[lbo-talk] Slate: "In College Admissions, Affirmative Action and Its Critics Both Have The Same Problem"

Wojtek S wsoko52 at gmail.com
Wed Aug 21 13:25:22 PDT 2013


[WS:] Here are my two cents on the subject.

Ability ranking system is a scam, so the whole logic based on the premise of such ranking is fundamentally flawed. A more useful approach is to ask what are the pedagogical objectives of higher education and what are the best means to accomplish those objectives. If those objectives include the attainment of certain level of knowledge by deemed necessary to the functioning of modern society then it follows that the amount of public resources allocated to meeting that objective should reflect the actual cost of attaining it on the *aggregate* level rather than some elusive concept of moral ranking of individuals attaining that knowledge. To use a simple illustration - if there is a need to x number of physicians and it costs y dollars to train a physician, there should be $x*y resources available to eligible training institutions on per-student basis. i.e. if an institution A trains z number of physicians then it receives $z*y for the training, regardless of its status. If Podunk University that meets the accreditation/eligibility criteria trains more students than Harvard, then it should receive more public funding than Harvard. I believe that this system of funding would resolve the supposed differences in the quality of education in different, for if such differences currently exist they are mainly a function of differences of funding available to different institutions. If a Podunk U receives the same per student amount of funding as Harvard, there is no reason why it cannot provide the same quality of education as Harvard.

Of course I am talking about education not status and credential dispensation. The reality is, however, that higher education is like fashion industry - the price is the fundamental, if not only, component of the brand image. Oftentimes, there is no meaningful difference between the use value of "cheap" and "expensive" brands - the only difference is their exchange value i.e. price, which signals the buyer's ability to engage in conspicuous consumption, which in turn indicates his or her social status.

But since the fashion industry receives no public funding, I see no reason why "brand name" unis should receive any above and beyond the actual value of education they provide.

The second issue involved here is that of matching supply and demand, that is, prospective students and vendors of training. The current system of matching this supply and demand is based on the arbitrary decisions of vendors (admissions officers) who claim the ability to predict the future i.e. how well a prospective student will master the body of knowledge - which is an obvious scam. If you told them that they will not be paid for their educational services if their prediction was wrong and the student failed to graduate, they would quickly tell you that it is impossible to predict whether a student will graduate, and it would be unfair for them to be penalized for that failure. The reason why these shysters evaluate supposed "ability" or 'aptitude" to successfully complete training is to artificially limit supply by creating entry barriers, so they can demand a higher price for their services. This higher price is an important element of branding and credential dispensation.

A far more rational system is to admit everyone who applies and then gradually select those who perform at a certain level during, say, the first two years. Those who have difficulties meeting that level should be provided remediation education if they avail themselves. If more people apply to an institution than this institution can accommodate, then random selection can be used - as it is now practiced in some charter schools. Of course those not admitted to institution A could still have a chance of being admitted to institution B or C, so nobody would be denied admission.

And since the quality of education is a function of funding, adequate per student funding would eliminate quality differences among institutions.

Such a system is rational in that it would provide adequate supply of education services to prospective students and adequate supply of skilled individuals to meet societal needs. However, it undermines the myth of ranking both student abilities and quality of educational services, which is the cornerstone of branding and credential/status dispensation business from which elite unis enormously profit. But these two functions of unis - education services and credential/status dispensation should be kept analytically separate when talking about public funding for higher education.

On Tue, Aug 13, 2013 at 10:58 AM, Joseph Catron <jncatron at gmail.com> wrote:


> Your thoughts?
>
> "If the powers-that-be think it's useful to ability-rank 18 year-olds for
> pedagogical purposes, then perhaps that's correct. But the second stage of
> the college sorting process where more resources are expended on a UC
> Berkeley student than a community college student doesn't have any
> justification. That unfairness permeates the entire system. And because the
> system is unfair, there's no way to incorporate race (or not incorporate
> it) or to replace race with class or geography or anything else that will
> produce a fair outcome."
>
>
> http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/08/05/affirmative_action_and_its_critics.html
>
> --
> "Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen
> lytlað."
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>

-- Wojtek

"An anarchist is a neoliberal without money."



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