<p>Well, sakky, why do you think publics admit the not-so-good students?</p>
<p>Why? It's exactly what you said before (which is why I didn't disagree with you on a stage-one analysis) - that public schools want to * appear * to be serving the public, and want to garner government dollars. That's absolutely correct.</p>
<p>What I am asking is whether it * should * be that way. I completely agree that it is that way. But should it be that way? Like I said, I don't see how it helps the public good, the government, or the taxpayers, on the aggregate, by admitting students to a particular school only to have them flunk out later. Those students would have been better off just going to a different school, or, in the extreme cases, not going to college at all. Binging and purging students does not help society as a whole. Yeah, I agree, it helps the individual schools in that it makes it appear like they're helping the public. But I would argue that it's more important that schools actually help the public rather than just * appear * to help the public. </p>
<p>The bottom line is this. If you have strong reason to believe that a guy isn't going to graduate, then don't admit him. You're not really helping anybody if you do.</p>