A few years ago, hundreds of college administrators received a survey in the mail. It was designed to figure out what they believed it takes to succeed in college.

What the researchers didn't tell the administrators is that half of these expectations represented independent norms, and the other half represented interdependent norms.

They had a bias toward thinking college is for learning more of the independent norms, like learning how to express yourself. In fact, 84 percent of administrators from top-tier schools and 69 percent from second-tier schools preferred the independent traits.

But as it turns out, this seemingly insignificant bias is partially responsible for turning colleges into institutions that reproduce wealth and exacerbate structural inequality. Research suggests that these values are actually dependent on a student's class background — and that when students from lower- and working-class families get to college, they face an experience largely shaped by more privileged people...

Read the full article at Vox.com