<p>Then what do you, forget about the people society ignores and wait until they fix those problems. AA was kind of created to put these kids in college so that they wouldnt end up in these same areas where they grew up. And rule of thumb seems to make sense that the more URMs that are in these colleges the less that will be in the slums</p>
<p>URM's can go to college without going to yale. yale isn't a necessity to keep them out of the ghetto.</p>
<p>
[quote]
URM's can go to college without going to yale. yale isn't a necessity to keep them out of the ghetto.
[/quote]
isn't it a URMs prerogative to want to go to Yale just as any non-URM wants to.</p>
<p>Racism is a huge problem, but I think that AA should be based on economics because however bad everyone else says they have it, poor URMs have it worse. The point of AA is to "make up for past descrimination", and the effect of this past descrimination is that a lot of URMs are poor, and a lot of poor people are URMs, because they have been descriminated against. I think that although affluent URMs might be descriminated against, poor URMs are descriminated against AND have to work full time at low-paying jobs. I'm sure that some poor non-URMs would benefiet as well, but I think that more help would end up going to people who need it; which is really the point.</p>
<p>
[quote]
AA was kind of created to put these kids in college so that they wouldnt end up in these same areas where they grew up.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I think it was created in an attempt to make things more egalitarian. I don't think there is enough college campus per square mile in the country to do this.</p>
<p>But cant we try?</p>
<p>first of all, idamayer, look at the past arguments against making children pay for their parents mistakes. second of all, I'm pretty sure the millions and millions of immigrants from Mexico weren't put into their poverty by evil white men hundreds of years ago. It was by the inefficient government of Mexico. 3rd of all, ur contradicting urself, in your first arguments. And yes, they have just as much of a right to go to yale, but they don't have any more of a right than an equally hard working asian or white boy. and again, firebird, thats not the way to do things. two wrongs don't make a right. letting minorities get screwed growing up, and then screwing the wealthy in college admissions just makes everything unfair. It doesn't give the minorities any motivation to work, and it discourages the wealthier part from working. Albeit, this is not the end of the world, but its not the way a meritocracy should work.</p>
<p>it doesnt give minorities any motivation to work? So when a kid sees his older influence go to college, possibly because of AA, it wont motivate him to work and succeed? It will because thats what happened to me. It discourages the wealthy from working? Everyone knows what lengths wealthy people will go to to keep up a lifestyle, theyre notorious for it.</p>
<p>theres a difference between doing AA in lower schools and doing it at the most selective in the country. This country is supposed to be a meritocracy, where skin color doesn't matter. How do you think a hard working asian or white boy feels when he is turned down because of skin color. By the motivation I meant that a wealthy person is no longer as motivated to work towards an ivy league if he knows his position can just be taken by a URM. The URM doesn't have the motivation to excel to his full potential because he is graded differently than the rest of the applicant pool. This is the point of competition, it makes everyone excel to their best ability, otherwise they don't survive. Taking certain people out of competition serves to stifle that excellence. I agree it serves to inspire the minority population, however, i don't know what college your friend went to, but he probably could have gone to a less selective college, the one he deserved to get into without AA and it would have still inspired you?</p>
<p>AA is used at the descretion of adcoms, there is no written rule that says being black accounts for so much credit. On the Princeton Review website on undergrad admission factors it states that race is "considered" at some schools it isnt even considered. Please dont make AA have as much power as it used to.</p>
<p>I agree, at the UC's the discontinued the practice about 4 years ago. Since then, the claimed "diversity" has gone down, asians are now 41% of the population and whites are now 41%. Compare that to a private school, and you see just how much race matters.</p>
<p>DISCLAIMER: there's a good chance that once you've read this, half of you will want to pierce my throat with a corkscrew and dynamite my house with my family inside. Just remember CC's policy on voicing threats on the forums. Also, please take into account that much of this is my take on what "is," as opposed to what "ought to be."</p>
<p>America was founded on prospects of democracy, liberty, property, and individual happiness. The basic idea was that each individual was entitled to inaliable rights, including the right to take part in the process of determining government to enact policy. These rights have hitherto been extended to all citizens.</p>
<p>The economic system of this state was to be a mixed capitalist enonomy: a free market based on ideals of self-interest that is unplanned, which can be easily entered, and where there is limited government intervention.</p>
<p>A free market economy thrives on a principle of consumer sovereignty- that is, whosever good or service is most desirable to the most people will be most successful. Success in providing a good or service to a large consumer base depends, along with other microeconomic factors, upon employment and management.</p>
<p>Employment is a voluntary process by which one subjects himself to work for another in exchange for money. Employees, since the early twentieth century, have long since been protected by legislation which, among other things, guarantees safe working conditions and minimum wages.</p>
<p>A significant rise in affluence following the end of World War II gave rise to a much higher standard of living. There was also a rapid rise in the number of people pursuing a higher education. Poverty still existed, but so did the possibility of all people to get employment.</p>
<p>However, the increase in affluence also gave rise to a mentality that capitalism instituted socioeconomic inequality. The overwhelming number of minorities on the lower-income scale made prevelant an image of racial discrimination in the United States. This image was correct; there was segregation. This image then lingered past the Civil Rights Movement. It persists today.</p>
<p>Discrimination is the process by which a distinction is made between people of different groups, or where people of a certain group are denied the rights of another group.</p>
<p>America's rise in affluence also occured with a rise in big businesses, yielding a rise in both employment and management. </p>
<p>Positions in management were invariably held by those with the proper education in business. Such an education required a certain number of years at an institution of higher learning. Admittance to such an institution required a performance in high school by which the person could be deemed capable of the institution's academic standards.</p>
<p>The rise in big business also yielded a rise in employment and labor of all kinds: unskilled, skilled, and specialized.</p>
<p>The first kind of labor is often the simplest and requires the least education, if none at all. It is the type of labor that the greatest number of people is capable of and for which the greatest number of people can be found.</p>
<p>The second kind of labor often requires some sort of education or at least a specific talent. Those able to provide this kind of labor are less in number than those able to provide unskilled labor.</p>
<p>The third kind of labor almost always requires a degree from an institution of higher learning. Admittance to which, as we have clarified, requires specific academic credentials.</p>
<p>Demonstrating such credentials depends strongly upon the quality of one's lower education. A good performance in school is contingent upon one's district, school, environment, and family, hence, it's tied to their location, which is tied to their family income. It also depends upon personal and genetic factors--what they want to do and how well they can do it.</p>
<p>Affirmative action is a policy or program--de facto or de jure--by which people who have been discriminated against are more favorably represented. Through affirmative action, colleges seek to admit a higher number of minorities. Colleges also claim to be "colorblind" in their admissions process.</p>
<p>Admittance to an upper-tier college or university is highly selective. It depends on certain academic credentials, a demonstrated personal investment in one's education and enrichment, and a demonstration of good character. These qualities are most often demonstrated and recognized in well-funded schools with little crime. Incidentally, many of the people who attend these schools are middle class, upper-middle class, or wealthy. These schools can be public or private; most are public, since attending private schools is often only affordable by the upper-middle class or the wealthy. These schools are located in middle class or wealthy neighborhoods.</p>
<p>At any rate, it is from these schools that the vast, vast majority of applications to upper-tier colleges and universities come. Affirmative action would have it that those with minority status are given preferential treatment.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, a large number of students from these schools also apply to lower-tier colleges and state schools--which confer associate, bachelors, and masters degrees--because they lack, or believe they lack, the academic or personal credentials to be admitted to the upper-tier colleges.</p>
<p>Ties between low income and socioeconomic status indicate that many of the people attending poorly funded public schools are minorities. These schools tend to be located in lower-income neighborhoods. Some of these students go on to attend lower-tier colleges; the number applying to upper-tier institutions is infinitessimal, as is the number qualified due to the invariably poor education and prevelance of misbehavior in these schools.</p>
<p>Affirmative action seeks to create a more egalitarian society. Yet the number of minorities who actually benefit is a scant, scant, scant sliver of the population.</p>
<p>Affirmative action seeks to make things more "fair," for the underprivileged or discrimated, yet minorities who have the same opportunity, education, and live in the same neighborhoods with generally the same income status as their white classmates are given preferential treatment. In some cases, they may be admitted with lower credentials (this is not always the case, but can often be).</p>
<p>Those selected may indeed be capable, may indeed go on to work as specialized laborers or managers, or may just have four of the best years of their life.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, a few of the people in the crummy neighborhoods, if they stick it out, go onto community college or their local state university. The rest of them work at McDonald's, Wal-Mart, or at Gas Stations. Effectively, they work as employees for whomever got admitted, for whatever reason, to the institution in which they received the education which allowed them to pursue the position which made them employers.</p>
<p>Affirmative action in the college admissions process does nothing, except in rare--miraculously rare--instances. In most cases, it gives to people that which they are already capable of achieving, sometimes for less, sometimes not.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, a large percentage of minorities who attend the crummy schools go on to be unemployed (even though unskilled labor positions are plentiful), or don't go on to be the success stories which the rich people get to be and instead have to work for low wages. If this makes you wiggle in your seat and grind your teeth, go for the public schools.</p>
<p>The key to raising the quality of these schools is through taxation. Taxation occurs at a state level when people elect representatives whose policies they approve of. The hearts, minds, and pocketbooks of these people are the key to a fairer society and a fairer admissions process.</p>
<p>From then on, administration through state, county, and district governments determines the efficacy of this tax money.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, America remains ambivalent about this matter on a national level.</p>
<p>And no, cutting funds from the schools with the lower test scores isn't going to fix the problem, Bush.</p>
<p>The End.</p>
<p>here here. Thats what i've been getting at all along. The type of people who apply to the ivies and are minorities aren't your "I rose from the ghetto to succeed" stories, but just a well bred as the common person. It doesn't raise minorities up, because had they not been accepted, they would have just gone to a slightly less prestigious college and did fine. Excellent points!</p>
<p>Dolitwak- I think he is trying to say that AA is not prevalent at all. Thats not really what you were getting at. Im sorry gran but I dont have enough time to read the chapter book you wrote, why the disclaimer? It seemed milder than what I wouldve expected. All I know is that there should be AA and it should largely be based on economics, among other factors of which race should be involved becuase our country isnt fully equal and we still have ways to go. College isnt the place to start if you want to talk about full equality</p>
<p>Oh, okay. Well, read the whole thing later and then get back to me.</p>
<p>Disclaimer was just me kidding around.</p>
<p>There I read it, You got me workin up a sweat over reading at 11:22</p>
<p>BTW dolitwak, The UC racial make-up is nothing like the way it would be in other states, or the country for that matter. Lets not forget Cali is by far the heaviest Asian populated state in the US, so you cant really use that to compare it to other schools nationwide because the UCs are public and it only makes sense they have the most Asians because their state has many Asians</p>
<p>umm 12% is the amount of Asians in Cali. 41% is almost 4 times that many. So my theory still applies. And I think what he is trying to say is that AA in it's intended form is not very prevalent at all, that is, lifting people out of poverty and into college. It only serves to give minorities who don't have any disadvantages an advantage. I'm not even sure it should be totally based on economics. One of the smartest kids in our school (US Biology Olympiad contestant, etc.), is fairly poor. I think it depends more on your family situation, not on your monetary situation. Whatever your monetary situation, if you don't live in a good environment, you don't succeed. Maybe there's a different way of evaluating this, but pure economics I don't think works either.</p>
<p>And if you look at Asians nationwide at almost 4% of the population , their placement in colleges nationwide is over 4 times their percentage, which is the exact situation at the UCs so you kind of killed your own argument. If the nationwide placement of Asians is 4 times what their percentage is then it only makes sense that UCs are 41% asian if the Cali Asian % is 12</p>
<p>u didn't proove anything. Just because something is, doesn't mean it should be. At stanford, its only 23% asian, as someone posted earlier. Thats half of berkeley's. General college info might average it out, but the most selective private schools discriminate against asians.</p>