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Even during a crisis, colleges abuse their economic and reputational privileges

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Re: Even during a crisis, colleges abuse their economic and reputational privileges

#101

Post by martin_a »

dang wrote: post #99
martin_a wrote: post #14

One can only shake his head when you hear about how things work in America. Why are you so hostile against each other and/or the weaker/younger/non-wealthy people? In most of Europe, education is free. You'll obviously have to take care of your own cost of living, but there are no real fees where you come out of your education and have 100k in debt. Why do things in America work so different? It's not (yet) a third w…

Please don't post nationalistic flamebait to HN. It leads to nationalistic flamewars, which I'm sure you don't want. If you're going to touch on a topic like this, your comment needs flame retardant, not lighter fluid. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

[flagged]

Re: Even during a crisis, colleges abuse their economic and reputational privileges

#102

Post by MyHypatia »

MaxBarraclough wrote: post #72

I'll zoom in on the diversity point, but I realise it's not the whole focus of the article. Seems to me the real point here is both blindingly obvious, and for some reason never discussed. Education is a pipeline, and everyone is obsessing over the final stage, forgetting the rest. It's short-term thinking that misses the real problems. If you want your society to produce successful university graduates from all demo…

I agree that the needed work (and hardest work) is access to quality pre-university education.

That being said, I find it bizarre that we fret over whether minority applicants are given an unfair boost, while at the same time allowing legacy admissions and athletic preferance admissions to continue. Both of these boost applicants who otherwise would not make it through. We don't fret too much when a spot is taken by a wealthy legacy admit or obscure sport admit, yet we have multiple lawsuits and court cases if the spot is taken by a racial minority.

John Hopkins University ended legacy admissions and I applaud them. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/01/why-we-end...

Re: Even during a crisis, colleges abuse their economic and reputational privileges

#103

Post by uk_programmer »

mnm1 wrote: post #96
uk_programmer wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It shouldn't matter what-so-ever what race someone is. It should be irrelevant. It shouldn't be a positive or negative thing. If social mobility is a problem then you means test the household based on wealth and give grants to those that satisfy the criteria.

What should or shouldn't matter is irrelevant and pretending like it's relevant is naive. It does matter. That's a fact. You want to take your argument to 1850 and argue what should and shouldn't matter? We fought the bloodiest war in American history over this so you know what, it does fucking matter. And even in 2020, racism is still widespread, so you know what, it fucking matters. That's reality. It most certainl…

> It's not even an argument. It has no basis in reality. It's a fantasy. History matters and affects the present. It's as simple as that.

I was going to rebut most of your angry ramblings. Then I read this and I remembered why it pointless with talking to people like yourself. You think there cannot be any discussion on a topic outside of what you think it correct because you have decided that you have the correct opinion.

I said "this shouldn't matter".

Re: Even during a crisis, colleges abuse their economic and reputational privileges

#104

Post by Shinobi881 »

Is this about how D&I efforts are ruining higher ed or about higher ed being a "Ponzi Scheme"?

The conversation is starkly different here vs. the Disqus conversation on the article page.

Also, authoring "The Diversity Delusion: How Race and Gender Pandering Corrupt the University and Undermine Our Culture." makes me question the author's motive/bias.

Re: Even during a crisis, colleges abuse their economic and reputational privileges

#105

Post by primitivesuave »

MaxBarraclough wrote: post #72

I'll zoom in on the diversity point, but I realise it's not the whole focus of the article. Seems to me the real point here is both blindingly obvious, and for some reason never discussed. Education is a pipeline, and everyone is obsessing over the final stage, forgetting the rest. It's short-term thinking that misses the real problems. If you want your society to produce successful university graduates from all demo…

I traveled around the US to practically every major city of the United States selling software to middle/high schools. The quality of education is excellent in certain places and abysmal in others. You can probably guess the correlation between school quality and the wealth of the surrounding neighborhood.

Even if you were to tackle the issue of vast economic inequality, you would still need a new generation of parents who understand how to nurture an academic culture within their home and community. It is irrelevant how helpful our education software was to the classrooms who implemented it - it requires students who value education and who show up at school with food in their stomach and without the all-encompassing stress of what awaits them at home at the end of the day.

Re: Even during a crisis, colleges abuse their economic and reputational privileges

#106

Post by ArnoVW »

fastball wrote: post #29
ArnoVW wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those averages are across the country. The distribution will be hugely different depending on whether you are in Iowa or Florida. Moreover, the distribution is not equal across ages. And since only young people go to universities, this has a huge effect.

Are colleges only supposed to attract people from the local area and therefore reflect local demographics? That seems a bit backwards to me. Regardless, GP seems to teach at a school in Virginia, which is 94.2% white. That is a good point about how racial demographics can change between age groups though. Do you have more accurate numbers that we can use in this regard?

BTW,19% of Virginia is black.

https://worldpopulationreview.com/states/states-by-race/

Re: Even during a crisis, colleges abuse their economic and reputational privileges

#107

Post by BrandoElFollito »

battery_cowboy wrote: post #13
fastball wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is 72.4% white. You would then expect there to be 27.6% non-white students at any particular institution, assuming no racial discrimination, etc. So then why is 40% non-white a desirable outcome? I thought the point was to compensate for exclusion / marginalization / discrimination, in which case the target should be that aforementioned 27.6%. EDIT: since many people are replying to me saying that using the na…

Man, you twisted this comment so much to extract that message. The commenter is likely saying it's good that the campus is more representative, not that they're for the elimination of whites or some shit. Also, you don't know where they live. Where I come from, it's about 80 percent nonwhite. Before you comment, consider that the story you make up in your head isn't always the most likely. Edit: Hawaii has 25 percent…

And what is the non-white percentage at the university over there?

(I live in France so I do not have any stakes in this discussion, just curious)

Re: Even during a crisis, colleges abuse their economic and reputational privileges

#108

Post by BrandoElFollito »

uk_programmer wrote: post #34
fakedang wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tbh, diversity only seems to be a thing in America (and slowly creeping into the UK). I think it's partly more pronounced there because your race is significantly correlated to your income levels, which determine your ability to go to college. Meanwhile, most of Europe is homogenous largely, and thus insusceptible to any effects from diversity issues. Even in the UK, the most diverse European country, except for some…

In the UK there is a class divide (linked mostly to wealth but not entirely). Everyone that is naturalised or was born here is considered British no matter what their race is (the same applies to the French IIRC). Yes unfortunately people are bringing race into our politics which is a shame tbh because it is considered rude to mention someone's race in anything other than maybe describing their physical appearance (f…

In France wealth is secondary to the place you live in and where you come from (in terms of divisions in the nation).

Of course if you have French nationality your "race" does not matter (there are no programs for minorities) but the reality is, also of course, different.

Looking at the last 40 years, I wrote say that Islamism has become the greatest divider (for 10 or 20 years now). This was a non-subject when I was a kid in the 80's.

Re: Even during a crisis, colleges abuse their economic and reputational privileges

#109

Post by uk_programmer »

BrandoElFollito wrote: post #108
uk_programmer wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK there is a class divide (linked mostly to wealth but not entirely). Everyone that is naturalised or was born here is considered British no matter what their race is (the same applies to the French IIRC). Yes unfortunately people are bringing race into our politics which is a shame tbh because it is considered rude to mention someone's race in anything other than maybe describing their physical appearance (f…

In France wealth is secondary to the place you live in and where you come from (in terms of divisions in the nation). Of course if you have French nationality your "race" does not matter (there are no programs for minorities) but the reality is, also of course, different. Looking at the last 40 years, I wrote say that Islamism has become the greatest divider (for 10 or 20 years now). This was a non-subject when I was…

The same is true in the UK there is a North / South divide that is historical, economic and cultural.

Re: Even during a crisis, colleges abuse their economic and reputational privileges

#110

Post by MaxBarraclough »

MyHypatia wrote: post #102
MaxBarraclough wrote: post #72

I'll zoom in on the diversity point, but I realise it's not the whole focus of the article. Seems to me the real point here is both blindingly obvious, and for some reason never discussed. Education is a pipeline, and everyone is obsessing over the final stage, forgetting the rest. It's short-term thinking that misses the real problems. If you want your society to produce successful university graduates from all demo…

I agree that the needed work (and hardest work) is access to quality pre-university education. That being said, I find it bizarre that we fret over whether minority applicants are given an unfair boost, while at the same time allowing legacy admissions and athletic preferance admissions to continue. Both of these boost applicants who otherwise would not make it through. We don't fret too much when a spot is taken by…

I'm in the UK. I've never heard of 'legacy admissions' happening here, nor admissions in return for dropping money on a university. I get the impression from The Guardian that these things are quite unique to America, and really don't occur in the UK. [0] [1] [2]

Similarly I've never heard of someone being admitted to a UK university for the purpose of getting them to complete in university sports. Sports are funded by universities, but generally, few people really care about university sports, the way it should be. It may help in admissions if you have non-academic achievements on top your academic ones, but sports aren't given the special status that they are in US universities.

On the race point, the only lawsuit I'm aware of is the one against Harvard for discriminating against Asian applicants. (There's no question that Harvard have higher grade-requirements for Asian applicants.) The courts decided the Harvard admissions policy wasn't unconstitutional. [4] My understanding is that if a similar approach were taken in hiring decisions, that would be extremely illegal.

If you'll excuse a tangent: we also don't have 'campus police' in the UK, for which I'm thankful. Universities hire security guards, the way business parks do. The American system is to have police officers on the payroll of a university, expected to follow orders from the university's power-structure [5]. Deans should not be able to issue orders to police officers.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/oct/01/harvard-ad...

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jan/23/elite-school...

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/education/shortcuts/2019/mar/13/...

[4] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/oct/01/harvard-ruli...

[5] https://www.google.com/search?q="ordered+campus+police"

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