Students who have the greatest educational need—low-income, part-time, first-generation, working parents, immigrants, and people of color—are systematically funneled into institutions with the fewest resources. In response, elite universities must be uncommonly generous in the years ahead with respect to funding, transfers, and the amount of students they will serve.

On May 29, 1453, the Ottoman sultan Mehmet II stood with an army of 300,000 men before the walls of Constantinople. Built by the emperor Theodosius, the fortifications had stood, un-breached, for a thousand years. But on that day the sultan's janissaries and artillery proved too much for the small band of defenders occupying the last remnant of Byzantium and the ancient Roman Empire. The sultan rode on a white horse into the city, and into history, which named him "Mehmet the Conqueror."

The sultan soon erected a new palace in Constantinople, overlooking the Sea of Marmara and the mouth of the Bosphorus River, which divides the European and Asian continents. The complex of buildings included gardens and throne rooms, a treasury for the empire's riches, and a harem for the sultan's concubines. But that wasn't all. The sultan knew that while firepower was needed to claim the new seat of the realm, brainpower was needed to keep it—scientists and administrators to run the engines of commerce and government that maintained his far-flung lands. Without them, the empire would weaken and the day would inevitably come when another would-be conqueror arrived at the city walls.

It's often said that higher education as we know it began in Europe in the middle of the last millennium. But the Ottoman system of higher learning in the fifteenth century, in some ways, bears more resemblance to the American system today. Unlike their European antagonists, the Ottomans weren't debilitated by theories of race-based intellectual superiority or hereditary rule by the "well-born." Every year, emissaries from the capital would fan out into the Balkans, travelling through remote towns and villages to select the most intellectually and physically promising Christian boys. Those chosen were brought to the center of the empire, where they spent years being tested and trained.

Some became soldiers, leaders in the imperial army. Others became builders and engineers. And a select few—the best of the best—were allowed through the gates of the sultan's palace, where they studied and conversed in a library built near the throne room, an elegant gray building with silk curtains, long couches, and windows of stained glass. It was as close to a pure meritocracy as anything that could be found, and it worked: of the 36 men after the conquest who became Grand Vizier, second only to the sultan himself, 34 rose up through the system. As one historian said of those who made their way from the hinterlands to the center of higher learning through the force of their intellect and will, "Theirs was pride of the most splendid and forgivable sort; for they were fitted to rule."

How different is our present system of higher education, really? We, too, reject the notion of higher education and government power reserved for the children of nobility. We also believe that all students, no matter where or to whom they were born, should have a chance to be judged on their virtues, to gain educational opportunity if their talents and accomplishments merit the chance. And we, too, like to build grand libraries and edifices of higher learning in our capitals—places just like this one, proud institutions where scholars mix with students selected for their potential. Students just like you. ...

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