
A Push to Make Harvard Free Also Questions the Role of Race in Admissions - Futurebot
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/15/us/a-push-to-make-harvard-free-also-questions-the-role-of-race-in-admissions.html
======
hackuser
Harvard can't end racial discrimination in admissions. To get into Harvard, a
teenager needs:

1) To know about Harvard and elite universities in general. Believe it or not,
research shows that most qualified poor kids don't apply because they don't
have any knowledge about the value of an elite education or that places like
Harvard exist. Anecodotally, I know a couple of brilliant ones from poor
backgrounds who went to their state universities simply because they had no
idea there were other options - in fact, it was an imaginative stretch to go
to college at all.

2) Family and community support for a college education, much less an
expensive elite one far away. Sure, some super-teen can overcome this, but
it's a major reason kids don't apply or drop out at high rates. My two friends
were constantly asked, why would you want to go to college? Kids in these
situations are in alien environments at college (that it seems perfectly
normal to white middle-class kids should tell you exactly what environment it
is) where they have few people who can relate to them (Edit: and an
institution not built for their needs), then they go home and are asked why
they are wasting their time and family's money. And as they absorb university
life, they also become alienated from people at home who don't have those life
experiences or opportunities.

3) Money: There is a very strong relationship between family money and college
education.

4) An excellent high school education: Something else that correlates strongly
with the family they come from.

5) Connections: It's not what you know, but who you know. Do you think all
those kids in Harvard are there on merit? What about the legacies? The big
donors' kids? The kids with recommendations from alums? Those aren't avenues
available to most kids.

And all these things have a strong racial component. If Harvard can eliminate
these factors then sure, why not eliminate affirmative action too?

~~~
erikpukinskis
Are you saying none of these problems could be solved by putting a team of
professionals on it? For example, maybe six PR and marketing people working
full time for four years couldn't make a dent in #1?

~~~
hackuser
> Are you saying none of these problems could be solved by putting a team of
> professionals on it? For example, maybe six PR and marketing people working
> full time for four years couldn't make a dent in #1?

The elite colleges say anyone who gets in will be given affordable tuition,
but they must have long known that their applicants come from specific socio-
economic groups and therefore they are missing top applicants outside those
groups. Why haven't they done much about it? (I can only guess.) Note that it
must weaken their student body to miss so many top students.

Issue #1 has received a bunch of broader public attention recently (NY Times
articles, etc.), so perhaps that has energized a response; I don't follow it
closely enough to know.

I also know that solving #1 without solving #2 results only in a lot of
dropouts. I happen to know someone at a good university that mentors a group
of students from other backgrounds; the university has developed a detailed
program to try to keep them in school.

Finally, I have read that Amherst, many years ago, decided that they would
actually make an effort to admit a socio-economically (or maybe just
economically; I don't know the details) diverse student body, with great
success. That is true public service by an institution.

------
Xcelerate
I always want to comment on articles like this and share my opinion, but then
I worry that if mass public opinion shifts or changes a decade from now,
everything I've said about a touchy subject will be archived online for any
future employer to search. There always seems to be a delicate art to wording
one's thoughts in a "neutral" way on issues like this.

~~~
curun1r
HN has no real name policy. Why not sign up for another account that you use
to discuss riskier topics? As long as you're careful to not include
identifying details in posts, you should be okay.

Missing out on substantive discourse simply because of fear would make me sad.

~~~
droidist2
Although people are already working on open source machine learning projects
to identify people by how they write.

~~~
stillsut
I've been interested in this for awhile. Could you post some of examples or
open source examples?

------
kenjackson
_The politically charged data holds the potential to reveal whether Harvard
bypasses better-qualified Asian-American candidates in favor of whites, blacks
and Hispanics, and the children of the wealthy and powerful, the group
argues._

The problem is that "better-qualified" is not some absolute measure. I don't
think any Ivy League-tier school would say that a formula of SAT+GPA is
sufficient. There are several factors that aren't easily measured. For
example:

1\. Difficulty of high school course load.

2\. Extra academic work. For example, if you've solved P=NP while having a 2.0
GPA -- would anyone care about your GPA?

3\. Performance in academic-RELATED activities. If you win the IMO or the
spelling bee or the Intel Science competition, etc...

4\. Performance in non-academic activities. If you have a platinum album, does
that matter? Or being a famous actor? Or creating a game changing app? Or
becoming a top rated Go player?

4\. Performance in athletics. Would being a Lebron James level talent matter?
Winning an Olympic gold in gymnastics?

5\. Having highly regarded morals, conviction, and courage. Would Malala get
special treatment?

6\. Socio-economics. All other things being equal, do we favor a student who
has had no advantages over those who have had every economic advantage (best
schools, tutors, etc..)?

7\. Diversity of life experience (especially if exceptional). Would the child
of a President have an advantage getting in? What about the experience of
anyone that is fundamentally against the norm of most of the population of the
incoming class. Maybe they navigated combat missions for the South Korean
Navy.

I do think systemically excluding a certain race is a problem. But I don't
think using an old notion of merit is much better.

~~~
FlyingLawnmower
I think that the only data driven conclusion we can derive from "holistic"
admissions that consider every factor stems from what happened in California.
Most California public colleges (UC Berkeley, etc.) subscribed to the same
school of thought, but when race-based considerations were banned, the Asian
American percentage at the school shot up _considerably_.

The colleges were still considering the same criteria for admissions, but once
race was removed, a significant increase in Asian American acceptances at the
schools occurred. I think it's very hard to argue that Asian Americans failed
on your aforementioned categories, or that there wasn't a systematic bias
against them when considering these facts.

~~~
kenjackson
_The colleges were still considering the same criteria for admissions, but
once race was removed, a significant increase in Asian American acceptances at
the schools occurred._

This may have occurred, but it doesn't necessarily mean that the metrics they
used were the only reasonable metrics. I think Harvard would argue that their
metrics always looked much different than state schools. And actually that
probably cuts to the heart more than anything else:

What is the end goal of the pool of accepted students you bring in? Is it to
reward the students for a job well done? Or is it to shape a society? Or is it
something altogether different -- or a combination?

I think a lot of people view college admittance as a reward for a job well
done. But maybe for top-tier colleges the goal is to create leaders who will
shape the future. In which case diversity actually matters a fair bit. Can you
get the societal diverse leaders that you want by accepting just Asian and
White students? I honestly think the answer is probably no.

------
LesZedCB
> And if Harvard abolishes tuition for undergrads, Mr. Nader said, “It will
> ricochet across the Ivy League.”

A proposition like this is really exciting to me! As a recent college grad
(though admittedly one who's very lucky to not have loans, though my partner
is screwed with them), I am particularly sensitive how how insane it is that
college students are sold massive amounts of debt that many will take years to
pay back. And a lot of new systems to help students pay them back are
ineffective at best and disgusting at worst.

I am intrigued to see what the other motives are here. I doubt that there will
be much change in how students pay back college debt, but we do need some sort
of real change. I would be really excited to see a cultural shift away from
profiteering from student debt.

------
kelukelugames
Harvard also denied discriminating against Jewish applicants before the 70s.
Yet Wikipedia says they were one of the worst offenders.

I hate how the article phrases helping underrepresented minorities as hurting
Asian Americans. The two things are not related. Universities will
discriminate against us even without affirmative action. The Ivy Leagues
invented "legacy" and "manliness" as admissions criteria. They will create new
forms of discrimination. History repeats. Stop using us as an excuse. Stop
driving a wedge between minorities.

Some links from wikipedia:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerus_clausus#Numerus_clausu...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerus_clausus#Numerus_clausus_in_the_United_States)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_quota](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_quota)

~~~
humanrebar
> The two things are not related.

They're related in the underlying implication that it's best to treat
applicants as groups and not individuals.

But you could be fair with certain minorities and unfair with others. There is
not a direct cause and effect relationship there.

~~~
kelukelugames
Right, of course.

But the people who equate the two don't actually care about Asian Americans.
They are making a political argument.

------
theseatoms
Top tier (and/or Ivy league) schools tend to have fairly generous financial
aid packages, so this is a less shocking proposal than it might otherwise
seem.

Disclaimer: not a Harvard grad

~~~
soperj
Yep, at Harvard you already don't pay if you can't afford it.

~~~
chriskanan
The problem is that many applicants don't realize that. During graduate
school, I was active in recruitment in the sciences and I have often spoken
with high-achieving but low-income high school students and undergraduates,
and many of them have false ideas about financial aid for undergraduate and
graduate education.

~~~
codemac
Well, many of these have prohibitive application fees that take a lot of work
to get waved. I think that's a bigger immediate barrier than figuring out how
you'd even pay for the schooling.

I know I didn't apply to several schools merely out of exhaustion of trying to
figure out how to not have to pay the application fee.

~~~
morgante
That doesn't match my experience at all. I had all my application fees waived
with a simple email.

~~~
jessaustin
I guess it has been too long for me... what fees were these? SAT/ACT fees? I
don't recall there being any fee for actually filling out the application form
and sending it in?

Nevertheless, if schools have any control over the "front-end" fees, they
might ought to start by eliminating those. _Knowing_ that one needs to send an
email like that is also a barrier of a sort.

------
dawnbreez
The problem of affirmative action is complicated by several things.

One, it is by definition discrimination by race. You are giving preferential
treatment to people based on skin color.

Two, it creates distrust between students of different colors. If you know
that some black students are accepted based on skin color rather than ability,
then you'll start to suspect that the black students in your class didn't earn
their ride to college, so to speak. In extreme cases, if you've been denied
entry to Harvard, you may suspect that you were left out to leave room for a
less-qualified but more "diverse" student.

These two issues combine to not only make affirmative action hypocritical, but
also to make it actively harmful. Affirmative action doesn't "fix" racism, it
_encourages_ it.

------
natch
I wonder if they still allow the names of admissions candidates to be revealed
to the people who review the applications? It seems that hiding this would be
a really basic step.

And no I'm not saying that a name tells you the race. But sometimes it is an
indication.

Not saying it's bulletproof; it's not. But it would help. And I can't think of
a valid excuse for not doing it.

~~~
repsilat
From NPR:

6 Words: 'My Name Is Jamaal ... I'm White'

...

The principal who hired him told him he was lucky to get the job because they
hadn't been planning to take another student teacher. Then Allan's application
showed up.

"They scanned through it ... and they saw someone named Jamaal who played
basketball, listed Muhammad Ali among his heroes and inspirations, and
thought, 'We could use some diversity here, so let's bring this guy on, I
think he'd be good for some of our younger minority male students,'" he says.

[http://www.npr.org/2015/05/06/404432206/six-words-my-name-
is...](http://www.npr.org/2015/05/06/404432206/six-words-my-name-is-jamaal-im-
white)

~~~
jessaustin
That's interesting in itself, but this is a discussion of general trends so
perhaps I've missed the point?

~~~
repsilat
It was a tangential comment relating to natch saying,

> _I wonder if they still allow the names of admissions candidates to be
> revealed to the people who review the applications? It seems that hiding
> this would be a really basic step._

> _And no I 'm not saying that a name tells you the race. But sometimes it is
> an indication._

I guess a more relevant point is that if they think your race is relevant to
admissions, then they're probably not thinking about removing names from the
equation at all. I'd think that they'd happily admit to biases inherent in the
process, but at the end of the day they'd argue that more information will
allow them to make better decisions than less.

~~~
natch
>they'd argue that more information will allow them to make better decisions
than less.

Better decisions for whom? Perhaps for their friends whose children are
applying.

Sure they might argue that, in any case.

And it might even be true, if they were free from all bias, whether conscious
or subconscious.

If they think race is relevant, they should just put that right out in the
open as a requirement. Especially if they think that more information will
allow them to make better decisions than less.

------
oska
Philip Greenspun has been pushing the idea of free undergraduate tuition
universities for a while now [1], [2].

[1] [http://philip.greenspun.com/school/tuition-free-
mit.html](http://philip.greenspun.com/school/tuition-free-mit.html)

[2] [https://blogs.harvard.edu/philg/2007/12/11/harvard-takes-
ano...](https://blogs.harvard.edu/philg/2007/12/11/harvard-takes-another-step-
closer-to-tuition-free/)

------
givinguflac
Harvard has enough money in their endowment to easily have everyone go to
there for free for centuries without changing a thing.

~~~
function_seven
They do, but that money is restricted as to what it can be used for. From the
article:

 _“There is a common misconception that endowments, including Harvard’s, can
be accessed like bank accounts, used for anything at any time as long as funds
are available,” Jeff Neal, a Harvard spokesman, said. “In reality, Harvard’s
flexibility in spending from the endowment is limited by the fact that it must
be maintained in perpetuity and that it is largely restricted by the explicit
wishes of those who contributed the endowed funds.”_

~~~
logfromblammo
Nevertheless, $37600M earning 12% is enough to cover annual expenditures of
$100k for each of 45000 students without ever touching the principal.

~~~
TulliusCicero
1\. Long-term return on the stock market, factoring in inflation and
dividends, is a little under 7%. If you can consistently nail 12%, I'd like to
know your secret.

2\. It's possible that the returns from the principal are also restricted.

~~~
logfromblammo
1\. I would, too. The Harvard endowment gets an average of 12%, according to
what I have read.

2\. That is why Harvard hasn't already done it, apparently.

~~~
TulliusCicero
> The annualized return on the endowment over the last 20 years has been
> approximately 12.0% per year and the endowment was valued at $37.6 billion
> at June 30, 2015.

[http://www.hmc.harvard.edu/investment-
management/performance...](http://www.hmc.harvard.edu/investment-
management/performance-history.html)

Huh, but it doesn't specify whether this is inflation-adjusted.

------
lr
The thing that is never, ever talked about in these discussions is "geographic
diversity", or "discrimination" as these folks would see it. Harvard could
fill its entire freshman class each year with students from east coast private
prep schools. They will never do that because it is just bad for diversity in
general. A less qualified student from a public school in Iowa (regardless of
race) will eventually get a spot at Harvard over yet another rich kid from a
private school in the northeast. Diversity of all kinds is important, and
since this article talks about "the children of the wealthy and powerful",
they must also talk about the children of the middle class in other parts of
the country that will indeed get selected over these elite kids just because
they are a "fresh face from the Heartland".

~~~
hackuser
To flesh out one aspect of that: Diversity is valuable to the students. Where
would you rather get educated: A school with people from all over the world
and from all socio-economic backgrounds, or a school only with people from
your hometown?

------
browseatwork
"And if Harvard abolishes tuition for undergrads, Mr. Nader said, “It will
ricochet across the Ivy League.”

And similar top schools, especially private schools in and outside of the Ivy
League. My first question would be what impact would this have on schools that
actually depend on tuition to pay for things, those that aren't
Harvard/Princeton/etc that don't have as huge endowments per student? Would
the gap between the quality of the average student widen further between the
very very top schools and the other top schools, further entrenching the
status quo?

~~~
kevhsu
I'm not sure how this would change the gap between top schools and super top
schools. Most of the top students at A tier schools already applied and got
rejected by S tier schools in the current environment. So the quality of
students theoretically doesn't change. What am I missing in your logic here?

~~~
browseatwork
Students who got into S schools would have even more reason to go to them over
A tier schools. All students would have even more reason to apply to S tier
schools. A tier schools, who depend more on tuition dollars and would need to
charge or find other sources of funding (likely without much success-
governments have been cutting funding for decades, they're all already tapping
private sources as much as they can). S tier schools would become comparably
less desirable. This loop would continue (other than schools who try not to
charge but depend on tuition dollars falling into the A range).

~~~
browseatwork
"S tier schools would become comparably less desirable."

I meant A tier schools.

------
bootload
Lots of angst in this article on university admission could be avoided if
selection was thought of as a chance to get in, instead of automatic entry and
a right.

Barry Swartz, in my view wrote the definitive article about the mess elite
university is in. Read it, _" Do College Admissions by Lottery"_~
[http://nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/03/31/how-to-
improve-t...](http://nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/03/31/how-to-improve-the-
college-admissions-process/do-college-admissions-by-lottery)

Still getting wound up about credentials? ~
[http://paulgraham.com/credentials.html](http://paulgraham.com/credentials.html)

------
Shivetya
If you are going continue to use race as part of the equation they why bother
with tests? Its really apparent in medical schools where your MCAT score has
to be significantly higher; near perfect; to obtain the same rate of
admissions as a minority student with the much lower scores.

This cheats both parties in any college admission as the best and brightest
may not be able to meet on even ground and you slight those who are pulled up
by placing in a situation where they will likely end up dead last in
achievement because fellow students just do so much better. That last alone
cannot be easily discounted simply for the psychological effects of placing
low

~~~
danharaj
[citation needed]

~~~
itg
[https://www.aei.org/publication/acceptance-rates-us-
medical-...](https://www.aei.org/publication/acceptance-rates-us-medical-
schools-2014-reveal-ongoing-racial-profiling-affirmative-discrimination-
blacks-hispanics/)

There you go

~~~
danharaj
Good on you for supplying a citation. I might analyze it later if I have
nothing better to do tonight than figure out how someone from AEI is
deliberately being misleading about a study yet again.

~~~
wdmeldon
Here are the actual statistics
[https://www.aamc.org/data/facts/applicantmatriculant/157998/...](https://www.aamc.org/data/facts/applicantmatriculant/157998/factstablea24.html)

This isn't a false claim.

~~~
danharaj
There's lies, damned lies, and statistics. Without knowing the breakdown by
school, the result can easily be the result of an effect like Simpson's
paradox[1].

The AEI source even acknowledges that Simpson's paradox prevents one from
drawing conclusions (also please note the rhetorical quotation marks):

> The AAMC doesn’t provide acceptance data by individual medical school, so we
> can’t conclude that any of the four medical schools at public universities
> in Michigan (University of Michigan, Michigan State, Wayne State and Oakland
> University) are practicing illegal “affirmative discrimination” or “racial
> profiling” in admissions

But quickly pivots, pretending like this doesn't matter:

> "Based on national data, is there any conclusion other than the obvious one
> – that US medical schools are granting special preferences for admissions on
> the basis of race for certain preferred minority groups (blacks and
> Hispanics) over other non-preferred minority groups (Asians) and whites"

Yes. Simpson's paradox. The data is consistent with schools being
discriminatory _in favor_ of whites if white people tend to apply only to
selective schools, for example. This is why I don't bother with the playschool
polemical bullshit that comes out of AEI. They ignore basic facts about
statistical inference in order to push their views.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson%27s_paradox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson%27s_paradox)

P.S. Looks like I got roped into reading their blog post anyway. I guess my
plan to save my time and patience failed.

~~~
remarkEon
-> There's lies, damned lies, and statistics.

That's probably one of the worst sentences that's ever been uttered in the
english language, because it lets you dismiss an argument by assuming that
because it involves math it must be manipulated and therefore bullshit.

------
jobu
_" Lawmakers on Capitol Hill have proposed requiring that about 90 colleges
with endowments of $1 billion or more spend about 25 percent of their annual
earnings for tuition assistance — or forfeit their tax exemptions."_

That seems like a rational requirement. Does anyone know what institutions
like Harvard currently do with their annual earnings from endowments?

~~~
its2complicated
No, it does not seem like a rational requirement. It's also none of our
business what these institutions do with their earnings. Most of us will never
go to Harvard and we need to get over it, regardless of our race.

~~~
Avshalom
"their tax exemptions" do kinda make it our business.

------
patmcguire
Getting rid of tuition must only apply to undergrad. A lot of grad school
programs (law, mba's, some master's programs) are ludicrously profitable

------
mattbgates
If Harvard is made free, than fuck everyone else who paid for it. Same with
every other college university.

------
duncan_bayne
I don't think they mean free, I think they mean paid for by someone else.
Calling things free in the context of taxpayers money is propaganda.

~~~
morgante
That "someone else" would overwhelmingly be private donors who have endowed
Harvard with almost 40 billion dollars, not taxpayers.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
... except that, if I understand correctly, neither the donors nor Harvard
paid taxes on that $40 billion. So, _some_ of it comes from taxpayers, in the
form of taxes that would have been paid if the money had been used for
something else.

~~~
duncan_bayne
I think you have the morality exactly inverted here.

It's _their_ money, and ought to be theirs to do with as they please.

Those who would force them to spend it on something else are the people
employing coercion. It's they who are in the wrong, morally.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
By that logic, all taxation is inherently morally wrong. I think that should
be enough to tell you that your view is unlikely to be correct.

You say the government employs coercion? You are correct; it does. _For the
greatest part,_ though, it employs it on those who, in the absence of the
government, would themselves use coercion on those weaker than themselves. If
you're not _the strongest_ , you want a government to protect you from those
stronger than yourself.

If we want a government at all, someone has to pay for it. (If you don't want
a government at all, see the previous paragraph. Or see the horrible examples
of places that, right now, don't have one.)

Do you want a government paid for entirely by voluntary contributions? Good
luck with getting enough money that way. But the free rider problem not only
starves the government of enough resources to function correctly, it also
leads to citizens who are disengaged because they have no skin in the game.

Short of those unworkable extremes, what you probably really want is a _much
smaller_ government (like the one laid out in the Constitution, perhaps). It
may not be funding government that bugs you; it may be funding that elephant
of a government. If that's your position, I'm with you.

If there's going to be taxation, then, let it be fairly applied. Let there be
much fewer loopholes, so that arguments about what the government should fund
can be out in the open, in the budget process, rather than arguments about the
mind-numbingly complex details of the tax code.

~~~
duncan_bayne
_By that logic, all taxation is inherently morally wrong._

Compulsory taxation, yes.

 _I think that should be enough to tell you that your view is unlikely to be
correct._

I think the word you're looking for is 'unpopular' ;)

It seems we're largely agreed on the proper purpose of Government - to protect
citizens from each other, that is, to protect their rights. But don't you see
it as wrong for the Government to violate those very rights in order to fund
itself?

 _Do you want a government paid for entirely by voluntary contributions? Good
luck with getting enough money that way._

Actually, funding a Government isn't that expensive. If you pare Government
back to core functions, you don't need much money. In New Zealand, we (meaning
the Libertarianz) estimated it at around $2,500 / working adult / year. That
(back at the turn of the 21st century) would get you courts, police,
Parliament, defense, embassies and the glue to run it all.

Then you need a way of raising the money. Probably, most working people can
afford $2,500 per year to keep civilisation running, especially if they're not
paying any other taxes. Maybe a poll tax? Seems reasonable that those paying
also do the voting. Could simply solicit donations, or maybe run a lottery.

But no: you couldn't run a socialist country that way. Which is sort of the
point :)

~~~
AnimalMuppet
> Probably, most working people can afford $2,500 per year to keep
> civilisation running, especially if they're not paying any other taxes.

Sure. But how many of those who _can_ afford it will send it in _voluntarily_?
I seem to be more cynical than you; my answer is "not enough".

~~~
duncan_bayne
Thanks for the discussion. I can only assume the downvotes were from people
who disagreed with my argument, and chose to express their disagreement that
way. I'm seeing so much of that lately that it's starting to put me off HN.

------
hackuser
I notice that, generally, the same political groups who want to eliminate race
in admissions also want to stop immigration from Mexico and Syria, and to make
it more difficult for non-white people to vote.

They always frame it in terms of 'fairness', but I see another pattern. Does
anyone really believe they are motivated by fairness? There are people facing
far more unfairness in the world and in the U.S. than wealthy white and Asian
college applicants - I don't see these groups paying much attention to them.

Perhaps what outrages people about Trump is that he says what many others in
his party say, but doesn't use the dog-whistle[1] coded bulls*t words to cover
it up.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog-
whistle_politics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog-whistle_politics)

