I started this as a comment on Dr. Cleveland's brilliant piece but it goes in a sufficiently different direction that I decided it would be hijacking "Three Myths ".

This will be taken as an affront by many of  but my reaction to the unfairness of a "legacy" taking the spot at ,say , Tulane that should have gone to a deserving minority  is like JFK's famous remark in a different context: "Life isn't fair".

Without question everyone should have an education.

Occasionally one sees the  obscene post cards from the 1900s showing a lynching as a social event.  Also you could have met in Germany after the War hard working highly competent mechanics whose schooling ended at 13 and secretly saw nothing wrong with the holocaust.

Poorly "educated" people do , and approve of, horrible things.

Participation in a civilized community  requires a universal  education which  makes it unthinkable to tolerate lynchings or the holocaust.Everyone should have that. For their sake and for  the rest of us.

And they should get it without a dollar of student debt.

It doesn't require a degree from Yale..If you want that it is probably going to mean acquiring student debt.

If you don't want that, don't go there.

What would a universal education look like? Well it wouldn't end with  graduates who need remedial education. When you still need remedial education, you're not educated.  

Would providing  it eliminate economic inequities? No. Nothing will .Setting that as a goal means substituting a feel- good exercise for an attempt to actually making things better.