At Middlebury College--and on campuses throughout the country--class is coming out of the closet. Long hidden from view, economic status is emerging from the shadows, as once-taboo discussions are taking shape. The growing economic divide in America, and on American campuses, has given rise to new student organizations, and new dialogues, focused on raising awareness of class issues--and proposing solutions. With the U.S. Supreme Court likely to curtail the consideration of race in college admissions this year, the role of economic disadvantage as a basis for preferences could further raise the salience of class. Today's young people have grown up in a world unlike that of their parents. Class inequality has taken on much greater salience than racial inequality. Today's youth didn't grow up seeing fire hoses being trained on peaceful civil-rights demonstrators. Instead they have grown up in a country where racism continues to exist, but where voters elected and then re-elected a black president, and where Latinos are a rising political power. And they have come of age at a time of growing economic inequality, when the advantages of economic privilege are greater than ever before. Wealthy families have always had more resources to invest in their children, but the gap in that spending between wealthy and poor families has tripled since the 1970s. For 50 years, higher education has managed to avoid questions of class. But gaping economic disparity, changing student sentiment, and the U.S. Supreme Court seem likely to bring class back, once again, to the forefront. Having taken some modestly successful steps to include women and racial minorities, will the colleges accept the challenge?