FrontPageMagazine has an article today about the relationship between graduation rates and racial preferences in the college admissions process. Most specifically, the groups which have the lowest median SAT scores and high school GPA's are the least likely to graduate from college, which should surprise no one:
In the University of Washington’s (UW) 1995 freshman class, the raw admission rate for blacks was 96.6 percent, as compared to 78.5 percent for Asians and 74.4 percent for whites. These figures were in the precisely inverse order of the students’ actual academic qualifications. For instance, black freshmen had scored 80 points lower than whites on the verbal SAT exam, and 140 points lower on the math SAT...
We mustn’t forget that these figures are not mere abstractions, but translate into large numbers of actual human beings who are denied admission to the school of their choice solely because of their skin color. Things don’t often get much uglier than that...As has been demonstrated time and again, students who are admitted to a given school under lowered academic standards can be expected to struggle mightily to keep up with their peers who met the school’s normal admissions requirements. In general, there is a strong negative correlation between preference in the admissions process and graduation rates. At UW, the percentage of 1995 freshman who eventually graduated within six years was 70 percent for whites, 65 percent for Asians, and a mere 29 percent for blacks.
The story was similar at Washington State University that same year, where blacks were also admitted with academic qualifications far below those of their white and Asian peers. Black admittees scored about 70 points lower than whites on the verbal SAT, and 110 points lower on the math SAT. Predictably, the eventual graduation rates of those students were 44 percent for blacks and 61 percent for whites.
And so on. Explain to me again how it helps minority students to be admitted to colleges for which they are not ready? Instead of going to a community college first (which is what most everyone in my family did), they're being admitted to a college for which they are most likely underqualified, so that the college can pat itself on the back for its "diversity."
As long as the graduation ceremonies remain this much less diverse than the incoming freshman classes, I'd argue that AA does more harm than good.
Posted by kswygert at July 3, 2003 11:01 AM