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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   13903 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 1, 2025

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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.

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.

Graduation and retention rates (21%): the proportion of each entering class earning a degree in six years or less (16%), and the proportion of first-year entering students who returned the following fall (5%)

Graduation rate performance (10%): actual six-year graduation rates compared with predictions for the fall 2014 entering class

Social mobility (11%): how well schools graduated students who received federal Pell Grants (6%), and graduation rates and performance of first generation students (5%)

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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