Increasingly Competitive College Admissions: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

The stories I hear about this usually focus on how more people are going to college today than ever, but there’s still only one Harvard, so there’s increasing competition for the same number of spots. Even when tuition existed, historical accounts suggest it wasn’t especially burdensome for most college students, and record widespread effort to accommodate people who couldn’t pay.The first Harvard scholarship was granted in the 1640s. There are occasional scattered references to people showing up at Harvard without enough money to pay and being given jobs as servants to college officials or other students to help cover costs; in America, Ralph Waldo Emerson took advantage of this kind of program; in Britain, Isaac Newton did.

Source: slatestarcodex.com