Source: IBHE Data Books, 1973-2010.

Excerpted from: R. Kahlenberg, Left Behind: Unequal Opportunity in Higher Education, The Century Foundation, 2008.

What improves the circumstances of the greater part can never be regarded as an inconveniency to the whole. No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable.

Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, Book 1, Chapter VIII, p. 96

What improves the circumstances of the greater part can never be regarded as an inconveniency to the whole. No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable.

Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, Book 1, Chapter VIII.

Source: R. Wilkinson and K. Picket, The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger, Bloomsbury Press, 2010, cited in Tony Judt, Ill Fares the Land, New York Review, April 29, 2010.

Source: R. Wilkinson and K. Picket, The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger, Bloomsbury Press, 2010, cited in Tony Judt, Ill Fares the Land, New York Review, April 29, 2010.

Source: T. Jackson, Prosperity Without Growth, 2009, cited in Tony Judt, Ill Fares the Land, New York Review, April 29, 2010.

Source: R. Wilkinson and K. Picket, The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger, Bloomsbury Press, 2010, cited in Tony Judt, Ill Fares the Land, New York Review, April 29, 2010.

Source: R. Wilkinson and K. Picket, The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger, Bloomsbury Press, 2010, cited in Tony Judt, Ill Fares the Land, New York Review, April 29, 2010.

Source: R. Wilkinson and K. Picket, The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger, Bloomsbury Press, 2010, cited in Tony Judt, Ill Fares the Land, New York Review, April 29, 2010.

Source: IBHE Data Books, 1973-2010.