The Impact of Affirmative Action and the Challenges of Removing Race from College Admissions

Attending WashU changed the trajectory of my life forever, and I benefited from affirmative action.?

I wanted to share my perspective on the issue given the Supreme Court ruling.

My parents are both immigrants who came to this country with nothing, and I attended a public charter school that was 98% Hispanic low-income before attending WashU.

Minority students face systemic disadvantages starting from the earliest stages of the academic journey. Affirmative action was a way of tipping the scales of fairness to give minorities a slight preferential treatment in a system that greatly favors privileged students.

Some universities consider wholistic details and adversity into account for admissions. But now that accounting for race in college admissions is illegal, there’s no easy and standardized way for admissions offices to measure how many minorities they will accept.

As Charlie Munger suggests, “What doesn't get measured doesn't get counted.”?

If you stop measuring race in admissions, it becomes difficult to make informed decisions about diversity, and ultimately achieve success in that particular area.

Thus, top universities will naturally select fewer minorities because there is no easy quota for them to hit.?

These universities are not incentivized to accept lower income students. They are most incentivized to accept affluent students because of the way endowments works.

Typically, tuition revenue is needed to cover operating expenses of the university.

So, for example, Harvard has $5Bn in operating expenses, and it collects $5Bn in revenue.

This allows Harvard’s endowment to operate more freely and make illiquid investments into venture capital, hedge funds, and private equity, which yield higher returns over the long term.

If the tuition revenue wasn't enough to cover the operating expenses, universities would need to ensure a lower, consistent annual return from the endowment to cover the costs.

Also, the employees who work at these endowments are compensated like Wall Street professionals based on performance of the endowment. They are not incentivized to change the investment strategy because they would make less money.

No one wants to make less money.

Thus, universities need the tuition revenue from affluent students, and there are no incentives to accept more low-income minorities after the removal of affirmative action.

This sucks.

I agree that it is not fair for an extremely talented, hard-working Asian American student to have a lower chance of admission than a significantly less qualified student only because of race.?

I also agree that there are people who are not labeled as "minority" but still face adversity, and these individuals are excluded from the cookie-cutter model defined and standardized by the government.

If affirmative action is not fair, then universities must eliminate ADLC as a consideration factor for college admissions or at least be hyper-transparent about it and publish it online.

These practices are unfair and serve as a backdoor for admitting less qualified students. Re: College admissions scandal in 2018.

In a recent study that was conducted, 43% of white students admitted to Harvard, were athletes, legacy students, children of faculty and staff, or on the dean’s interest list (which is a fancy way of saying that their family made a donation). These four categories are grouped together as ADLC.

The study shows that 75% of those students who were admitted would have been rejected if they applied as white non-ADLC.

If affirmative action is unfair, then ALDC is even more unfair and exclusionary to non-white students.

Attending a top university is a pathway to achieving the American dream.?

Removing affirmative action will result in lower admission rates of Hispanic and black students. Hence, fewer of those students will have the opportunity to achieve the American dream.

It’s going to take years to overcome this and now, more than ever, we need policies to help students in the earlier stages of their academic journeys.?

The abysmal quality of public schools is the single biggest contributor to systemic racism that traps people into poverty across multiple generations. If we had more competition in the education system in America, there would be better outcomes for students.

Enabling school choice policies would help motivated students enroll in a better school. This would also help pinpoint which schools are doing a better job, so they can receive more funds.

I encourage the people in my LinkedIn Network to do their part in helping Hispanic and black students in their community.

Some of the tips I see yield successful outcomes are:

1) practice for standardized tests (SAT, ACT) starting in 8th grade

2) read more books outside of school to learn English properly

?3) work on college applications the summer before Senior year of high school, to present applicant in the best light.

This advice can go a long way if preached over time.

Yes, the news sucks and I pray for change in the unfair practices highlighted above.

Do you think universities will remove considering race for their scholarship programs??

Do you think universities will funnel more minority students to apply for scholarships as a work-around to the ruling on affirmative action for college admission?

Comment your thoughts below.?