Say what you will about Larry Summers now that he has decided to resign from Harvard’s presidency—and the pointy-headed prattling is going to be obsessive for a while—but the man did one thing that has the potential to become a positive legacy beyond just Harvard: he called attention to the lack of economic diversity in selective colleges and took meaningful steps to address it.

In February 2004, Summers announced a four-part plan to reduce the financial barriers preventing able students from low- and middle-income families from attending Harvard. Under the plan, students from families making less than $40,000 would not have to pay anything at all to attend the school; those making between $40,000 and $60,000 would receive much more financial aid than in the past. The plan, which also included extensive outreach and tutoring, resulted in a 22 percent increase in the number of students admitted from families with incomes below $60,000.

His actions prompted other selective colleges to at least consider moving in the same direction, although with less flush endowments most haven’t exactly jumped on the bandwagon with great enthusiasm. Still, Summers made important use of his bully pulpit during his short time on it, declaring persistently and accurately, “The most serious domestic problem in the United States today is the widening gap between the children of the rich and the children of the poor, and education is the most powerful weapon we have to address that problem.”

A Century Foundation study found that students from the lowest socioeconomic quartile represent just 3 percent of students in the 146 most selective U.S. universities, versus 74 percent from the top quartile. While economic barriers are far from the only reason for that discrepancy, William Bowen, the former Princeton president and head of the Mellon Foundation, has found that large numbers of low-income students with strong qualifications either don’t apply, aren’t admitted to top colleges because they aren’t given the benefit of the doubt, or decide against attending after being accepted—often because of the money involved.

In 2004, the number of students with family incomes under $30,000 who scored 650 or higher on the 800-point math and verbal sections was 12,755 and 6,995, respectively; for students from homes where neither parent had more than a high school degree, the parallel figures were 22,477 and 14, 812. That’s an admittedly modest pool of promising applicants (and the SAT alone is just one admissions factor), but those numbers are a lot higher than the numbers who end up attending selective colleges. Bowen has been arguing that admissions offices ought to be putting a “thumb on the scale” for low-income kids comparable to affirmative action efforts.

One other university president, Anthony Marx of Amherst College, is equally passionate about promoting economic diversity in higher education. This hot-off-the- presses profile of Marx from Business Week tells all about him (he even has charisma, good looks, and excellent social skills!). Harvard’s Trustees might want to urge the members of the search committee to read it over.

Greg Anrig, Jr. is vice president for programs at The Century Foundation. This article originally appeared at TPMCafe on February 21, 2006.