Tuition of privilege by Jennifer Stephenson

A university degree was once sold as the great equalizer, a passport stamped not by inheritance but by effort. The promise, however imperfect, was that talent could outrun circumstance. That promise has always been fragile, but it now feels increasingly endangered by a political movement that treats higher education not as a public investment but as a cultural enemy. In my view, one of the most damaging consequences of the Trump era and the politicians who embraced its approach has been accelerating the transformation of a college education into an even sharper marker of class, where money determines opportunity more than merit.

The irony is difficult to ignore. The loudest rhetoric celebrates opportunity while policies and priorities often make opportunity more expensive, more exclusive, and more uncertain. When public universities receive less support, tuition rarely stands still. When student aid becomes politically suspect, families with limited means absorb the shock. Wealthy households adapt. Middle-class families stretch themselves thin. Working-class students postpone their dreams or abandon them altogether.

This is not merely an economic problem. It is a cultural one. Education becomes less about expanding horizons and more about protecting privilege. The wealthy continue to send their children to prestigious universities, graduate with manageable debt or none at all, and inherit professional networks that compound their advantages. Everyone else is told to work harder while climbing a ladder whose rungs are quietly being removed.

There is a peculiar contradiction in attacking universities as elitist while simultaneously making them accessible primarily to those with financial privilege. If higher education truly is disconnected from ordinary Americans, then the answer should be broadening access, not shrinking it. Starving institutions of public support does not democratize education; it privatizes opportunity.

The consequences extend beyond individual students. A society that prices talented people out of education loses future teachers, engineers, scientists, nurses, entrepreneurs, and artists. Innovation slows because brilliance is not distributed according to wealth, even if opportunity increasingly is. The next groundbreaking researcher may be stocking grocery shelves instead of conducting laboratory experiments simply because tuition bills arrived before scholarships did.

None of this suggests universities are beyond criticism. They are imperfect institutions with bloated administrations, rising costs, and ideological blind spots. Reform is necessary. But reform should lower barriers, not reinforce them. It should invite more people into classrooms, not quietly reserve those seats for families who can write larger checks.

The measure of a democracy is not how comfortably the privileged remain privileged. It is whether an ambitious teenager from an ordinary neighborhood has a genuine chance to compete with someone born into abundance. When higher education becomes another luxury good, democracy itself grows a little thinner. A diploma should represent curiosity, perseverance, and achievement, not simply the size of a family's bank account. If we accept that education belongs primarily to those who can afford it, we are no longer rewarding merit. We are simply institutionalizing inheritance under a different name.