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Comment by kenjackson | Hacker News Reader

The main rationale is that it is complicated. :-)

Controlling for income doesn't work well, because whites at the same income level tend to have much more wealth than blacks at the same income level. Controlling for wealth, blacks still tend to poorer access to resources (clean water, prenatal care, etc...).

It would be a great achievement if we could simply say that poor blacks were finally as well off as poor whites, but we're still quite a ways away from that.

That said, I don't think the country has the stomach to realistically try to fix that problem any longer.

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I'm sure it is complicated.

But these effects are well studied and I'm sure these institutions have plenty of sociologists that could help come up with some models that work at least as good as stereotyping based on skin color.

The idea that generalizing based on race is just easier leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Why do we tell racists that they shouldn't prejudge people based on race at the same time that people with good intentions do the same thing?

There was a study I saw as an undergrad that used all the standard factors and also used zip code -- and that worked surprisingly well to explain a lot of the differences. But using race rather than zip code, actually was still better -- and of course zip code may well have simply been a race proxy.

I think zip code though will likely be more satisfying to people. Although the conservative wing of the supreme court has already said that they don't like the top 10% rules for admission, so I suspect they'll also not be kind to zip code since the idea is similar in spirit.

Using zip code could at least have a really interesting incentive towards de-segregating residential neighborhoods.

Highly motivated parents would have a reason to move into neighborhoods that they previously would not have lived in.

There's also a fraud incentive since it's not super difficult to pretend to live in a different zip code. Plenty of politicians do it.

Zip code can absolutely be a proxy for race.

There’s a reason that banks have compliance departments that have to review any statistical models inputs and assumptions for implicit violations of the Fair Lending / Fair Housing acts.

The solution is not to create ever more complicated adjustments but to make sure that all children get great education (and nutrition) from early childhood, even if they are disadvantaged at home.

Rolling it up from the other side by giving top college spots to kids who were disadvantaged in the first place never made sense to me.

You are assuming that education makes a difference? And that someone (the government?) can provide that 'great education'?

This whole thread is mostly about getting into college

So yea, the consensus is that edu, knowledge and exp make a difference

The comment I replied to talked about early childhood?

Early childhood edu is still edu

Yeah growing up in Germany gave me this illusion that all children can actually get a decent (even if not super spectacular) publicly funded education somewhat independent of social background.

If you can't determine if someone is disadvantaged then I guess they aren't. Labeling someone disadvantaged because of their skin color is just racism. In fact, if ANYTHING is racism, it's that.

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