I'd like to point out that there's an egalitarian approach to college admissions that I found interesting. Every single time I've brought it up with people, no matter their politics, they got angry about it, but I think it would be interesting to see it implemented and then compare the outcomes.
I've heard of similar proposals for funding grants; have a first pass to make sure the grant proposals aren't total BS, then lottery among those that pass.
That assumes that the primary purpose of higher education is education, instead of maintaining social stratification under the auspices of meritocracy.
A lottery system of admissions, with a guarantee of admission to at least some universities. It's described here: https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/03/admit-everybody/