K4D AND UNIVERSITY ADMISIONS POLICY

President Bush has re-ignited debate in the U.S. about racial preferences in university admissions.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2003-01-15-bush-affirmaction_x.htm

Does a K4D approach offer anything to this debate? I think so, because it illuminates the fact that higher education is a policy instrument used by government to achieve long term objectives of economic and social development.

It seems clear that government does have the right to a say in the admissions policies of universities. The University of Michigan, which is the specific defendant in the case prompting Bush’s remarks, is a state university created on the basis of a federal government land grant. Not only does the university enjoy a state subsidy, but the federal government also provides support in the form of scholarships, research funding, tax financing (e.g. tax deductions for educational expenses, education savings accounts, repayments of educational loans), and loan guarantees. He who pays the piper gets a voice in selecting the tune!

Merit based admissions to universities have had a major impact in the U.S. in the second half of the 20th century. (http://www.the-big-test.com/) Making higher education available to all, and admitting students increasingly on the basis of educational potential resulted in higher education becoming a vehicle to social mobility, resulted in great benefits to the country at large as well as to huge numbers of people.

Still the college admission tests only have been validated as predicting success at the university. Selecting students on this basis is rather like selecting horses to bet on for a mile and a half race, on the basis of how fast they run the first quarter mile. Early speed is desirable, but is not necessarily predictive of how well the entry will run the whole course. It may well be the case that race or ethnicity might be helpful in predicting which students will not only do well in school, but who will produce socially valuable services during their later professional careers. It would seem likely to me, for example, that native American health professionals would be more likely than others to make careers providing health services in the underserved reservations of this country, and so merit preference for training. I think no one is suggesting that there be a reduction of federal government support for historically black colleges and universities, that clearly play an important role providing opportunities for economic advancement through education to black communities in the U.S. still suffering from economic and social discrimination.

U.S. colleges and universities carefully plan their academic structure, and thence their course offerings, to provide human resources to the economies that they serve. Thus they will create engineering, business and other professional schools to meet the needs for trained professionals in these disciplines. (This is not always done well. Thus we have lots of university programs training people to be professional athletes, but very few career opportunities in the nation for the graduates of these programs.)

I think supply and demand analysis is a useful framework. If there is a rich supply of training opportunities in a field, and relatively little demand for that training, then the qualifications required for admission to the training will be relatively modest. If the training opportunities are scarce, and the demand heavy, qualification demands for entry will be high. Thus we already have a system that is full of discriminatory demands for qualifications for entry into higher education programs, discriminating according to the future careers the students are likely to follow (not to mention the geographic areas in which they live, and the schools to which they choose to apply). The issue is not whether to allow such differences at all, but under what conditions they may be justified.

Clearly, U.S. law should not continue to allow discriminatory admissions practices based on racial prejudice. Equally clearly, educational policy should select people for training who will perform the services needed by society in the future. Clearly, merit based admissions are important within U.S. culture, and should be defended. Equally clearly, the playing field should be leveled for people who are at a disadvantage due to prejudice-based policies of the past. It will be interesting to see how the U.S. Supreme Court deals with this case.