But since such students are most likely to advance economically if they succeed in higher education, colleges and universities have pushed for decades to recruit more of them.
Many medical schools, perhaps sharing that preconception, did not admit female candidates; Harvard's began accepting women only after the second world war.
Now, if you had said Harvard's going to randomly take 1600 people of absolutely no qualification, we'd all be saying, " Well, there's not much to work for."
OK, Well, we'll find out if you're right at the end of the programme. It's been 40 years since NASA first recruited women to be astronauts. Today, a third of the people who work at NASA are women.
“Harvard College” survived, nonetheless. At first, it only enrolled boys. Now, it enrolls both boys and girls. And It is the only undergraduate division of Harvard University.