Peter Arcidiacono and Michael Lovenheim write,
The evidence suggests that racial preferences are so aggressive that reshuffling some African
American students to less-selective schools would improve some outcomes due to match effects dominating
quality effects.Pointer from Tyler Cowen, who indicates that it is forthcoming the Journal of Economic Literature. Even Donald Trump finds this offensive.
It’s a funny debate. To play along you have to pretend education is at the same time not all signaling but also a huge endowment that can overcome any disadvantage, except when it can’t.
Progressives are so unashamedly committed to equality of outcomes, that the rest of us will be left simply arguing about the means. Redefine the objective(s) of college as a way to reduce the effects of “unbridled” assortative mating, to provide credentials to qualify applicants for desirable jobs, to “re-educate” the privileged by direct contact with those less-privileged, etc, and issues like mismatch and questionable increments in human capital will be dismissed as frictions.
Match outcomes only exist in half the academy. The challenge in getting a liberal arts degree is getting in. The challenge of getting an engineering degree is getting out.
Any idiot can get a Diversity Studies degree. The point of AA is to cram as many people into prestigious universities as possible, where they will then take fluff majors but still have the prestigious diploma. In the fluff part of the economy, it is the signalling that matters, and thus the gender and ethnic makeup of the fluff part of the economy will change.
Most liberals live in the fluff economy, and AA is making an actual measurable difference in their world.
Meanwhile, in the part of the university that requires math, it is skill and skill alone that will get you through. Neither mathematics nor Chinese TAs give points for diversity.
Most liberals don’t understand math, and thus this outcome confuses and angers them.
Believe it or not, aside from the obvious result being that they then complain about differences in pay after “adjusting” for gross years of education (not realizing that more years of fluff may actually destroy value), you just made me look on the bright side!
To me it’s the dark side – we are the host, and the parasite has managed to adapt quickly to our inherent decency and turn it into weakness.
We respected education because the spirit of inquiry and logic has given us civilization. They’ve managed to set up departments in our universities that share the same name and degree, yet condemn free inquiry and logic.
Our desire to not repeat the racism of previous generations has caused them to set up an entire caste of high-paid diversity hustlers.
Our desire to support our offspring has caused us to pour hundreds of thousands of dollars into children that are indoctrinated into and now part of the parasite class.
As the government/academic/media/non-profit parasite class grows, it’s getting more and more profitable to be one of the exploitative fluff major people, and less and less profitable to be people like us who keep the lights on and the food on the table.
I’ve been a fan of Two Americas since before John Edwards shagged that photographer.
The NPR coverage was so comical that it really reminds me of a Monty Python sketch where Michael Palin tries to keep a straight face while discussing something entirely absurd as if it is dead serious.
It was not in so many words but basically “We can’t believe Scalia said that (Why? He’s Scalia), but of course it’s true, but that just means we need these ultraselective universities to provide more remedial support.”
“The challenge in getting a liberal arts degree is getting in. The challenge of getting an engineering degree is getting out.”
Very well put.
This doesn’t really surprise me. If I use examples from my own childhood….I always felt much more comfortable and able to participate if I knew I was matched with people who were close to my level of ability, or just above it.
Sports is a good example. I was much more confident and willing to develop myself if I could get on the court with people I knew I could have an impact against.
If you’re with people who are out of your league it’s very difficult to develop the confidence to be aggressive.