>>But at least one top-flight elite school in the US is making a serious effort to include students who are not wealthy or otherwise elite. I found this article in Amherst's latest alumni mag really interesting:
https://www.amherst.edu/aboutamherst/magazine/issues/2011summer/nationalinterestWhich is exactly my point: empowered insiders are perceiving the problem with the status quo and are taking steps in the public interest rather than their own selfish desires. Some bitter people might label this "charity" but that's not it at all: this used to be a key element of the "American Way" as perceived by outsiders, fwiw. The recent extraordinary selfishness is a phase that will end soon enough, one way or another.
"... They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us."
-- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1
