Is this a "problem" ?

[independent]

.. he mentioned a Georgetown University study of the class of 2010 at the country’s 193 most selective colleges. As entering freshmen, only 15 percent of students came from the bottom half of the income distribution. [67 percent] came from the highest-earning fourth of the distribution.

David Leonhart thinks it is. He says that universities aren't promoting meritocracy but are simply reinforcing the benefits that high income people can give their children. He thinks we're wasting huge amounts of human capital.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/25/bu...ewanted=1&_r=1

Greg Mankiw doesn't agree. He thinks that success in college is the proof of current practices. The particular focus is the question of whether schools should give lower SAT applicants some "bonus" if they are from poor families. Leonhart says yes. Mankiw says only if a study can show that those students actually perform better in college than their SATs would predict. He doesn't think this is true.

http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2011/...ke-to-see.html

I've always thought that some "meritocracy" things come from your parents. Genes for sure, possibly work ethic. But 15% vs. 67% is huge.

What if higher income kids do better in college just because they're more comfortable in that environment? Is that proof they should be there? or proof that the lower income kids should have a chance?

[FormLetter]

The lower income kids do have a chance. Their chance is just more likely to come at a different school than Georgetown.

[Dr T Non-Fan]

Agreed. Georgetown is expensive. Merely getting scholarships is not enough for kids from poor families. Sometimes, these families can't wait four years for the money to start rolling in -- or, more likely (85%) the grad comes home to live.

[independent]

Did you catch the wording? It was a "Georgetown study", but it covered "the country's 193 most selective colleges".

[Wigmeister General]

the correlation between stupidity and low income is extremely high. Typical liberal lunacy.

[Tarzan Slam]

Originally Posted by independent

Did you catch the wording? It was a "Georgetown study", but it covered "the country's 193 most selective colleges".

I caught the wording. The same argument applies, just replace the words "Georgetown University" with "the country's 193 most selective colleges".

[Dr T Non-Fan]

Originally Posted by independent

Did you catch the wording? It was a "Georgetown study", but it covered "the country's 193 most selective colleges".

Most of those "selective colleges" are expensive. And we're referring to families that cannot afford to send someone away to college, nor pay for the kid to eat during the summer. And, yes, all those grant/loan forms are time-consuming to fill out.
I'm not saying anyone should get a break. But if someone (Leonhart) is troubled by this, he should do something about it. Make the forms easier. Find a better tool to predict college success than the SAT. Make it an easier choice for a kid to choose college over feeding his/her family.

[Fish Actuary]

I'm not really sure what the right thing is to do with this. It seems like there are quite a few kids from higher income families that buy their way to a higher SAT/ACT score through the various test training companies (e.g. Kaplan, Princeton Review, etc.). There's a similar phenomenon going on with Chinese students getting taught how to game the SAT and TOEFL The linked story interviews a Chinese student who got good marks on the TOEFL and the SATs, but can barely understand English. Basically, it seems like the tests to get into university in the U.S. are tests of your ability to game tests rather than how much you actually know and it puts poor people at a disadvantage at getting into highly selective schools.

I don't think that there's an easy fix to this. You can't really switch tests to do it as the test companies will just figure out how to game those tests. It's difficult to simply go off of grades because grading is so uneven across schools and countries. I kind of like the Canadian system or at least the system in some of the provinces where every grade 12 student in a province writes the same final exam for each subject. It makes the comparison a lot more even and less subject to gaming. Unfortunately, I think the U.S. is too broke and too libertarian to pursue this option.

[Wigmeister General]

Originally Posted by Fish Actuary

I'm not really sure what the right thing is to do with this. It seems like there are quite a few kids from higher income families that buy their way to a higher SAT/ACT score through the various test training companies (e.g. Kaplan, Princeton Review, etc.). There's a similar phenomenon going on with Chinese students getting taught how to game the SAT and TOEFL The linked story interviews a Chinese student who got good marks on the TOEFL and the SATs, but can barely understand English. Basically, it seems like the tests to get into university in the U.S. are tests of your ability to game tests rather than how much you actually know and it puts poor people at a disadvantage at getting into highly selective schools.

I don't think that there's an easy fix to this. You can't really switch tests to do it as the test companies will just figure out how to game those tests. It's difficult to simply go off of grades because grading is so uneven across schools and countries. I kind of like the Canadian system or at least the system in some of the provinces where every grade 12 student in a province writes the same final exam for each subject. It makes the comparison a lot more even and less subject to gaming. Unfortunately, I think the U.S. is too broke and too libertarian to pursue this option.

Let me get this straight ... actuaries are concerned that students "game the system" by preparing specifically for the test rather than just obtaining a broad-based knowledge and hoping that broad-based knowledge will be sufficient.

I understand completely.

[Gyudon]

I'm perfectly fine sending more of the scholarship and financial aid $'s to the poor but there should be no admissions "bonus" just because you're poor.

You might read the poor applicant's essay where he talks about how he maintained a 4.0 GPA, got perfect SATs, and led a bunch of clubs all while holding down two jobs supporting his immigrant family. Then you might say, yea this dude is a little better than the rich kid with the same stats, let's admit him. But as a blanket rule it makes no sense to prefer the poor applicant.