[quote=CA renter]They end up with lower graduation rates because they start out at a severe disadvantage. As you know, most Asians and many/most whites in the UC system have very supportive families who have always made sure their kids had the resources to succeed.[/quote]
The debate isn’t that they are starting at a position of disadvantage, we all agree that is the case. The point is how to help them succeed.
[quote=CA renter]It doesn’t hurt them, but it won’t guarantee that they will succeed in schools as well as the Asian and white populations do, either. [/quote]
What in the world??? Of course the disadvantage hurt. That’s what makes it a disadvantage. The disadvantage hurt by reducing chances of success. That’s how it hurts.
[quote=CA renter]
IMO, most of the “exceptional” students will succeed anyway. The quota system is there to give others a fighting chance. [/quote]
But that’s an argument for elimination of quota and affirmative action. The “exceptional” will ALWAYS do well. They are not the ones that need a bump up! If you have 100 students, and one of them is “exceptional”, do you elevate ALL 100 from a regional college to IVY league? The one “exceptional” student will succeed, and may even excel beyond expectation. What about the other 99 that’s NOT exceptional and landed in the IVY league or a prominent public school with cut throat competition? Those other 99 are going to sink and fail.
So if you are working on a social strategy to uplift a disadvantaged people as a whole, do you institute a wholesale program that elevates that one “exceptional” student while guaranteeing the failure of the other 99? Or do you work on taking care of the said disadvantage early on so by the time they apply to colleges they can compete on their own two feet?
[quote=CA renter]
And note that the black student population has also gone down since they eliminated AA at the universities. Asians, OTOH, seem to have fared about the same before and after Prop 209. But we also have to look at the population increases of various groups, and Hispanics have grown in number far faster than any of the other groups which might explain their increasing numbers. Whites, as a percentage of the population, have been decreasing (as have blacks, IIRC). Asians have been increasing, so the fact that their percentages at the universities are the same might mean there’s a slight decline as a percentage of the population. Not sure about any of that, though.[/quote]
Once you removed the affirmative action you saw the number of Asian Americans jump. Which brings to question the quota system of the IVY league, where the Asian population remains stuck at 15-20% despite population growth.
The white population in California did not drop 20% in 25 years. but that’s how much they dropped after prop 209. proving that affirmative action actually helped whites buffer against the Asians in the past.
