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DavidWaldron t1_iu2u2mj wrote

Reply to comment by 685327593 in [OC] Racial breakdown of students at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, MIT, Stanford compared to students scoring 1400+ on the SAT by tabthough

And in response to the first paragraph, the question is whether you want the post secondary education to simply reflect people’s advantages up to that point, or whether you also want to capitalize on ability that has been underdeveloped and under-recognized. If you want the former, reward standardized test (or straight-up family wealth). If you think the latter has benefits you can use policies like Texas‘s top percent policy which gives automatic acceptance based on percentile performance within schools. This is empirically shown to increase college attainment among economically disadvantaged students with no real downsides.

Edit: here’s the Texas Top Percent research

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685327593 t1_iu2vhf8 wrote

I think top colleges should admit the most qualified students. Lowering the standards of our top academic institutions isn't the solution to poor parenting and school funding. State colleges are perfectly fine institutions of higher learning and a person attending one has plenty of opportunity to succeed in life. A Harvard education isn't required to get ahead for an intelligent and motivated individual. If politicians want to do something to help poor people get more educated they should change the way schools are funded since the current model of using local property taxes is manifestly unfair. The reality is that by the time a person is 18 its already too late to make up for a learning deficit acquired early in life.

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DavidWaldron t1_iu2w0v3 wrote

I don’t care about Harvard either, to be honest. I care much more about public universities. It simply doesn’t follow that admitting the “most qualified” students maximizes the benefits of the education system. It doesn’t. It is actually less efficient than a design like in Texas.

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