Social Inequality In Higher Education

In most cultures, education is highly valued as one of the ways to enhance one’s socioeconomic status within the society. “Higher education one receives, higher socioeconomic status one will get” is the common stereotype of the education. Yet, it is no longer true; gradual increase in education fees enlarge the gap between rich and poor while higher education is no longer guaranteeing the access to enhanced job opportunities. Higher education, although it remains as the crucial element for one’s job opportunity, is financially pressuring the students and promotes social inequality. Achieving higher education such as getting a degree in the college is considered in most countries as the step one must take after graduating from the high school.

In the conflict perspective, education is doing the exact opposite; it promotes and reinforces the inequality of the society among their students. Covaleskie (2014) explains the credentialism. Before, there was the lesser number of people who could actually afford to go to the college and attain the degree, which led to a higher opportunity for them to obtain a profession with higher income. However, once the number of people with Bachelor’s Degree increased, such degree no longer serves a function of guaranteeing one’s opportunity of getting a job. The more disastrous outcome is that achieving such level become less advantageous while not achieving it has some serious consequences (p.99-100). The inequality in education also shows in the standardized tests. The standardized tests involve the questions that the students with knowledge that comes from other types of communication than class or lecture. Mostly, the students with such knowledge come from the middle-high socio-economic class family which makes their achievements enhanced than the achievements of the students from lower socio-economic class

One of the functions corresponds to the concept of “meritocracy”. Meritocracy defined as “an elite group of people whose progress is based on ability and talent rather than on class privilege or wealth” (Mijs, 2016, p.15). In a meritocratic educational institution, one’s success depends on IQ and effort, rather than family background or other ascribed status. It is the system that favors achievement over ascription, encouraging capitalism to perform fairly (Themelis, 2017, p.5) and a society to operate most efficiently (Mijs, 2016, p.16). The meritocracy in education may yield the equality among the students, regardless of their socio-economic background and ethnic or racial difference. However, it can lead to opposite result, which is inequality. One of the reasons is related to the standardized testing; the students’ efforts and hard-work do not necessarily yield high achievement. Also, the talents are not distributed equally; for instance, natural ability and IQ are distributed by the lottery of birth, meaning they are another form of ascribed quality (Mijs, 2016,