A Startling Statistic at UCLA

Parents Forum
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<p>"Which race should be discriminated against? I can't think of one."</p>

<p>I'll take up that challenge. You said that race is really not the issue, but "socio-economic status" is. Fine. The state has a compelling interest in ensuring that folks with low socio-economic status (not just income, but assets), and low levels of parental education, don't continue the cycle of poverty. It costs the state, and taxpayers, too much money to do so, and providing a quality college education is a step to prevent that from occurring. Put a cap on high-income/high asset folks, or, over a certain income/asset level, charge 'em OOS tuition. Or simply make the sliding scale for tuitiion/room and board much wider (just as the privates do.) Use admissions formulas that take into account the impact of intergenerational poverty or lack of education (or wealth.) Then let the market work its magic.</p>

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<p>mini:</p>

<p>Given your response you should be quite happy with the UC/California system. The UCs already take those economic, parental, geographical, etc. ("life challenges") factors into account on admissions, they just don't make preferences based on race alone. It rightly doesn't make an assumption that all members of a particular race are at a particular socio-economic level. If you check out the UC application you'll see that it asks questions relating to these factors. Here's a link to the admissions policies:
<a href="http://www.admissions.ucla.edu/Prospect/Adm_fr/FrSel.htm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.admissions.ucla.edu/Prospect/Adm_fr/FrSel.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>The 'expected family contribution' from the FAFSA is already used to level the playing field regarding actual cost of college. Higher income families already pay more than lower income families. </p>

<p>Given the allowances for 'life challenges', the attendance cost allowances for those with low incomes, and the extensive outreach programs, I'd say the UCs and state of California are doing plenty at the college level. </p>

<p>Whether enough is being done at the K-12 level is a completely different discussion that would probably be off topic for this particular thread since it's focusing on the UCs.</p>

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<p>Here's a question I wouldn't mind seeing answered by an Af-Am attending UCLA. </p>

<p>One of the problems that Af-Am students attending selective colleges face is what I would call "the AA smell." No matter how intelligent/talented you may be, no matter how outstanding your qualifications are, people assume that you were accepted to college because of AA.</p>

<p>Now that AA has been abolished, has the AA smell gone away? Are Af-Am's at UCLA seen differently by others--now, instead of "You aren't qualified to be here and only are here because of the AA boost", do we see more of "You are good enough to get in!"?</p>

<p>One problem that I see with that change of attitude occuring is that many feel the UCs are still using race but "disguised" as big bonus points for High School Outreach programs, first generation, etc.</p>

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<p>Mini - Charging "high income" California families out of state tuition (and you obviously need a "higher" income than many states to continue living in CA) defeats the whole notion of the UCs and other states' public universities as primarily serving the students of that particular state. Sounds grossly unfair and highly discrimatory to me. It is a testament to the UC system that so many out of state and International kids want to come here to study. And it also sucks for those of us who live in state and face such fierce competition from the out-of-staters.</p>

<p>As for a $35k/annual family only being able to qualify for a Pell, I would be quite astounded if that was the only grant monies availabe to a student of this income level.</p>

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<p>"One of the problems that Af-Am students attending selective colleges face is what I would call "the AA smell." No matter how intelligent/talented you may be, no matter how outstanding your qualifications are, people assume that you were accepted to college because of AA."</p>

<p>The phrase "AA smell" is highly offensive.<br>
Couldn't you have found a more melodious phrase to make your point.<br>
In any event, exactly who are these people who "assume that you were accepted to college because of AA"? In my experience, it's certainly not other blacks. The "stigma" of AA is something almost wholly a figment in the minds of whites - and I doubt there's anything I can do to change that attitude. I suggest that no matter what we do, no matter what we accomplish, there will always be bigots who will swear they can smell an odour of inferiority whenever we pass by.</p>

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<p>mini:<br>
race is really not the issue, but "socio-economic status" is. Fine. The state has a compelling interest in ensuring that folks with low socio-economic status (not just income, but assets), and low levels of parental education, don't continue the cycle of poverty. It costs the state, and taxpayers, too much money to do so, and providing a quality college education is a step to prevent that from occurring.</p>

<p>Mini, you are right. I live in a "diverse" neighborhood. My street and sub-division have homes owned by at least 30% African Americans and 10% Hispanics. The homes are all over 4000 square feet; all brick "magazine cover" gorgeous homes (they look like the home in Home Alone). There is NO reason that the affluent black & hispanic kids from my neighborhood should be given equal preferential status with poor black kids, poor hispanic kids or poor white kids. A "preference" should be to lower income/lower assets.</p>

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<p>mini:</p>

<p>an in-stater with an agi of $40k would recieve a $12k grant from UC.
<a href="http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/admissions/payingforuc/fin_aid.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/admissions/payingforuc/fin_aid.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>Different UCs have significantly different admissions processes. People should understand that before criticizing "THE UC admissions process."</p>

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<p>well dizzymom it may be stereotpyically but its somewhat true. parts of LA are very polarized. most westwood whites wont be found in south central. most south central blacks wont be found in westwood. ucla is in westwood.</p>

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<p>I think there is an undercurrent in society that undervalues/doesn't give credit for minority (especially Af-Am) achievement in intellectual fields. For example:</p>

<p>I remember reading about an article a while back that discussed the Supreme Court and a recent ruling on one of the AA cases before it. The article mentioned that Clarence Thomas voted against the use of AA, even though he experienced its benefits during college and law school. Now, I don't know if Clarence Thomas got an AA boost in college and law school, but this article just assumed it--Af-Am graduate at highly selective college/law school--must be AA. That is patently unfair to Af-Am students. </p>

<p>And I believe that minorities feel the burden of knowing how others may be thinking. I remember one young woman from my law school days. I went to a highly selective law school. This classmate (Af-Am female) told us that she refused to check the Af-Am box on the application because she "wanted to know that she got into the law school because of her qualifications, not because she is Af-Am." Fine--I have no problem with her self-knowledge (risky move, I remember thinking at the time).</p>

<p>But the fact that she was telling us this story is telling because she wanted all of US to know that she was accepted for her (excellent) qualifications and not because she is Af-Am. Not that any of us gave a moment's thought that she was underqualified. But she felt that the issue was out there. Admittedly, this was 20 years ago, but I haven't forgotten that episode. </p>

<p>And listen how the kids on this site talk--"You're a URM? You're in!" I think many kids (and some adults) think the bar is set lower for URMs--thus, URM becomes UQM (under qualified minority) in their minds. </p>

<p>I hope every URM on a college campus feels he or she is qualified to be there. But there are non-URMs who may, consciously or unconsciously, think not.</p>

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<p>Which would leave $10K+ still to be covered. No wonder these kids would pick Harvard or Princeton over the UCs.</p>

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<p>Namaste,
I don't think I want to follow your statement to the conclusion that stereotyping is based upon truth.</p>

<p>And that wasn't my point anyway. If someone had posted the inverse of your comment, there might have been h-e-double-toothhpicks to pay, whereas your post didn't draw flies. Whether that is typical of our society in general or just CC, I don't know, but there does seem to be a politically correct incorrectness that somehow prevents us from achieving what I think we all want: the best possible education for as many of our citizens as possible, regardless of race or creed.</p>

<p>The civil rights movement was/is one of our country's proudest legacies, an awakening that should logically have borne more fruit by now than it has. Isn't it possible that AA and other social engineering approaches to the issue are simply failed experiments that are preventing us from advancing and that it's time to examine other solutions rather than continually debating the problem?</p>

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<p>"Mini - Charging "high income" California families out of state tuition (and you obviously need a "higher" income than many states to continue living in CA) defeats the whole notion of the UCs and other states' public universities as primarily serving the students of that particular state."</p>

<p>And why would that be? If the state found a compelling interest (and the taxpayers DO have a compelling interest) in ending the cycle of poverty, it wouldn't be a matter of taking OOS students, but simply making different decisions regarding which in-state students to take, or perhaps, not even that, but dealing with the $46k/4-year gap that these students have to deal with in the best of circumstances. </p>

<p>But race really is the issue. A campus of low-income African-Americans and high-income white students will do very little to raise the status of African-Americans if there are no living examples of African-Americans in front of them that do well. And that's because this is a caste issue, not simply a socio-economic one.</p>

<p>Nonetheless, it is all speculative. The state will never find such a compelling interest. The cycle of poverty exists because a surplus labor force with very little in the way of assets is always a good thing for corporate socialism, in that it depresses wages for everyone else, yet (as is the case with migrant laborers as well), is a useful part of a strategy of "divide and conquer". </p>

<p>"A "preference" should be to lower income/lower assets."</p>

<p>So you are prepared to provide large preferences to lower income/lower asset African-Africans, large numbers of them (the data on that are very clear), even if it means displacing large numbers of upper income white folks. Interesting. One thing the data from other countries indicate is that you don't have to do that forever, only about three generations, IF you provide income support, asset-building assistance, family support assistance, and preferential treatment in education funding, education opportunities, and in employment. In other words, the same things that have been provided for white folks for the past 100 years.</p>

<p>"Isn't it possible that AA and other social engineering approaches to the issue are simply failed experiments"</p>

<p>The reality is that they haven't even been tried. We have, however, beginning with mortgage deductions, social security (benefitting older white folks - African-Americans have never, in large numbers been able to collect), the GI Bill (including housing assistance - almost all of it to white folks), the highway subsidies for the suburbs (many of them with restrictive housing covenants in the 50s) green-lining, have all been social engineering approaches geared to the benefit of white folks over the past 100 years; it would be nice even to begin to consider leveling the playing field.</p>

<p>I'm not holding my breath.</p>

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<p>To "level the playing field" means everyone competes equally against everyone else with nothing but individual merit taken into consideration. No regards to race, socio-economic, gender, etc. etc. etc. Never gonna happen.</p>

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<p>Of course it's not going to happen.</p>

<p>But suppose you did in fact level the playing field - over a course of three generations. We can actually compute the impacts of the uneven playing field for the past three generations - in housing, greenlining, roadbuilding, education quality, education access, social security, family supports (massive taxbreaks beginning in the 50s for stay-at-home moms when African-American women had to be in the workforce to survive), health care access, employment. So just level the playing field for the next three generations - hence making it absolutely level - with nothing but individual merit taken into consideration at the end of six generations. It really isn't such a difficult concept. There has been such massive affirmative action/non-merit consideration built into the system for so long (favoring white folks) that I can't see why people who favor individual merit would have such difficulty with this concept.</p>

<p>Oh yes I can. Equality would be quite painful, wouldn't it? ;)</p>

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<p>mini:</p>

<p>Do you have any statistics that would show that total number of qualified African Americans who go to college from CA has declined in the past 10-15 years? Do you have any data that suggest that any qualified blacks were denied admission to a University because of race?</p>

<p>You keep harping on isolated tree branches....just for a moment look at the whole tree.</p>

<p>If you are arguing for diversity, then in my opinion diversity is a state of mind/attitude - not the numbers. Many confuse numbers with diversity. If you are arguing for the past inequalities, then there is nothing that can be done about the past - move on. If you are arguing about lack of role models, it should be the responsibility of the other URMs who have 'made it'. They should go in droves to inner cities and spend their energy in providing support to their communities. Let me give you an example. After Katrina, all you saw on TV were poor African Americans in dire need. There were several thousand Vietnamese affected by Katrina as well. You never saw any Vietnamese on TV or standing in line. Why? The local community absorbed them. My barber had an empty house for sale. She had four families staying in that house for quite a while. Only last week we had things done to our AC system. The contractor was Vietnamese (with black and Hispanic helpers). He told me that there was an entire village of Vietnamese fishermen that was wiped out, and no one knows where those people are. If you are arguing about social engineering, just look around you. URMs have many channels they can take advantage of. For example, my employer does not hire any freshman for interns - except URMs. I have a Hispanic colleague and according to him his daughter usually get couple+ internship offers since she was freshman, and she goes to a third tier school. Sometime, the URMs also have to show initiatives to take advantage of the many opportunities given to them. There will never be enough resources to accommodate every one just because they are of color or they are poor.</p>

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<p>Nope, I think equality would be anything but painful.</p>

<p>If I were to play golf against Tiger Woods, he would beat me. Obviously. To be given any special considerations in order to be able to compete against him is, quite frankly, insulting to me. Either I can beat him or I can't.</p>

<p>Lame comparison? Maybe. But what good is it for me to beat him if he has one arm tied behind his back? (He'd still probably beat me.....)</p>

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<p>Corporate socialism?</p>

<p>You really think CEO's spend their time plotting the fates of various races or socio-economic groups? In my experience, businessmen are more interested in business and prefer to leave political strategies to the government. If there is "socialism" at work, it might more likely be because the government won't keep its nose out of the business of business.</p>

<p>Your comments about a surplus labor force are interesting. I would like to consider the possibility that our country has never quite assimilated the post-Civil War/post civil rights black labor force, but that's too romantic. Could it be that the problem there (if there is one) is due to the burgeoning illegal immigrant population that destabilizes said assimilation?</p>

<p>I still don't buy your "caste system" assertion. I attended the equivalent of an inner city elementary school in the 50's. There was almost zero involvement on the part of the significant black population, and not because the mothers were working; they weren't. They were at home living meagerly on government handouts, BUT they were also tied down due to the absence of husbands and fathers and thus, even if they DID have aspirations for their childrens' futures, the combination of poverty and single parenthood weighed heavily upon them. These kids also actively hated their white counterparts and acted out their hatred on the playground. Those frightening experiences were the only ones I ever witnessed of racism.</p>

<p>I can remember two families -- both with husbands/fathers present -- whose children were encouraged/expected to do well in school. In high school, these kids were welcomed into the most popular cliques and went on to succeed in college and beyond. The kids whose families remained unstable were the ones who dropped out or only marginally completed their high school educations.</p>

<p>True, my comments are only anecdotal. But I would still put my money on the family system rather than any "caste" system.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
You really think CEO's spend their time plotting the fates of various races or socio-economic groups? In my experience, businessmen are more interested in business and prefer to leave political strategies to the government.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>But the Corporate and local HR departments surely does in especially concerning things that have to do with employment (hiring, terminations, layoffs, promotions) training, sexual harassment, and the results does roll up to that CEO who put is initiatives in place if "improvement" is needed.</p>

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<p>"Corporate socialism?</p>

<p>You really think CEO's spend their time plotting the fates of various races or socio-economic groups?"</p>

<p>Yes they do. </p>

<p>Our CEO (a Fortune 10 company) has set a quota (oops the PC word is target or goal) that by 2009 they will have 20% URMs (including white females) in the higher management positions. The management drools when a female URM candidate with a Ph. D interviews.</p>