Family expenditures throughout high school can affect a student’s college acceptance prospects.However, once the application is sitting before admissions officers, colleges and universities have the opportunity to address some of the disparities in the resources and environments that have shaped each applicant through affirmative action programs and other similar initiatives that take into account more than just test scores, grades, and other narrow measures of merit.
The first article below explores the case for affirmative action in light of the unequal resources and opportunities that students have access to as a result of their families’ circumstances. The second raises concerns about affirmative action programs.
”I’m for Affirmative Action. Can You Change My Mind?”
Gutting argues in favor of affirmative action by claiming that it is “sufficiently worthy” to prefer minority applicants over majority ones. He writes that minorities are severely underrepresented at the top 100 universities because racial inequalities leave minority students with fewer resources and opportunities to achieve the admissions criteria. Gutting claims that universities are morally obliged to “compensate for the damage done to minorities” by the United States’ dismal record of racial marginalization.
The Painful Truth About Affirmative Action
Sander and Taylor suggest that affirmative action fails to accomplish its goal because it tends to neglect lower-income minority students in favor of minority students from higher income backgrounds. They also claim that affirmative action programs falter because of what they call the “mismatch” effect: when universities accept less qualified students, these students struggle to thrive and are more likely to fall behind.
Questions for discussion:
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Should we assume that we cannot control or restrict how families spend their money and instead hold admissions teams responsible for maintaining the equality of opportunity in the admissions process by expanding programs like affirmative action?
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Or given this assumption, should we eliminate selective admissions altogether in favor of students attending their local universities?
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Alternatively, should universities accept concerns that affirmative action favors wealthier people of color over lower-income minority groups as reason to ignore disparities in the equality of opportunity in the college admissions process?