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I recall reading an article a few years ago (I'll see if I can dig it out*) that claimed that the absolute number of black Americans with engineering degrees actually declined in the years after affirmative action in university admissions was introduced.
The reasoning was elegantly simple. Like it or not, everyone in a classroom setting is acutely aware of where they sit in the hierarchy of their peers when it comes to how effectively they are understanding the material: people at the top of the class know they are, people who are struggling know it, people who are getting by know it. If you're a mediocre student in a mediocre school, you'll be doing okay: if you move that mediocre student into an elite school, he will be struggling, almost by definition. Ask yourself who's more likely to drop out of an elite school: someone getting straight As with ease, or someone barely scraping by with Ds?
This article argued that affirmative action in university admissions essentially migrated a huge number of mediocre students out of mid-tier colleges (in which their skill level would have matched the content they were expected to master, at the pace they were expected to master it) and into elite Ivy League colleges (in which they were bound to be near the bottom of the classroom distribution: if they wouldn't be, they wouldn't have needed affirmative action to get in). Faced with the demoralising prospect of always being near the bottom of the class, far more of these students dropped out before completing their degree, when compared to an earlier cohort of black students who attended mid-tier colleges. I don't know about you, but I think going to a mid-tier college and getting a degree is more impressive than going to Yale and dropping out after a year because you can't hack it.
It wouldn't surprise me if we end up observing a similar trend here. No genuinely smart student actually needs "accommodations" to get into an elite college, so the only ones who try to game the disability system to do so will be mediocre students. Like the black students in the paragraph above, they will find themselves near the bottom of the classroom hierarchy, constantly struggling to grasp material their classmates master with ease. Consequently, they will be far more likely to drop out with receiving a degree.
You're correct that getting the skills and the credentials is only one reason people go to college, end networking opportunities and so on are also a big part of it. But if you're doing a four-year degree and you drop out one year in, you'll have max one-quarter the networking opportunities that someone who completes their degree will have, so it may end up being a waste of your time anyway.
*I'm not sure if this is the article I was thinking of, but it makes the same general argument.
I think the overall point here is good, but that it only misses the magic “civilization is fucked” sauce.
In the 1970s, the U.S. News & World Report Best Colleges Ranking didn’t exist. Even elite colleges were at least somewhat more likely to cut loose the lowest performers. But now, thanks to the wonders of journamalism, graduation rate is the single most gameable factor in maintaining school prestige.
42% of the score is strictly about graduation rates.
Harvard has a 98% graduation rate and the most common grade is an A. These kids are not going to drop out like a merely above-average black engineer might have in 1975. They don’t even know to be ashamed, and the college will do everything it can to prevent them from feeling shame.
We are not prepared for the stunningly brave world’s first Down Syndrome judge.
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