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How college became a ruthless competition divorced from learning

theatlantic.com

241–247 of 247 posts

Re: How college became a ruthless competition divorced from learning

#241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's not the R^2 of your SAT based on income; that's the R^2 of average scores within an income bucket. Predictability based on income is far, far lower - in fact, in California at least, both student ethnicity and parental education is more predictive as far as background factors go ( https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9gs5v3pv ). You write that as if you disagree with my comment, but then you go on to agree with…

> Scores are highly predictable from income and factors like race. Yes. That's what makes standardized tests not just worthless, it makes them classist and racist. Is there some aspect of standardized tests that makes the test easier for rich white kids while making it harder for others? If so the solution is to fix the test, not eliminate the test. It should be expected that in a nation that prides itself as the lan…

Rich kids who have quiet rooms and can afford tutors have it easier than poor kids who have to share their room with siblings and can't afford tutors.

Re: How college became a ruthless competition divorced from learning

#242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Scores are highly predictable from income and factors like race. Yes. That's what makes standardized tests not just worthless, it makes them classist and racist. Saying that "standarized test" is racist is some joke? What's your alternative then? >The fact that scores are basically a proxy for income+race does say something about their actual value today. Zero. Let's stop building on the infrastructure of racism and…

> Saying that "standarized test" is racist is some joke? A joke? It's deadly serious. Standardized tests help entrench racist ideas and keep the poor out of good opportunities. > What's your alternative then? Simple. If universities want government funding they must admit classes that accurately represent the socioeconomic conditions of the wider population. 1% of the class can be in the top 1% of the income bracket.…

>A joke? It's deadly serious. Standardized tests help entrench racist ideas and keep the poor out of good opportunities.

With Internet access I think you can overcome shitton, at least when it comes to english, math and similar like physics, computer science

Unless you're literally taking about poorest of the poorest who cannot even access internet.

>Simple. If universities want government funding they must admit classes that accurately represent the socioeconomic conditions of the wider population. 1% of the class can be in the top 1% of the income bracket. If a university doesn't like this, that's fine, they can go their own way. They get 0 federal dollars and no federal backing for student loans that go there.

I don't see it working in practice.

Even when there are standarized tests there is significant gap between top and bottom students, with your approach the gap will be even wider, thus it will decrease quality of classes unless you change system even more

and I guess that's what you want to do - change system even more.

So, how would you pick students?

let's say that 500 students that sit at top 50% income applied, how will you decide which will be accepted?

Also

What will happen to those top performing students that will not be accepted due to them being at top $$$?

Rejecting them in long run will cause your whole nation

Re: How college became a ruthless competition divorced from learning

#243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If universities want government funding they must admit classes that accurately represent the socioeconomic conditions of the wider population. 1% of the class can be in the top 1% of the income bracket. That's insane. They are in the top 1% because of being smarter and because of hard work (especially in the US, where they are more likely to have made their wealth on their own than inherited it). Their children ar…

> They are in the top 1% because of being smarter and because of hard work (especially in the US, where they are more likely to have made their wealth on their own than inherited it). Their children are likely to inherit some of these traits. That is literally what racism is! White people mostly make up the top 1%, so we should give them more opportunities because they're in the top 1% because you think they're genet…

>No. The children of people in the top 1% are not predestined to be genetically superior. They are not some sort of ruling race. They are just people who happened to have been born to rich people.

You act as if parents just paid some money and people could score anything they want on standarized tests.

It requires shitton of effort to score top 1%.

I knew people who if could, then would buy themselves $top_score easily, but on standarized tests they didnt/barely passed.

Re: How college became a ruthless competition divorced from learning

#244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Scores are highly predictable from income and factors like race. Yes. That's what makes standardized tests not just worthless, it makes them classist and racist. Is there some aspect of standardized tests that makes the test easier for rich white kids while making it harder for others? If so the solution is to fix the test, not eliminate the test. It should be expected that in a nation that prides itself as the lan…

Rich kids who have quiet rooms and can afford tutors have it easier than poor kids who have to share their room with siblings and can't afford tutors.

>Rich kids who have quiet rooms and can afford tutors

I do agree that this is advantage, but nowadays there's internet and you can have cheap as fuck access to very good materials

Been there, did that.

Re: How college became a ruthless competition divorced from learning

#245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it makes them classist and racist. What do you mean by these terms? I'd argue that they only are if the results, conditional on future college performance, are biased by class or race. Are they? The article you linked doesn't say. > The exams were a way to choose among elites. Just like standardized tests today! What percent of students scoring over a 1500 on the SAT are from the top 1% of household earners? I doub…

> What do you mean by these terms? By racist and classist? That an identical child, who happens to be born poor or who happens to be born with a darker skin color, will have fewer opportunities and worse life outcomes. That's literally what a racist society is. Where your skin color plays a large role in your fate. > How do you propose selecting students? Simple. We start with the society we want. One that is not rac…

>Simple. We start with the society we want. One that is not racist and not classist. In other words, your skin color and the income of your parents should not play an overwhelming role in your life outcomes.

How about your look, height, voice and so on?

Re: How college became a ruthless competition divorced from learning

#246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it makes them classist and racist. What do you mean by these terms? I'd argue that they only are if the results, conditional on future college performance, are biased by class or race. Are they? The article you linked doesn't say. > The exams were a way to choose among elites. Just like standardized tests today! What percent of students scoring over a 1500 on the SAT are from the top 1% of household earners? I doub…

> What do you mean by these terms? By racist and classist? That an identical child, who happens to be born poor or who happens to be born with a darker skin color, will have fewer opportunities and worse life outcomes. That's literally what a racist society is. Where your skin color plays a large role in your fate. > How do you propose selecting students? Simple. We start with the society we want. One that is not rac…

and should the us let immigrants in that match the current us demographic or the global demographic ? If global demographic, then eventually the us will be similar to the global demographic. If not, what point in time should the us demographic be frozen ? What about remote workers, should they have the us demographic or the global demographic?

Re: How college became a ruthless competition divorced from learning

#247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it makes them classist and racist. What do you mean by these terms? I'd argue that they only are if the results, conditional on future college performance, are biased by class or race. Are they? The article you linked doesn't say. > The exams were a way to choose among elites. Just like standardized tests today! What percent of students scoring over a 1500 on the SAT are from the top 1% of household earners? I doub…

> What do you mean by these terms? By racist and classist? That an identical child, who happens to be born poor or who happens to be born with a darker skin color, will have fewer opportunities and worse life outcomes. That's literally what a racist society is. Where your skin color plays a large role in your fate. > How do you propose selecting students? Simple. We start with the society we want. One that is not rac…

Should mbti types be represented in university equally 1/16, or proportionally to their demographics in the usa ? What about in engineering ? Should mbti types be equally represented in all professions?
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