire to learn.

2. Engage in activities outside of the classroom

Beyond academics, the Ivy League is known for vibrant opportunities to learn and connect with others outside of the classroom. Whether you're interested in student government, the performing arts, guest lectures, community service, or intramural athletics, there’s an opportunity to explore your passions. Join clubs and organizations that align with your interests and values, and consider taking on leadership roles to showcase your initiative and organizational skills. Engaging in extracurricular activities will not only enrich your college experience but also afford you the opportunity to get to know people outside of your major or residence hall.

Ghost Of Tsushima Is Already Flooded With Negative Reviews On Steam

Wwe smackdown results winners and grades with stratton vs belair, biden-trump debates: what to know as trump pushes for 2 more faceoffs, 3. cultivate your network.

One of the most valuable assets you'll gain during your time in the Ivy League is your network of peers, professors, and mentors. Take the time to connect with your classmates and professors, attend faculty office hours, and engage in meaningful discussions. One of the best ways to build your network is to simply put yourself out there—a student’s college years are the prime opportunity to connect with even the most distinguished scholars in their field, as they not only likely have connections through their institution, but professors (even at other universities) are more likely to respond to students who reach out for their advice. If one knowledgeable person doesn’t respond or have the bandwidth to advise you on a particular project or query, move on to the next person on your list!

4. Pursue Research, Internship, and Study Abroad Opportunities

The Ivy League offers unparalleled access to research, internship, and study abroad opportunities that can complement your academic studies and expand your horizons. For instance, Harvard offers a multitude of distinguished research positions for undergraduates, ranging from thesis research to research assistantships. The University of Pennsylvania sent students to 48 countries through their study abroad offerings in the 2022-2023 academic year. Meanwhile, Princeton offers more than 400 programs in 140 countries through which students may study abroad. Whether conducting groundbreaking research in your field of study or gaining real-world experience through internships, the plethora of opportunities available to you at an Ivy League university will not only enhance your resume but also deepen your understanding of your chosen field and prepare you for future success.

5. Carve out your niche

Finally, just as high school is a time to hone your passions and demonstrate them in action in your community, college is a more rigorous opportunity to identify and make a name for yourself within a niche industry or discipline. The best way to begin doing so is to have conversations with professors, graduate students, and older students in your field. Ask them questions like: Where do you see the field expanding or moving in the next five years? What are the most significant recent developments in this profession/field? What subjects do you think have been largely unexplored? What advice would you give to emerging scholars in this discipline? While pursuing a subject of true interest to you is indeed important, it is also important to consider how you will contribute uniquely to your subject of interest, and thereby maximize your odds of success in the job market.

Finally, keep in mind that you can (and should) begin practicing these skills in high school. The more you engage in these activities, the more natural they will be when you are on campus at a top university.

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The Budget 2024-25 invests in all areas of education and prioritises equity and opportunity as the Government continues to build a better and fairer education system for all Australians. 

On this page:

Higher education.

As part of the 2024–25 Budget, the Government is delivering on reforms recommended by the Australian Universities Accord. 

This includes reforms to ease cost-of-living pressure on students, improve equity, and increase access to tertiary education opportunities for more Australians, particularly in outer suburban and regional areas. 

Structural reforms will also be progressed to create a better and fairer tertiary education system that will help secure a Future Made in Australia.

Higher Education Loan Program – fairer indexation

The Australian Government has listened to students’ concerns and will make HELP fairer by improving the way indexation is calculated so that HELP debts do not grow faster than wages in the future.

New Commonwealth Prac Payment

$427.4 million to introduce a new Commonwealth Prac Payment from 1 July 2025 to support eligible teaching, nursing and midwifery, and social work students in higher education and Vocational Education and Training as they undertake mandatory practicum placements.

FEE-FREE Uni Ready courses

$350.3 million in additional Commonwealth Grant Scheme funding over four years to fully fund FEE-FREE Uni Ready courses to provide more students with an enabling pathway into higher education.

Australian Tertiary Education Commission

The Government has committed to establish the Australian Tertiary Education Commission (ATEC) as an independent steward of Australia’s tertiary education system. The ATEC will work to drive growth and meet national skills needs through equity measures and create a cohesive and diverse tertiary education system.

Tertiary Education Harmonisation

The Australian Government will invest $27.7 million over 4 years to 2027-28 in a range of initiatives to drive harmonisation between the higher education and Vocational Education and Training (VET) sectors.

Managed growth funding for universities

The Government will introduce a new funding system for Commonwealth supported places from 1 January 2026 to meet student demand, maintain sustainable growth, and increase opportunities for people from under-represented backgrounds.

Needs-based university funding

The Government will introduce new Needs-based Funding System to better support students from underrepresented backgrounds participate and succeed in higher education.

Student Services and Amenities Fee – revenue allocation

The Government will require higher education providers to allocate a minimum of 40% of the Student Services and Amenities Fee revenue to student-led organisations, including student associations, student unions and student guilds.

Charles Darwin University medical school

The Government will provide $24.6 million for Charles Darwin University to establish a medical school from 2026 to help build a health workforce to support the Northern Territory’s unique health challenges.

International Education and Skills Strategic Framework

The Government will develop a new International Education and Skills Strategic Framework for a managed system to deliver sustainable growth over time, and improve the quality and integrity of Australia’s international education sector.

Racism study in universities

The Australian Government will commission a study into racism in the higher education sector; investigating the prevalence, nature and impact of individual and systemic racism across higher education institutions.

The Australian Government is committed to working with state and territory governments to get all public schools on a path to 100% of the Schooling Resource Standard. It has signed Statements of Intent worth an estimated $785.4 million for Western Australia to fully fund all public schools in the state by 2026, and an estimated $736.7 million for the Northern Territory to fully fund all public schools in the territory by 2029. 

The Budget 2024-25 includes an estimated $126.4 billion over 2024–25 to 2027–28 in recurrent school funding. In 2024, the Government is providing $29.2 billion in recurrent funding for all schooling sectors.

First Nations education and Closing the Gap

The Government is investing in partnerships with First Nations Education Peak Organisations, supporting development of a new National First Nations Education Policy and other initiatives to accelerate Indigenous education outcomes to better meet Closing the Gap objectives.

• $12.5 million to the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Corporation and $16.6 million to SNAICC – National Voice for our Children, to reach formal partnership agreements and drive the delivery of the National Agreement on Closing the Gap Priority Reforms.

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• $32.8 million to the Clontarf Foundation to continue supporting up to 12,500 First Nations boys and young men to make school more attractive, engaging and purposeful.
• $2.4 million to develop and implement the First Nations Teacher Strategy to help attract and retain First Nations teachers.

Teacher Resource Hubs

$34.6 million to make evidence-based curriculum and student wellbeing support and professional development materials available for free to all teachers and school leaders through a suite of Teacher Resource Hubs.

Online National Assessment Platform

$7.9 million to support the Online National Assessment Platform and the continued delivery of the National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN).

Good To Great Schools Australia

$5.3 million to extend Good to Great Schools Australia’s English, Maths and Science pilot in some of the nation’s most disadvantaged school communities for two additional school years – in 2025 and 2026.

Australian Schools Anti-Bullying Collective

$4.2 million over four years to the Australian Schools Anti-Bullying Collective to continue delivering anti-bullying programs.

Together For Humanity

$4.0 million to the Together For Humanity program to strengthen student wellbeing and social cohesion and increase activities to address all forms of discrimination in schools.

Early Childhood Education and Care

The Government’s Cheaper Child Care efforts has provided more affordable care and benefitted more than a million families. 

The Budget continues to build on these initiatives by investing:

Child Care Subsidy reforms - strong, sustainable foundations

• $98.6 million to bolster education, audit and compliance activities to strengthen the payment and accuracy of the Child Care Subsidy program.
• And $30 million over 2 years from 2024–25 in IT and payment services to deliver on the Government’s commitment to provide funding towards a wage increase for the ECEC sector. This will support a response to Fair Work Commission processes as they relate to this sector.

Inclusion Support Program

An additional $98.4 million into the Inclusion Support Program (ISP) to help early childhood education and care services increase their capacity to support inclusion of children with disabilities and additional needs.

2024–25 Education Portfolio Budget Statements

The 2024-25 Department of Education Portfolio Budget Statements (PBS) provide information on the proposed allocation of funds to achieve government outcomes. They include budget statements for the department as well as entities working under the portfolio. 

The statements provide information to assist parliament to understand the purpose of each outcome. The Education Portfolio Budget Statements (PBS) were tabled on 14 May 2024.

• Download 2024–25 Education Portfolio Budget Statements as a DOCX (884.89kb)
• Download 2024–25 Education Portfolio Budget Statements as a PDF (3.24mb)

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Gender Inequality in the WAEMU: Current Situation and Opportunities

Author/Editor:

Publication Date:

May 17, 2024

Electronic Access:

Free Download . Use the free Adobe Acrobat Reader to view this PDF file

This paper documents the current state of gender inequalities in the WAEMU by focusing on outcomes (health, education, labor market and financial inclusion) and opportunities (economic rights). The findings show that despite significant progress toward gender equality over the last three decades, there are still prevalent gender-based disparities, which prevent women from fulfilling their economic potential. Both empirical and model-based estimates suggest that the WAEMU can reap substantial economic gains by mitigating the existing gender gaps in schooling and labor market outcomes. Hence, achieving gender equality remains a macro-critical goal for the region. Going forward, the need for specific policies supportive of gender equality may vary in each member country, but a multifaceted and holistic approach is needed to unleash the related economic potential in the WAEMU as a whole.

Selected Issues Paper No. 2024/016

International organization Monetary policy

9798400276811/2958-7875

SIPEA2024016

Please address any questions about this title to [email protected]