Last week, Stanford announced that it would no longer charge tuition to students with family incomes below $100,000 a year, taking a major step toward equal access to education. The price tag of a Stanford degree has long been a barrier for low and middle-income families. By giving such families a clear, bold and simple policy statement instead of a mess of financial aid forms, Stanford has made it more plausible to apply and possible to attend.

This is great news, but it is frustrating to always feel two years behind Harvard. If we want to take the lead on educational equality, we have to make it a core part of our mission. Here are some ideas:

Free enrichment programs for incoming students

Applicants come from unequal backgrounds. Some didn’t have SAT-prep classes, their schools didn’t offer AP and they had jobs or had to help take care of younger siblings to help their families make ends meet. Even though they didn’t have the advantages other applicants had, they may have the same underlying ability. In other words, these applicants may be just as able to succeed at Stanford, even though their scores don’t show it. Fundamentally, this is the premise of affirmative action.

But if you take that premise seriously, robust affirmative action programs must be coupled with efforts to close the preparation gap. It doesn’t make sense to acknowledge that some students have less preparation when we make admissions decisions and then begin instruction assuming that every student is on the same footing. We need to admit new people and prepare them to succeed.

One option would be a spring, summer and/or fall program available to any incoming student providing some of the basic things a high-achieving high school would — AP math, intensive writing workshops, U.S. and world history, and so on. It would hardly stretch Stanford’s capacity to offer this program to any admitted student who wanted it, and it would be very effective in leveling the playing field among incoming students.

A comprehensive approach to

diversity

Right now “diversity” is often a code word for “people of different colors.” That’s great, and it’s a very important component of diversity, but it’s not the whole story. Poor or rich, male or female, urban or rural, one or two parents, white or blue collar family — all of these have a critical impact on how a child will score on standard admissions measures, and just as we don’t want an all-white Stanford, we don’t want an all-suburban Stanford either, because it would limit students’ horizons. The administration gets it — for example, Vice Provost Patricia Gumport stated the value of multiple types of diversity explicitly in yesterday’s Daily — but too often the numbers and goals reflect only racial diversity, and the money and focus follows the numbers. We need to match our programs and measurement tools to our rhetoric.

Diversity in other areas of academic life

We learn more from our peers than from our professors, so a diverse student body enriches the experience of each student. That’s what we say. But Stanford’s commitment to a diverse student experience too often ends at the doorway. If we wanted to increase the benefit each student receives from the diversity of the Stanford student body, we need to find ways to pull different people together. We can’t force people to interact, but we can provide enough pull to balance the natural tendency of people to seek friends similar to themselves.

What if each ASSU-funded student group had to submit a “diversity plan” explaining how they were going to involve people of different backgrounds in their activities? What if draw groups got a small diversity bonus for bringing unlike people together? What if academic departments set diversity goals for their major, or for their big intro classes, and then thought about how to meet them?

More diverse role models and mentors

Much has been said about the role of a diverse faculty in attracting a diverse student body. The bottom line, however, is that the Ph.D. pipeline is one of the most un-diverse status groups in America. Stanford has actually seen a significant decline in graduate representation of black and Native American students over the last two decades.

Why not set up a visiting leaders program whose major purpose is to enhance the undergraduate experience — California’s politicians, business leaders and media personalities are a quite diverse group of people, light years ahead of our faculty. We could set up a public leadership seminar and a personalized advising program where interested students could meet with a diverse group of people from the outside world.

Fun fact: Kai Stinchcombe just got engaged. Email him at kstinch "at" stanford.edu.