# College Campus Diversity **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 11, 2010, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-campus-diversity/524472 "2010-01-11T03:31:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Telur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/59ef9b/32.png) [@Telur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telur)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2010, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-campus-diversity/524472/1 "2010-01-11T03:31:51Z")
Why is it that colleges have admission practices that favor certain people based on race or ethnicity? I’m a senior in high school and it seems someone is always talking about affirmative action as our class is in the heart of the college application process. The only reason I can come up with is the college is looking into an untapped market to keep the number of applicants high and thus higher tuition. My government teacher disagrees with me but offers no solution of his own. What do you guys think? What’s in it for the colleges and why do they continue if the students they are admitting are less qualified? ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2010, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-campus-diversity/524472/2 "2010-01-11T03:49:06Z")
Colleges also favor children of alumni, especially if they’re big donors. I’ve never heard anyone ever complaining about this. Why are they letting these people in? But colleges never let in unqualified students. There’s no point – they’ll probably fail, anyway. Colleges want to have a diverse student body. That means many things. Sometimes it’s race. Sometimes it’s location (a student from California will get favored treatment in an east coast private school, for instance). Sometimes it’s major (Columbia University is considered an elite Ivy League school, but if you apply to their science program, your chances of getting in are greater, since they have more trouble filling spots there). Sometimes it’s your athletic ability. And whether a student is “qualified” for a college is a completely subjective decision. But, again, if you think there’s something wrong with affirmative action, you should also think there is something wrong with accepting all the other students types I mentioned. ---
**Author:** ![rbroome](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/838e76/32.png) [@rbroome](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rbroome)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2010, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-campus-diversity/524472/3 "2010-01-11T03:56:07Z")
> [@Telur](#): > > Why is it that colleges have admission practices that favor certain people based on race or ethnicity? > > I’m a senior in high school and it seems someone is always talking about affirmative action as our class is in the heart of the college application process. > The only reason I can come up with is the college is looking into an untapped market to keep the number of applicants high and thus higher tuition. My government teacher disagrees with me but offers no solution of his own. > > What do you guys think? What’s in it for the colleges and why do they continue if the students they are admitting are less qualified? A diverse student body benefits all students by providing a variety of backgrounds and experiences for all the students. And it is a good recruiting tool. If a school can show a diverse student body, the best students of all backgrounds are more likely to pick that school. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2010, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-campus-diversity/524472/4 "2010-01-11T04:03:32Z")
This is probably better suited for GD than GQ. Colibri General Questions Moderator ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2010, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-campus-diversity/524472/5 "2010-01-11T04:27:24Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Colleges also favor children of alumni, especially if they’re big donors. I’ve never heard anyone ever complaining about this. Why are they letting these people in? Two wrongs make a right? > [@](#): > > But colleges never let in unqualified students. There’s no point – they’ll probably fail, anyway. Can we have a cite for that first statement? > [@](#): > > But, again, if you think there’s something wrong with affirmative action, you should also think there is something wrong with accepting all the other students types I mentioned. Nope. Legacies attract donations, which colleges often need. This one of those things that the experts call a bad analogy. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2010, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-campus-diversity/524472/6 "2010-01-11T04:48:10Z")
> [@Telur](#): > > What do you guys think? What’s in it for the colleges and why do they continue if the students they are admitting are less qualified? Qualified is a rather nebulous idea. Is someone really more qualified because they scored 5 points higher on the SAT than I did? Are grades the only measure of how qualified someone is to attend college? I actually think students benefit from having a diverse student body. It helps expose them to new ideas that they might not have been exposed to before. ---
**Author:** ![Francis\_Vaughan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/francis_vaughan/32/3093_2.png) [@Francis\_Vaughan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Francis_Vaughan)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2010, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-campus-diversity/524472/7 "2010-01-11T05:00:41Z")
Affirmitive action is always going to cause argument. One might as well go in for the whole shebang and add perferential admission of women into courses as well. Many colleges do this as well. There is a significant difference between “qualified” and “likely to succeed” when admitting students. In that there is a real, but far from perfect correlation between good marks at lower levels and success later. There are a lot of unspoken truths in admissions and in assessment. Qualifiactions for admission are really not a lot more than proving that you are reasonably smart, litterate, numerate, and have an aptitude to study. For specialist areas numerate should mean a reasonably high level of study of mathematics. Marks have a rather wide error margin and nowadays are subject to a huge amount of massaging due to political agendas. People from richer or more stable backgrounds tend to have better marks than those from poorer or disrupted, for students of similar general aptitude. This is hardly a surprise. If you are looking to take a student from some minority (and in many areas this has included women as a sexual rather than racial minority) you will (or should) be looking past raw marks from some sausage machine high school education and assessment scheme, and make a more realistic personal assessment. This can turn out to be much better at finding students that are likely to succeed anyway. Affirmitive action will always carry the taint of advantaging the undeserving disadvantaged. But in the long run, most institutions will continue with it because it makes for an overall better final outcome. Pragmatically they are all under pressure to show some level of social responsibility, and affirmitive action allows them to do so. But in reality they get to cherry pick good students out of a cohort of students that under the homogenised mass produced education assement schemes they would miss out on. So they win twice. Those students win too. And the broader long term goals society are better met. Four times win. ---
**Author:** ![GreasyJack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/df705f/32.png) [@GreasyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreasyJack)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2010, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-campus-diversity/524472/8 "2010-01-11T05:04:05Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Nope. Legacies attract donations, which colleges often need. This one of those things that the experts call a bad analogy. I think the point that **RealityChuck** was making was that colleges bias their admission practices for all sorts of reasons other than academics. That you feel that legacies are a legitimate reason to favor someone and affirmative action is not isn’t particularly relevant to the question of why a college would favor someone for reasons other than chance of academic success. From the point of view of a prospective student (such as the OP) there is no real difference between bumping someone ahead because their parents cut a fat check the school and bumping them ahead because of their background. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2010, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-campus-diversity/524472/9 "2010-01-11T05:15:16Z")
When I was in the physics department diversity was quite the boon. I’d work a problem. Then somebody would show me how much better they could do it because they didnt have a penis. And yet another would do the same thing because a dark skin gave them a special insight into the inner workings of the universe. And then some guy who didnt believe in Jesus would blow me away. ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2010, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-campus-diversity/524472/10 "2010-01-11T05:15:42Z")
Curiously, at the root of affirmative action is the desire to create a talented, leadership-oriented cohort of students who not only excel academically but also somehow partake in the intangibles desired by the university. This impulse proceeded from the massive anti-semitism of the late 19th and early 20th centuries in elite institutions. Instead of simply barring admissions to Jews, they acknowledged that academic capabilities were only one component of what must be the entire student’s character. You end up with things like [this](http://www.oldmagazinearticles.com/pdf/JEWS%20harvard2.pdf). [This](http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/journal_of_higher_education/v079/79.1thelin.html) is worth reading in a more modern context. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2010, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-campus-diversity/524472/11 "2010-01-11T05:21:47Z")
> [@](#): > > Two wrongs make a right? And yet somehow, of all the problems caused by racism in America, the one that some people want to address is the plight of white students going to college. Obviously that’s the racial issue in America that needs to go to the front of the line. ---
**Author:** ![Francis\_Vaughan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/francis_vaughan/32/3093_2.png) [@Francis\_Vaughan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Francis_Vaughan)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2010, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-campus-diversity/524472/12 "2010-01-11T05:31:32Z")
There is no reason to believe that any racial or sexual background confers better apptitude to learn and succeed. Certainly not within any meaningiful statistical process that isn’t biased to the culture within which it measures. Assuming that, any student cohort that does not reasonably represent the demographics of its environment is almost certainly going to be less capable than one that does. So indeed, if you are in a student cohort that has taken steps to take the best it can from all backgrounds, you are likely part of a better and smarter cohort. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2010, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-campus-diversity/524472/13 "2010-01-11T06:13:49Z")
> [@GreasyJack](#): > > I think the point that **RealityChuck** was making was that colleges bias their admission practices for all sorts of reasons other than academics. That you feel that legacies are a legitimate reason to favor someone and affirmative action is not isn’t particularly relevant to the question of why a college would favor someone for reasons other than chance of academic success. From the point of view of a prospective student (such as the OP) there is no real difference between bumping someone ahead because their parents cut a fat check the school and bumping them ahead because of their background. Nope. I just said it was a bad analogy. One needent be outraged about legacies just because one is outraged by AA. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2010, 6:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-campus-diversity/524472/14 "2010-01-11T06:24:10Z")
Before this thread goes too far off the rails, can somebody authoritatively cite one or more current college’s actual admission practices, prefereably with those colleges’ own explanations of those practices? ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2010, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-campus-diversity/524472/15 "2010-01-11T06:32:45Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > Before this thread goes too far off the rails, can somebody authoritatively cite one or more current college’s actual admission practices, prefereably with those colleges’ own explanations of those practices? Sure. [This](http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/10/10/051010crat_atlarge) was an excellent article in the New Yorker a few years ago about this subject. It is well worth reading. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2010, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-campus-diversity/524472/16 "2010-01-11T07:11:12Z")
A 2004 research study found that [racial diversity can actually help students think better](http://www.stanford.edu/group/diversity/): > [@](#): > > **The Effects of Racial Diversity on Cognitive Complexity in College Students** > > Generally positive effects on integrative complexity were found when the groups had racial and opinion minority members and when members reported having racially diverse friends and classmates. […] > > The studies as a whole support the assertion that White college students who are exposed to racially diverse educational environments receive benefits ranging from enhanced intellectual and social self-confidence to growth in academic skills to increased civic engagement. […] > > After consulting with colleagues in psychology, we determined a best candidate, a measure of complex thinking processes known as Integrative Complexity (IC). This measure determines the degree of complexity in the thinking processes of individuals as reflected in written materials such as essays and speeches. […] The key question addressed by the experiment was whether the racial composition of small groups discussions had a measurable impact on college students’ thinking, as measured by integrative complexity. […] > > Overall, we found generally positive effects due to the racial composition of the discussion group in each of our analyses. And of course, the elephant in the room is that on average, [Americans _want_ diversity in college environments](http://www.eric.ed.gov:80/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetails/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=EJ575627&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=EJ575627). You can complain all you want about alleged pro-diversity brainwashing and so forth, but do you really have any evidence to support the notion that colleges shouldn’t try to pursue diversity when both parents and students like it? ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2010, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-campus-diversity/524472/17 "2010-01-11T07:30:44Z")
I met my first Native American at college. He was my roommate and I think about things differently after arguing with him night after night. I made friends with someone from Texas and learned that not everyone in Texas was to blame for killing Kennedy. I also met a real “hillbilly” who played banjo, interacted with more Jewish students, and saw that homosexuals aren’t as different as I thought. ---
**Author:** ![kingbighair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/13edae/32.png) [@kingbighair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kingbighair)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2010, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-campus-diversity/524472/18 "2010-01-11T16:02:08Z")
Because college is not strictly about academics, but instead, a time for intellectual and social development. Being surrounded by only the kids you grew up with will not expand your worldview as much as being around people from diverse backgrounds. In my opinion, if people are going to put a school’s name on the top of their resumes, it is in the school’s best interest for that person to be as well rounded as possible. > [@](#): > > Before this thread goes too far off the rails, can somebody authoritatively cite one or more current college’s actual admission practices, prefereably with those colleges’ own explanations of those practices? Not sure about individual colleges, but the Supreme Court defined permissible uses of race in higher education in [Grutter v. Bollinger](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grutter_v._Bollinger). The Court considers diversity in the student body to be a legitimate interest of the school. Race may be considered in order to promote this interest, but not as a quota system. ---
**Author:** ![kingbighair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/13edae/32.png) [@kingbighair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kingbighair)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2010, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-campus-diversity/524472/19 "2010-01-11T16:18:28Z")
I guess I missed the edit window. The difference between promoting diversity and a quota system is in the school’s intent and how it tailors its admissions process. Far lower test scores and automatically in because of skin color? Probably not allowed. Slightly lower test scores and in because race is considered an added bonus (meaning a plus factor and not a determinative factor)? Probably allowed. This is not likely to remain a constitutional practice in the next several decades, depending on judicial appointments. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2010, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-campus-diversity/524472/20 "2010-01-11T17:49:25Z")
I think my college could have benefitted from a bit more diversity. I think it was something like 8% minorities when I was there. I mean not only were most of the people white. They were mostly white, affluent New England/Mid-Atlantic, athletic, Abercrombie and J Crew wearing, Dave Mathews Band listening fraternity types who act like something out of a Bret Easton Ellis novel. Basically a great place to be yourself…provided you are just like the rest of us. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-campus-diversity/524472.md?page=2)