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November 29, 2004

What Affirmative Action Can't Fix

The Washington Post is bemoaning a dramatic drop in black admissions at major universities this year. The numbers are disturbing: 25% fewer applications at the University of Michigan, 26% fewer at the University of Georgia, 29% fewer at Ohio State University and 32% fewer at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Those are appalling dips, and there's little to suggest the numbers will improve in the future. The Post correctly deduces the problem: not racism, but lousy schools. (Actually, racism may play a part in the schools at lower levels; but the colleges are anything but racist.) Far too many black children attend substandard schools in this country. This leaves far too many of them unprepared for college, leaving colleges fighting over a shrinking pool of qualified applicants. This is arguably bad for the colleges, as they're looking for an ethnically diverse mix of students in each class. It is apparently not so good for the students either, as studies are now suggesting that blacks are frequently accepted at colleges they aren't academically prepared for, and therefore drop out at higher levels than their peers. This is the true tragedy in my mind: these are kids who are capable of earning a college degree. But not all colleges are equal; I did well enough at the university I attended, but I might have had trouble at a more competitive institution. Thanks to affirmative action, too many black kids end up attending those more competitive institutions and start out at a significant disadvantage because their classmates are all ahead of them right from the start. I saw this firsthand in college: one of my best friends had to drop out due to academics after his first year. Not because he was dumb; he was one of the smarter guys I knew. Nor was it effort; I rarely saw him not buried in his books, doing his homework and trying to keep up. It was simply a matter of preparation: he didn't have the grounding necessary to keep up with his classes. For all intents and purposes, he was trying to jump from algebra to calculus; without the intervening classes, there just wasn't any way for him to make the leap. I lost track of him, so I don't know if he eventually finished college or not, but I feel safe in saying that the university did him no favors in accepting him. If he had gone to a somewhat less competitive institution, I suspect he would have done very well, because he wouldn't have had to tried to play catch-up all the time. I have no problem with universities seeking to create an ethnically diverse student body. Of course, this cuts both ways: I don't know why anyone would want to attend a college like Bob Jones University, but if colleges can favor certain groups to create a more heterogenous student body, they can also favor certain groups to create a homogenous student body. But affirmative action isn't an answer to the very real problems faced by the black community in America today. Affirmative action is using makeup to cover the real blemish. Sure, colleges can point to their freshman classes and note the number of blacks, Hispanics, etc. as evidence of their diversity, but only because the media rarely discusses the ethnic balance of those who actually earn degrees. And despite what a number of my friends in college thought, the purpose of attending college is to earn a degree, not just to get in. Until we find ways to improve our schooling at the lowest levels, we're not fixing anything. Affirmative action programs may make college administrators feel better about themselves, but they're not fixing the problem. Colleges would be much better served to take the money they're pouring into cosmetic fixes like affirmative action and ethnic studies programs and direct those funds into improving inner city schools. You want better applicants? Grow them. Create school systems affiliated with your colleges and teach the kids in them what they'll need to know in order to succeed at your school. That's not an easy fix. It will take years to bear fruit, and there will be many heartbreaks and problems along the road. But if done properly, the rewards would be a miracle of sorts. Unfortunately, it's all too likely we'll continue down the road the Post advocates: continuing to use the same programs that haven't fixed the problem for the past 20 years, and watching another generation's talent pour down the drains of our public school system. Update: Captain Ed beat me to the punch.

Posted at November 29, 2004 07:03 AM

Andrew Olmsted

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Comments

Hell, I went to a pretty good private school for high school and I wasn't prepared for college. I was never really challenged by high school and developed habits that reflected that fact. In my first semester of engineering at Iowa, I took an advanced calculus class, honors rhetoric, physics, and engineering class that required programming, and chemistry for science majors.

I took 24 hours and got my ass kicked. I was awake like 20 hours a day keeping up. I had never really used computers and had most of the math they made me take in high school during 8th grade. But, because we were the first class to take the honors math course, they didn't have a set-up where we could go to higher courses without retaking what we had already completed.

Posted by: Scott at November 29, 2004 10:51 AM

It can cut both ways. I applied and was accepted on deferment (take a semester at a JuCo and then enter the next Spring) to Texas A&M University a number of years ago. One of the big factors weighing against A&M was the fact that I "barely" got in. So I went to the University of Houston and excelled and looking back I'm positive that I could have made it in A&M (or even UT) if I'd chosen to do so.

The point of my little story being that you don't know what you can accomplish until you're there. To that extent, I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt to those that come from more troubled school districts.

that being said, the reason that I was "undervalued" going in to college and "overperformed" throughout it was that I had a comparitively low class rank (outside the top 25%) at a great school. Those ranking high at worse schools are arguably "overvalued" going in and "underperforming" once there.

If it were up to me (vouchers - which I support - aside), it would be great to create a "catch-up" year at a community college for the best and brightest in less fortunate academic settings and create a scholarship system in order to assure that they can afford to do so.

Posted by: R. Alex at November 29, 2004 11:42 AM

Alex, you bring up a good point. There aren't easy answers to this; challenging students can often bring out their full potential. I think we can agree that we'd see a lot more success at the college level if more students were pushed while in lower schools, however.

Posted by: Andrew at November 30, 2004 08:06 AM

I agree with R. Alex. We need to evaluate kids coming from inner city schools [and probably rural schools, too] prior to letting them into colleges. Those who have ability but lack training should then enter a junior college where they can play catch up for a year. The colleges should hold their place open for a year to ensure that they will be accepted at the college of their choice. This wouldn't solve all the problems but it would help.

In the meantime, poor schools have to be helped to improve by the communities they exist in. This can be done without lots of extra cash if both parents and employers in the area agree to help. I think about half of the problem is created by parents who have poor educational backgrounds themselves and, for whatever reasons, do not see education as important. Kids like these need a serious mentor, hopefully someone who can work with them throughout elementary and high schools. Almost like a surrogate parent. If every at risk kid had one of these we could help the problem enormously.

Posted by: dad at December 1, 2004 01:37 PM