Elise Gould in a recent Working Economics piece dismantles Charles Murray's assertion that college facilitation programs, such as that afforded by "socioeconomic affirmative action," should not be instituted since the most capable of poor and working-class youths are already getting into and doing well at top universities under current policies. Her argument, based on a secondary analysis of data from a study conducted by Fox, Connolly, and Snyder (2005), indicates that this is not the case as the proportion of low-income children with the greatest academic potential (as measured by 8th grade test scores) were only about as likely to graduate from college as students from affluent families with low academic potential.
I agree with Elise Gould that socioeconomic affirmative action should not be instituted because I feel that our society should reward the most capable individuals as they are able to contribute to the success our nation. Just because a student is of lower class stature he should not get priority of another student who is of higher class with better grades. This leads to the topic of Social Darwinism where the right people will fall into certain positions in life as they are more qualified than others.
ReplyDeleteI know a few years ago Harvard instituted some changes to their admission policies, where students who met the requirements to attend Harvard, but if there parents combined income was below 60,000, they were able to attend at a discounted rate versus those whose parents made more than 60,000 a year. Now this is something that I do agree with because the student had the grades to get in, but due to economic setbacks he may not have the money to attend a school like Harvard. But with the new policy implemented, it gives students of lower economic status to attend a top tier school where tution can be very high. Thus taking away from a capitalist mentality, and giving other talented students the ability to move up in life.