Around the healthcare debate specifically, there were a lot of people who talked about the restrictive policies that artificially limit the supply of doctors as well as the policies that prevent the creation of more hospitals.
When my dad was growing up, his father was a mechanic and he really just wanted to go be a mechanic to work with his dad...who told him that it wouldn't support 2 families. So instead...my dad became a dentist. Don't get me wrong, he's very smart (particularly with math) but how many people could be doctors? How many people could handle the curriculum at MIT, Harvard, Stanford, Georgia Tech, Vanderbilt, etc?
My guess is that it's a whole lot more than are actually admitted. Further, is the curriculum at these schools that much better than everywhere else or is it more a factor of surrounding yourself with highly motivated peers that makes it better?
I've watched the full set of lectures for a few classes at top universities (Yale, MIT, that kind of thing) for a topic area in which I took a lot of classes at a very-cheap low-tier ex-normal-school state university that's completely unknown outside a ~150 mile radius, and only somewhat recognized within it.
From what I could tell, the content, pace, and amount & sort of assigned work were all pretty similar.
What differed? Two main things:
1) The guest lecturers—cheap state school, none, or unremarkable ones; the fancy schools, both more common to have them, and universally very impressive credentials, possibly someone you've heard of even if you don't really follow the topic, basically, their guests were "celebrities", at least within a field.
2) How engaged the students seemed to be—not at all, at the cheap state school; very, at the fancy schools.
This is for undergrad. The ways they differ may not be the same in grad school.
Maybe my (large, relatively well respected state school) lectures were uniquely bad. But I found MIT lectures to be leagues ahead of what we got. They covered more content, went deeper and were faster paced. The lecturers were more talented and engaging, and the problem sets were harder and more efficient. It really was night and day.
While AA is an issue, OP most benefited from the Physician cartel/AMA who lobbies/bribes their way to wealth for their members at the expense of the 99% of the population.
https://www.ama-assn.org/education/gme-funding/save-graduate...
Otherwise I agree with you. It’s in the past. We all have advantages and disadvantages, whether genetic or societal. There’s no reason to feel bad about something in the past you had no control over.
vs...
250k-1M/yr
The difference is being middle class to being upper class/upper-middle class.
The school district differences are stark. So yes, these kind of things make a big difference.
We really just need to remove power from the AMA/AGCME in this specific case. It hurts everyone except the Physician cartel members.
This is why, for example, children of African immigrants are something like half of black Harvard students, despite being a minuscule fraction of population: they want to meet their 13% black quota, but there are too few American descendants of slaves who will not be utterly out of place, so they make up the shortage with Africans.
Don't throw out numbers like that unless you are willing to back them up, because your claim seems completely insane.
For example, if Harvard only wants to admit people 2 sigma above median, by 68-95-99.7 rule it will be 2.5% of white applicants, but 0.15% of black applicants. That’s 16-to-1 even before you adjust for the fact that non-Hispanic whites are 60% and blacks are 13% of population, after which you get something like 75 qualified whites for each whites. Add to that Hispanics whites, who, while overall having lower academic achievement, are not nearly as low as blacks, and Asians, who have even higher achievement than whites, you’ll easily get something like 100 to 150 qualified non blacks for every black applicant.
Even more concretely: there are something like 2 million freshmen every year. 2 sigma cutoff means only 2.5% of them qualify, which is only 50,000 people. 1 in 100 means only 500 blacks qualify at above 2 population sigma. Then you have all Ivies and other top schools compete for these. So yes, you can find 300 blacks at 2 sigma cutoff, but Harvard won’t get all of those. Thus, Africans.
If you truly think that the top 2.5% of black students would be "out of place" at Harvard then you have a completely invented mysticism of what it means to go to Harvard.
https://my.vanderbilt.edu/smpy/files/2013/02/DoingPsychScien...
What was this highly predictive test? It was, quite simply, taking SAT at 11-12 years of age. SAT is really good test, and is highly predictive of academic success, its biggest flaw is that it is too easy for those at the top of distribution, but that can be ameliorated by administering it earlier than typical.
> If you truly think that the top 2.5% of black students would be "out of place" at Harvard then you have a completely invented mysticism of what it means to go to Harvard.
If 2.5% of all black students were of Harvard quality, then something like 16% of white students would be, which is something like 3 kids in every high school class. Harvard can afford to be much more selective than that, and in fact it must be so to keep its brand.
Regardless of how selective they are with admissions it also doesn't mean that a large chunk of the people they rejected wouldn't have also done fine there.
Arguably it's much easier to get good grades at Harvard due to grade inflation if you are a good student (which you are by definition if you are at the top of your class) than at state schools.
But that leads to the same fundamental problem - somebody who was "unfortunate" enough to be born into decent circumstances but _who was actually more qualified_ than the diversity admit gets rejected.
I sure as shit am buying qualifications for my kid, fully recognizing my role in participating in this flawed system. Kid's in robotics, language classes, gets to travel. We switched the kid's school to go to a school with higher standards. We teach the kid both reading (100 Easy Lessons...) and writing (workbooks from the non-US country with better public education) -- small expenses in $ but nevertheless expenses. I'm sure someone will happily tell me that the last part is just good morals on my part, or something, but you can't tell me that $100/day for a robotics summer camp is just good morals. I am buying that kid qualifications.
And then someone will tell me that's not race-based, but look at the perpetuation of wealth disparity thru US history, from chattel slavery on through the robbery from the Freedmen's Bank to the riot that burned down Black Wall Street to the fact that Black servicemen couldn't get mortgage assistance or GI Bill college assistance after WW2. Follow the money.
So help the poor. This has nothing to do with race.
So nothing happens
If schools can reserve spots for legacy admissions or international students to the detriment of merit based then they can also reserve spots for a lottery system
Honestly, I think this is 100% the responsibility of parents. They are the ones that need to break the generational cycle of whatever they're facing. Beyond that - as you say - needs based approaches to this.
I don't understand why we as a society can't simply have "Oh you got more than 95% on your standardized test scores? 100% full scholarship to any college and any degree you wish without paying it back." That is how you fix a society if you ask me, by rewarding hard work and merit.
Just take from some and give to others
Better to just remove race all together, and e.g. require college admissions by law to be judged without knowing the applicants name or ethnicity.
To me as an outsider, the US focuses wayyyyy to much on race. Race really does not matter, and no matter how much the US claims to be racism free, the degree to which it is focused on just proves that the US isn't free of racism. Even asking for ones race or ethnicity in my country would be considered descriminatory as there can be no purpose for collecting that information that isn't descriminatory.
Discriminating based on race (among other things) is forbidden in the constitution, and that is absolute.
I don't know what's right or wrong really but I can say that the rapidness of the shift was definitely shocking to me. There's a lot of disagreement between Gen X, Millenials and Gen Z on the topic because of it.
Believe me, this has been considered and tried in various contexts. The problem is that in the end schools and companies find out that they don't achieve the "right" mix of ethnicities and genders and so it's back to square one.
It is, but it is an attempt to right a wrong, which isn't an easy thing to do or measure. It's a moralistic endeavor and moralistic endeavors can become monsters in their own right.
>To me as an outsider, the US focuses wayyyyy to much on race.
It's become a political football, because of this, I think it's perpetuating it more than it would be naturally. Morgan Freeman articulated this well many years ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpnpIhqSLto
>Even asking for ones race or ethnicity in my country would be considered descriminatory as there can be no purpose for collecting that information that isn't descriminatory.
It's funny, this is done to ensure that historically oppressed races are measured for success / failure. It seems to support to your reverse racism comment.
>Discriminating based on race (among other things) is forbidden in the constitution, and that is absolute.
I agree, that's why AA was struck down. It's a clear violation of the 14th amendment. This was known at the time and known in the early 2000's (2003?) when this came up before. It's always been considered an emergency measure that would need to end because it was a clear violation of equal protection under the law clause of the 14th.
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Even Clarence Thomas is referred as “the second black Supreme Court Justice”
Every time you will see this first black baseball player, first black governor, first latina… as if it were an achievement instead of an indictment on the country
Minorities, like the Uyghurs, were exempt from the 1-child policy and they got extra points on the national college exam.
It's not even reversed racism, it's just plain old racism. The only difference is the targets of the racism are European descended and Asian descended people instead of African and Latin American descended people.
In America, the socioeconomic class of people of non-white races has been systematically kept as low as possible, through racist systems. Affirmative action (race based admissions quotas) is one tool to breach that ceiling.
In an already racist system, doing something like economic class based support (example: 20% of college admissions need to come from poor households) would just mostly go to the privileged race and perpetuate the systemic racism.
Your post is also an illustration of what white privilege can look like. I know you said you’re not American, but the tone matches to a T. White people don’t realize the negative effects of racism on others and others family history and can’t even conceive of it. From having cab drivers not willing to pick you up, to not getting a job or being passed over for promotions, let alone going to schools that are under funded. And as a side effect of that racism towards non-whites, white people benefit by getting the can, the job, the promotion, the good schools that the non-whites, but equally qualified did not.
And as the head paragraph states, that gets embedded into society in the socioeconomic trajectory of the family.
According to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_U...
The per capita income for "whites" in the US is $36,962
The per capita income for the following groups is higher than that: Indian, Taiwanese, Japanese, Chinese, Korean.
Similar results for median household incomes.
I couldn't easily find the data but I've seen previous reports of sub-groups of "blacks" that also have higher median incomes than whites (as a group). Ahh, here is an article talking about the success of Nigerian immigrants, as an example. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/23780231211001...
Please explain how to reconcile this data with your statement.
Affirmative Action is talked about as positive discrimination, but it is still discrimination none-the-less.
Every decision is discrimination. Basis and purpose is what matters.
That is true, which is why it is illegal in my country to discriminate based on things that you are. In my country, we value equality and believe that everyone should be treated fairly and without discrimination. Laws are in place to protect individuals from discrimination based on factors such as race, gender, religion, age, disability, and other protected characteristics.
Discrimination based on who you are, such as your inherent traits or characteristics, is considered unjust and contrary to the principles of equality. The focus should be on a person's abilities, qualifications, and merits rather than factors that they have no control over.
Snooping at your comment history, you're talking about Finland?
In general, there are massively fewer people sleeping under bridges in places that get seriously cold. How much of this is just climate?
(Ex: in the US, Boston and San Francisco have very different numbers of people sleeping rough, while both being very liberal places for the US)
I don't think Anatole France really had thought things through when he wrote that quote...
But that begs the question: should GP still get the benefit of AA if their parent took advantage of it and succeeded in life?
My guess is not, in which case it would be justified under the principles behind it.
Having successful minorities that continue to produce success multi-generationally is a good thing. It brings people out of poverty, creates positive examples for people that look like someone who is struggling, creates more wealth in the targeted communities which can be spread around, etc.
As The Boss said, "meet the new boss, same as the old boss"...
But not the same “cream” - that’s what the current cream is trying to preserve