It's useful to quote the part that comes after that:
> Even Laude was surprised by how effectively TIP worked. “When I started giving them the tests, they got the same grades as the larger section,” he said. “And when the course was over, this group of students who were 200 points lower on the SAT had exactly the same grades as the students in the larger section.” The impact went beyond Chemistry 301. This cohort of students who, statistically, were on track to fail returned for their sophomore year at rates above average for the university as a whole, and three years later they had graduation rates that were also above the U.T. average.
Individualized help took these students who were scoring 200 points below the rest of the students, and got them to the point where they were scoring comparably to everyone else on exams and graduating at above the average graduation rate. That's a huge success from the state's perspective.
So what if these students came in under-prepared? These kids are often first-generation college students, whose parents have no experience with the whole process and don't inculcate the right values in their kids. The kids from more privileged backgrounds, even ones who aren't any smarter (going by SAT scores), have a leg-up going in due to factors that are mostly in their favor as a result of the parental lottery. Why should that entitle them to a perpetual leg-up?
Near as I can tell, he's devoting more than 10x the resources to this class. Instead of 1 lecturer + 500 students, it's 1 lecturer + 50. Plus 2 hours of extra instruction, so maybe it's 16x resources (assuming chem is normally 3 hours of instruction/week, (5/3)x10 ~ 16). Plus advisers tracking these students, peer mentors, etc.
It's hardly clear that graduating additional marginal students is worth 16x what graduating a normal student is worth. Can you explain why you believe it is?
Lets put the numbers into perspective. Instead of teaching 1 remedial 50 person class, this guy could teach a second 500 person class. 450 additional students could be educated at UT. Why is Vanessa worth more than 10 better prepared students?
It's a calculated expenditure with the expectation of creating future benefits, not just for UT, but for society in general. They're investing in a high-growth segment of the market. We can reasonably assume that the cost to attract and educate a student from a family with a college-going tradition is minimal compared to that of a first-generation student. Furthermore, by graduating a first-generation student, it's possible that a new college-going tradition is started in their existing family or any subsequent families they interact with.
If it's a calculated expenditure, what's the calculation? Something concrete please, not platitudes.
We can reasonably assume that the cost to attract and educate a student from a family with a college-going tradition is minimal compared to that of a first-generation student.
This means we get the most bang for our buck if we focus on the good students, and only consider devoting resources to the bad ones after we exhaust the supply of good ones.
That seems to contradict your idea of a "calculated expenditure".
> Even Laude was surprised by how effectively TIP worked. “When I started giving them the tests, they got the same grades as the larger section,” he said. “And when the course was over, this group of students who were 200 points lower on the SAT had exactly the same grades as the students in the larger section.” The impact went beyond Chemistry 301. This cohort of students who, statistically, were on track to fail returned for their sophomore year at rates above average for the university as a whole, and three years later they had graduation rates that were also above the U.T. average.
Individualized help took these students who were scoring 200 points below the rest of the students, and got them to the point where they were scoring comparably to everyone else on exams and graduating at above the average graduation rate. That's a huge success from the state's perspective.
So what if these students came in under-prepared? These kids are often first-generation college students, whose parents have no experience with the whole process and don't inculcate the right values in their kids. The kids from more privileged backgrounds, even ones who aren't any smarter (going by SAT scores), have a leg-up going in due to factors that are mostly in their favor as a result of the parental lottery. Why should that entitle them to a perpetual leg-up?