Over the past decade, American education has been running a quiet but consequential experiment. Some school systems have tried to promote equity by lowering academic standards — reducing advanced coursework, loosening grading norms, eliminating admissions tests and redefining mastery. Others have taken the opposite approach, insisting on clear expectations and high standards through evidence-based instruction. The results of this experiment are now unmistakable.
The theory behind the first approach — tested in places like California and Chicago — is that putting equity first is the path to excellence for all. But the results have been deeply discouraging for both excellence and equity.
Equity-first policies are failing students
National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores have fallen sharply since the mid-2010s, with the steepest declines among the lowest-performing students — the very students this approach claims to help. At the same time, grades have soared. Put these trends together and you get the viral story from the University of California San Diego, where hundreds of incoming students — many earning As in high-school calculus — could not solve middle-school algebra problems.
Meanwhile, schools in states such as Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee and Alabama have been testing the opposite theory: that putting excellence first is the path to equity. These states adopted evidence-based curricula, invested heavily in teacher training and enforced clear academic standards, including repeating a grade when necessary. While students in many other states fell behind, these states experienced a “Southern surge” in K-12 reading achievement across all levels of ability. In short, putting equity first has failed to deliver either equity or excellence; putting excellence first has delivered both.
Equity built on lowered expectations is a mirage. Equity built on excellence endures.
The sad thing is that we already knew this. The experiment was unnecessary. For decades, economists — from Eric Hanushek and James Heckman to Roland Fryer and Raj Chetty — have shown that high expectations for students and teachers, paired with evidence-based instruction, are especially powerful for students who start out behind. Where the most disadvantaged students succeed, upward mobility — equity — follows.
Parents’ frustration with the failures of equity-first policies in K-12 education is fueling the school choice movement. Similar dynamics are now playing out in higher education, though no choice revolution is needed. Students and families already vote with their feet.
Southern public universities — from the Carolinas through Alabama and Tennessee — are attracting tens of thousands of students from the Northeast and Midwest. Weather and sports culture alone cannot explain the shift. Students are responding to campus cultures that emphasize rigor, communicate expectations clearly and prioritize learning over ideological signaling. Meanwhile, many institutions that made large bets on equity-first approaches are experiencing enrollment declines, financial stress and layoffs. Some approaches have also conflicted with federal anti-discrimination law, resulting in costly settlements and increased scrutiny under the Trump administration.
Elite universities may be able to rely on prestige as a temporary shield, but most tuition-dependent institutions cannot. With declining college-age populations, uncertain international enrollment, historically low public trust and heightened oversight, universities that fail to adjust course will not survive.
How higher education can prioritize academic excellence
The path forward — for both excellence and equity — is clear. First, institutions should reinstate transparent, race-neutral standards of success and readiness. Admissions tests, real grading norms and prerequisite pathways are not tools of oppression; they are tools of opportunity. They provide clarity for students and early warning signals for institutions to intervene before small gaps become failures. Merit-based hiring similarly ensures that students of all backgrounds learn from the strongest possible faculty.
Second, schools should adopt evidence-based instructional practices and evaluate instructors on demonstrated student learning rather than popularity or ideological conformity.
Third, universities should double down on transferable skills. The labor market rewards graduates who can write clearly, reason quantitatively, analyze data and solve real-world problems — the very competencies that level the playing field and are least compatible with watered-down curricula.
When standards erode, students notice — and they take their tuition dollars elsewhere. Stories like the one from UC San Diego are not indictments of students; they are warnings to educators. Equity built on lowered expectations is a mirage. Equity built on excellence endures.
Excellence is not the enemy of equity. It is the precondition for it.