College

 Recent news inspires me to have a variety of opinions. Film at eleven. The film will be unrelated to my opinions, but if you are looking to watch something at 11, you can watch a film.

I received a college education. I did so because of my parents, and that is a truth on 2 distinct levels:

1. I got in to the school I attended because they are alums

2. They paid -- and while I worked multiple jobs, what I earned did not make a real dent in the total tuition.

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Item the first causes me no end of consternation. The recent move by the court to abolish race-based admissions policies seems reasonable to me (especially as I attended a university created to give opportunity to those who were excluded from other schools because of religion). But that's because I don't see college as an inherent right, nor do I see attending particular colleges as an extension of that right. College attendance is a privilege, and yes, this privilege has been available to only a small section of the population for a long time, and this section has developed, historically, along mostly racial lines. And that's wrong. But do we solve that by flipping the script and creating admission with a preference for those in a disadvantaged group in order to ensure representation by a diverse population? All that does is even the disadvantage, not create equity. Now the group which has gotten the breaks in the past suffers so that it knows how it feels to be passed over because of race. Is that a good thing? Does that advance society? I don't think so.

College admissions has become more and more problematic for a while now and it isn't because of race -- it is because we have stopped valuing college as a domain for the educational elite. In a society that wants everyone to be the same, we have turned college into High School+, an option for everyone because everyone wants to get ahead of everyone else. But at the same time, we are stuck with a system that rewards attendance at "elite" schools so everyone jockeys for a spot in the most desirable colleges. Let's all be equally special, we say! Otherwise, the system only reinforces itself by rewarding that same small segment of the population.

Then, and we can blame the pandemic or other social forces, colleges stop relying on standardized tests so the ability to compare the academic prowess of diverse applicants is cut off at the knees. You can't trust local grading policies, schools have different levels of rigor in their separate curricula, students can get help writing essays and recommendations create a scenario in which 75% of a school population is in the top 10% of their class. In other words, there is no way to compare students and ensure that there is a minimum academic competency when assessing applicants. The idea of academics was already in jeopardy because of grade inflation and perceived testing biases, but if we use non-academics as metrics (read: race) and are driven by a need to create a diverse population, instead of a capable population, then the intellectual potential is no longer the driving force at all. Eliminate the numbers AND eliminate the race, and what do you have by which to judge applicants? Here's an answer and an disquieting one: use what the NY Times wrote about on July 2, "Adversity Scores." Admit students based on how much hardship they have suffered through and by how much they have overcome. That should ensure that those who are at more disadvantage have a better chance of getting in to school -- voila, racial equity supposedly. But what population will you end up with? Will it be fully diverse if entire sections of the population have not been at a disadvantage? Is being rejected because of a comfortable life going to be the new disadvantage? What suffering will count? Splinters? Divorced parents? Not having the newest phone? And can we then guarantee academic success to a student body whose presence is less a function of educational experience? Aren't we setting them up for failure, or just demanding that schools attenutate their content and standards to as to make the diploma a foregone conclusion?

College is supposed to be advanced education -- learning. It should be about helpng students gain specialized training and/or more complex and critical thinking skills. And no, I don't know the best way to determine who will succeed or not, or who will end up being more capable, but the answer isn't "how much you suffered." Here is where I get into the first point I laid out above -- I got in to a school when my grades should not have gotten me in. I benefited unfairly. I did, however, succeed academically and graduated with honors. So maybe this just proves that the academic standards for admissions are flawed. Maybe. Or maybe, that the actual college experience is over rated if someone below the expected level of smarts was able to graduate. Maybe. But I think we can agree that there has to be some minimum standard (and that I met that minimum). Should we eliminate alumni preference? Yes. Would that have meant that I would not have gone to college? NO. I would have to apply to other schools that had a different standard and that might have made me sad, but not every student is cut out for every college. There are MANY colleges in this country (nearly 4,000) with a variety of standards and expectations (and costs). Maybe I don't want to go to one particular school but if that's my option, I have to decide how much I want a degree. I shouldn't get preference to a school out of my SAT score's reach for a non-academic reason. So yes, my admission is part of the problem, as is my relative success in school.

Should we say that suffering gains admission and schools shouldn't be working towards flushing low achievers out. In that case, the notion of elite schools disappears because my suffering is the same no matter what school I apply to so I deserve admission to any school that has a minimum suffering coefficient that I satisfy. What defines the Harvards as Harvards if not the intellectual performance and capacity of its applicants? How do we make a school selective if not by demonstrated academic skills? "Extra-curriculars"? Do we reward oboe players over violinists because of the scarcity of oboe players? Does climbing Mt. Everest at age 7 mean more than joining an ambulance corps? How many teams, clubs, groups or organizations (or invent) must I join to prove that I'm Harvard material? And do those memberships and experiences matter if they are borne of fiscal advantage? Maybe admission should be to students who were not in ANY club or group or never went to camp because that shows more suffering. Maybe, having backpacked through Europe would count against an applicant, and only those who held the right kind of after school job should be admitted.

We are destroying the educational system in the quest for some egalitarian vision of society. I don't believe all people are created equal. I want my lawyer to be the best and brightest (that I can afford), I want my policemen to be physically able to do their job, and moreso than the criminals. I want all the  service providers I rely on to be the result of the most rigorous training and equipped with the sharpest of minds and bodies. Maybe my wish for excellence is contibuting to the problem because I am valuing skills and knowledge bases that are outmoded but when I'm on the operating table, I would like to think that my surgeon is brilliant, not that he succeeded in group work, can use his phone effectively and overcame a broken household.

Now for the second issue -- the government has tried to eliminate (or reduce, or something) student debt. Students now owe (collectively) some huge amount of money to the government for grants and loans given for higher education. Of course, if the debts are forgiven then the government will either have less money to give in loans in the future, or taxes will rise to make up the shortfall so the government can continue to hand out money with no expectation of return. Or we can just ask the mint to print more money -- that should solve everything.

I graduated without debt. That happened because my parents found a way to pay for my education. They sent me to a school that cost a lot of money but they shouldered that because they saw value in it. I sent my kids to significantly cheaper options (we actually forbade our kids from applying to expensive schools because we didn't want to go in to debt for the diploma). Other people made other value calculations and now are stuck in a financial hole. I feel sorry for their predicament but the answer is not to ignore that they owe money. I know that some teachers are able to work off debt by getting jobs through Teach For America -- public service loan forgiveness ensures that teh teachers get a paycheck, underserved areas get trained teachers and loans don't have to be prepaid. Could a model like that be exported to other fields? Some, maybe yes. Some, probably not. But a blanket reduction or forgiveness as a gift from the government, while it sounds nice, is not reflective fo the real world (which education is supposed to be preparing people for). Banks aren't going to ignore loans just because so people should get into the habit of not borrowing or spending more than they can pay back. And if we forgive loans, what does that say to the people who suffered in order to pay their loans, or who make sacrifices so as not to have to take loans? Or the people who intend to take loans tomorrow? We create an advantaged class which just ends up hurting anyone not in that class. Is this an overly simplistic restatement of the situation? Maybe, but the plethora of complex questions and challenges indicates that the issues run far deeper than a simple solution affords.

There ARE many schools. Some are subsidized and some aren't. Some are expensive and some aren't. Some offer more perks, bells and whistles than others, but the same can be said about cars. Not everyone can drive a luxury car, or even a new car. Some have to borrow money to afford an old, used car. But they have to pay that money back. Does that mean that someone might not get the car, or house, or meal that he would like? Yup. Some people take the subway or bus, and eat a meal of pasta at home. And yes, before you say it, I, again, was of the advantaged class in that I graduated without debt. So I'm speaking out of privilege and I'm part of the problem. Yada yada. That doesn't change the facts or make what I have presented as concerns any less valid. We want to create a fiscally even playing field by changing rules in the middle of the game and ignoring the impact that the new rules have on society as a whole.

Maybe society is broken. Maybe a system of capitalism which rewards people who already have with even more is patently and inherently unfair. Maybe having a socio-economic schema in place which allows for the incredible stratification which we have to develop is a recipe for inevitable inequity. Maybe an educational system which perpetuates the deep divide caused by history and the economic superstructure will keep us in a spiral of oppression and failure. Maybe we have blossomed into a society that wants contradictory things (let's all be tolerant of everything except intolerance). But maybe you can't fix cancer with a Band-Aid.