RICHARD VEDDER: Seven Ways the Department of Education Has Made Higher Ed Worse. Here’s just one: “Second, if anything, college has become more elitist and less accessible to low income students. The proportion of recent graduates who are from the bottom quartile of the income distribution has declined since 1970 or 1980. The qualitative gap between the rich highly selective private schools and state universities has widened—fewer state schools make it near the top in the US News rankings, for example.”