Power to the procrastinators

Over the last few years some of America's more expensive colleges and universities have worked to make tuition more affordable.* While I'd guess that many factors beyond the price tag can make the road to college rocky for less-advantaged kids, maybe this type of assistance will help.**

But what about the recent move to eliminate early admission programs, in the name of equality? The basic idea is, it takes a certain set of socioeconomic advantages to access and succeed in the early admissions process. By elimintating early admissions, we level the playing field.

At least that's the conventional wisdom. But as Stanford's provost points out in this column, that conventional wisdom runs counter to the facts and statistics on early admissions. He makes a pretty convincing case that early admittees are not displacing less-advantaged applicants, and that, therefore, eliminating early admissions won't necessarily have the hoped-for field-leveling effect.

In all probability, the students to benefit most from the elimination of early admissions will be, you guessed it, the lazy-ass ones who can't be bothered to spend the summer touring colleges and obsessing over application essays. And I have to say, there is a certain justice in that.

*For example, Princeton converted its need-based student loans to grants in 2001 and Yale did so in 2005.

**Though, of course there's the disturbing trend that college tuition on average is rising much faster than incomes.