This op-ed essay says universities are a cog in one of the great inequality producing machines, encouraging economic and social stratification. Only 28 percent of American adults have a college degree, but they live in areas and work in fields where most are educated. This has created a social chasm, and behavioral differences between the two groups are vast. Divorce rates for college grads are plummeting, but not for others. High school grads are twice as likely to smoke as college grads, and less likely to exercise. College grads are twice as likely to vote, and more likely to do volunteer work and give blood. As the gap between rich and poor grows, fewer of the poor are able to obtain a college education. Students in the poorest quarter of the population have only an 8.6 percent chance of going to college, while those in the richest quarter have a 74.9 percent shot at a university degree. The most damning indictment of our university system is that these poor kids are graduating from high school in greater numbers; it's when they get to college that they begin failing and dropping out. Higher ed is now causing most of the growing inequality and strengthening the class structure of the United States .