THE BURIED LEDE IN THIS WSJ STORY IS THAT COLLEGES ARE EXPLICITLY BASING TUITION ON RACE: How to Get a Big Break on the Cost of College: Just Ask: The pandemic has accelerated a yearslong shift in financial power toward families, away from schools. Key bit:

The task is to determine who has more leverage, the school or student, said Nathan Mueller, an enrollment-management consultant with EAB, a firm in Washington, D.C. When one client, a midsize Catholic college, raised its sticker price 4% for the 2019-20 year, he used an algorithm weighing 253 characteristics—such as gender, race, parental income, addresses, frequency of contact with recruiters—among students admitted there the prior school year to determine what it should charge each new applicant.

Based on his calculations, the school offered a $31,000 discount to a female Asian-American from a well-off Wisconsin family with a grade-point average of 3.96. It offered a $27,914 discount to a female Hispanic from a low-income Oregon family with a 3.22 GPA. The first accepted; the second declined.

This seems likely to be illegal to me, and I hope the Department of Education, and the Department of Justice, will investigate.