Increasingly, nobody seems to think the main purpose of school (especially college) is to learn and prepare for a career. It seems that college is becoming less of a place to get an education and more of some kind of camp where you go for four years. It’s not about learning as it is about the “experience.” I’ve been on this issue for some time and it only seems to be getting worse. Yesterday the Flat Hat had an interesting piece about one of the Deans of Admissions and admission policy. It used to be that admissions were based on high school GPA, difficulty of classes taken, SAT scores, and your essay. Now, according to one of the assistant deans, admissions considers:
“…all aspects of diversity, including socioeconomic, gender, race, disabilities, sexual orientation, geographic location and ethnicity.”
Aren’t all these “diversity” issues things that the admissions staff shouldn’t even know about when someone applies? Academic performance should dominate all other factors in deciding admission, and only after someone has the academic credentials and is accepted should any socioeconomic or monetary factors come into play. Truthfully, I don’t think that an applicant’s name should be on a college application: the admissions process should be completely blind to any external factors such as gender or race. The requirement that a student have some kind of college “experience” with a diversity quota seems to be overpowering the idea that going to school is about learning job and career skills. No wonder so many college students graduate and go back to menial jobs: it’s not about learning career skills anymore. It’s about the “experience.”
The Associate Dean of Admissions goes on to say that affirmative action “should be applied not just in grades K-12, but from the day a child is born.” I can’t believe she said that — especially coming from someone in her position. It’s the “spread the wealth around” mantra. It completely kills the incentive for anyone to work hard or accomplish anything. Those that have some property of “diversity” don’t have to prove their worth since they will get what they want based on their status. Those that aren’t in one of the “diverse” categories won’t have any incentive to apply to the schools they want to or to get good grades in high school since they know the admissions slots will go to those that meet specific diversity criteria.
The DoG Street Journal had an editorial recently illustrating the consequences of continuing these policies. The author argues that while there is still a gender gap in wage, that gap has reversed itself with respect to high school dropout and college admission rates. Following these trends, it is certain that the wage gap in gender will soon reverse itself as well. But, heaven forbid someone starts a movement to protect men’s rights. Those with the special privileges will fight hard to keep them, even after whatever divide they faced is long gone.
And fight they will, because those in control want to milk these policies for all they’re worth. Title IX was originally aimed at ensuring that women had an equal opportunity to attend college. With college admissions and attendance no longer a factor, the new focus is intercollegiate athletics. After JMU two years ago, Delaware, another school in our conference (CAA) is considering giving track and cross country the axe because of Title IX. Under Title IX, schools must try to have a ratio of women’s to men’s roster spaces that is representative of the entire student population. Thanks to football, this really throws things for a loop. Since most schools desperately want to cling on to a football team that incurs the school a net loss in expenditures, administrators have no choice but to cut other men’s sports. They do this despite the fact that equal opportunity does not equivocate to equal demand.
It is obvious that education is the key to solving any socioeconomic imbalances, but the key to doing so and generating a productive and globally competitive society is to reward those who work the hardest instead of those who happen to have some special property.
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