It’s hard to get into college in China. It is not yet a first world country in terms of wealth, and so does not have money to waste on people who are not smart enough. In fact, there is no doubt that more Chinese could benefit from a college education in China than can be accommodated, which is partially why so many seek an education here.
We have the opposite condition in the United States. We waste entirely too much money on a credential that is neither necessary nor appropriate for the large majority of people. Our K-12 system should figure out how to provide an education that is appropriate, because not more than about 1 in 6 people have the brains for a traditional college experience:
Again, focusing on educational attainment is like looking at the shadows on the wall in Plato’s Cave. The thing we should be looking at is intelligence. Plenty of people already have college degrees in the United States or are in college. Not as many should.
Yes dagonmom you are right. The game has changed forever whether or not everyone realizes it. AA in America will end very soon. Right now the Asians tend to vote Democrat and this issue gives the GOP a way to court the Asians. The Dems know this would be catastrophic and that’s why the CA Dems have caved completely on AA and it will be exactly the same on a national level. The Dems have already lost working class whites and will never give the GOP an effective way to target Asian voters. Instead they will cave completely to the Asians since the blacks and Hispanics have no where to go. The politics on this issue is very clear. It shouldn’t be this cynical but it is.
SculpDad where do you live? I’m telling you something that is obvious to anyone living in coastal CA. That movie is no accident. In the past year I was in Europe and Australia and something like half the tourists are Asians. Anyone who travels know this is true and very very different from 15-20 years ago. Everywhere you go the businesses are bending over backwards to cater to the Chinese. This thread is about race and how it effects admission to college and the game has changed forever. Go take a trip and you will see just how much things have changed.
I’m honestly not sure what @SAY 's point is. Chinese Americans will gain in political power as their numbers grow. This is no different from every other immigrant group that has come and thrived here. That doesn’t mean they will be able to dictate policy on matters such as affirmative action, regardless of their numbers. One of the benefits of the constitution is that it protects the rights of minorities against the majority. If pure numbers, or political power were dispositive, AA would have died out ages ago.
Now, please don’t jump all over this post and assume that I’m stating that AA is a right. I’m not. I’m only saying that the growing numbers, power and clout of Asian Americans is not enough to topple it.
gallen go back up and read the link I provided. The ultra progressive Democrats in CA have totally caved already before the power of the Asian lobby. They are not like every other immigrant group because large numbers are already here and there are 1.3 billion additional Chinese and many of the smartest 10-15% want to live in the USA. As I stated above electoral politics will seal the fate of AA forever.
Notice that despite NY being ultra progressive the bill was tabled despite the Dems having total control of the legislature. Just like in CA the Asian Lobby will kill this bill.
Again, even when Asian immigrants were poor and uneducated in the early 90s, their Asian American children were still performing much better than the children of middle class and educated Americans. The Asian American Ivy league enrollment actually peaked in the 90s despite Asian immigrants getting richer and more educated ever since, the logical conclusion being that the Ivy League schools have a racial quota.
@say I understand what you are saying and I don’t think I made my point very weii. There is a difference between what a strong lobby can force local government to do and what private institions will ultimately be allowed to do. So, while the Asian lobby in places like NY and CA may be able to block all considerations of race by public institutions (note that this has not happened yet with NY public colleges), it is a long leap from that to preventing a school like Harvard from doing it.
It may very well be that other public institutions will go the way of CA. I doubt that Harvard will follow any time soon.
@SAY, I am an Asian and have lived in the Bay Area of CA for 20+ years. I have carefully read all your arguments so far, and I don’t agree with many of them. Keep repeating the same won’t change it.
The link supports the claim that “When normalized for income, Asian immigrants perform better than others”. Income is fairly good proxy for education of parents especially at the lower end of the income scale. At low income schools, the achievement gap is very large.
If you have a source, feel free to post it. From personal experience, outside of silicon valley, a large portion of the immigrant parents of Asian Americans growing up in the 80s and early 90s were uneducated, especially in the cities. A high percentage of them also came by chain migration once a family member got an “in”.
Hawaii is too isolated to have enough educational resources. All the discussion about PhDs and selection aren’t that relevant tbh. I never made the claim that class doesn’t matter for Asian Americans. You’re putting words into my mouth.
I’m making that claim that given similar resources, the American children of Asian immigrants do far better than the children of native born Americans which has been fairly true with race and income segmented standardized test scores and GPA at the same school.
The difference in achievement is even higher than it appears from just GPA and test scores alone because native born Americans have language, cultural knowledge and bureaucracy advantages. They are native English speakers, know how to operate in America and are more likely to discuss themes and ideas that are relevant to English/sociology type of classes and the reading SATs with their children.
ScupDad if you live in SF then I suggest you go take a walk through Lowell High School. I am stating objective facts and with data to back it up. AA is dead in CA as can be seen by the demographics at the UC’s and the rest of the country is going to follow very soon.
@SAY
Asians don’t have much political power in the USA because they are the true minorities of America, unlike the African American and Hispanic communities.
Hispanic and African Americans are minorities in name only. Their large population sizes make their voice heard. They also have the sympathies of white liberals, WASP and major political organizations. The NAACP is staunchly against racial discrimination, except when it comes to affirmative action.
Large population size → large voting share → power in politics
Politicians change their policies based on votes.
The Hispanic and African American communities are united on many political issues, so combined they’re like 30% of the population. They also have high English proficiency and have the ability to speak on the topic unlike many Asian immigrants.
A motif that I’ve believed in is that the people or groups that garner the most sympathy and attention are usually not the most powerless groups/people. It takes high social status and power to be able to garner that type of sympathy.
@SAY, I seems you can’t accept or understand that other people may reach to a different conclusion from similar experiences. I don’t have anything else for you…
“What kind of evidence would you be looking for, @theloniusmonk ?”
Studies, data that show alumni rate colleges that have more diversity higher, they give more money because the campus is diverse, employers cite campus diversity as one of the reasons to hire someone out of college, outside of skills and experience.
There has been an extreme reluctance to look into actual data regarding the value of diversity on college campuses.
Most of the data relied upon by champions of race preferences are of the survey type, in which socially conditioned students and faculty, in response to “loaded” questions, simply express some form of the ubiquitous mantra that “diversity” is an unalloyed good.
Social scientists Rothman, Lipman and Nivette took a different approach. They simply asked non-loaded questions regarding the educational experience of over 4,000 individuals at 140 colleges and universities and correlated responses with objectively obtained measures of racial diversity on the campuses. The results were not supportive for diversity (emphasis added):
@satchelsf I notice the articles you cite are not published in academic journals. That means it did not go through the process of peer review, and by scientific standards it would not even be considered “research”. If the methods were sound, why was it not submitted to journals? The general public needs to understand that the ONLY policing we have for the soundness of research (that is, that the data isn’t just made up), is via the peer review process.
@psycholing - The Rothman, et al. article is just a popular discussion of the academic paper, which was accepted in a peer reviewed journal, The Journal of International Opinion Research. Here is the cite (I have posted it before in this thread):
There has also been a lively discussion of the paper in other journals, which you can find, for instance, through ResearchGate and JStor or by checking the citation history.
As for the Nieli paper, you can check the footnotes for numerous cites to academic works, including peer reviewed journals and law reviews (which have their own sort of peer review process).
Admittedly, the peer review process for social science research in general does not rise to the level of review in the sciences, especially the hard sciences and mathematics.