<p>I think, after reading through all these posts, that most people who aren't already violently dedicated to one side would conclude that the subject's irreconcilable. </p>
<p>The reason for this debate being irreconcilable, as I see it, is that the two camps are placing importance on two completely different things.<br>
Those who oppose affirmative action frequently bring up notions of unfair standards (implied racism, often) and the decline in academic quality from many AA applicants. As they see it, colleges should try to be the best they can realistically be.</p>
<p>Those who support AA, from what I've seen, rely on two main arguments. They argue, first, that affirmative action must be institutionalized in order to combat injustices--implicit or otherwise--in modern society. The second main argument that I've seen says that diversity is an important part of a student's experience, and that AA actually makes college more rewarding for all students.</p>
<p>A third pro-AA argument that is, for some reason, rarely brought up here, says that AA should be institutionalized because it helps maximize the benefits that students get from college. A study done by a fairly prominent economist at Princeton found that college choices didn't matter much for most people in terms of post-graduation incomes. That is, a highly motivated student accepted to both Harvard and UMich would earn just as much after graduating from Michigan as he/she would from graduating from Harvard. This held true for all but those in the lowest 1/4th income bracket, and for those students, attending a prestigious university helped immensely. A similar study done by a group of researchers at UC Berkeley concluded likewise, but focused instead on URMs as opposed to low-income students. So when colleges admit URMs, they're improving those individuals' future prospects significantly more than if they admitted more qualified candidates.</p>
<p>But there's the problem. Essentially this debate boils down to a question about the roles of colleges. Are they, as anti-AA constituents would argue, a place for the most intelligent students to gather and share ideas? Or, as those supporting AA would argue, should colleges serve as institutions to assist the community? In probably over 90% of the applications that colleges consider, there's no conflict between the two, but when we talk about AA, it seems that there's a certain zero-sum game going on here.</p>
<p>Enter own thoughts. As a supporter of AA, however, I think--at least at the undergraduate level--that the social benefits of AA outweigh the academic benefits of abolishing it. That's largely because top academic quality isn't really the most important thing at the undergraduate level. First of all, when we talk about AA admits to top colleges, there's never a hugely excessive disparity between them and regular students. The difference between AA admits and regular admits isn't, for example, the difference between IMO medalists and students getting 450s on the math portion of the SAT. It's always much more subtle, and results in little to no decline in the quality of the student body. Secondly, the academic strength of your peers matters much much less at the undergraduate level. Affirmative action isn't the only thing bringing down the average talent in undergraduate classes. Think, for example, about distribution requirements at many universities. Humanities majors in intense science classes usually don't perform as well as their math/science counterparts. The reverse usually holds true as well, but we rarely see complaints about engineers "bringing down" comparative literature classes. Also, students rarely cooperate significantly with their peers on research or major projects as undergraduates (this changes at the graduate level, obviously, and is one of the major reasons why supporting AA in graduate school admissions is so much harder), and it's for this reason that the quality of your peers doesn't matter quite as much. That is, most work at the undergraduate level consists of interactions between professor and student, not student-student (problem set study sessions don't count). </p>
<p>Unlike anti-AA posters then, I view the social "good" gained from AA as more important than the academic good that is gained from admitting only the top students. I just don't think that the intellectual benefits of abolishing AA are worth the loss to those who would have gained a lot from attending top colleges.</p>