How to Obtain Equity without Affirmative Action

The Supreme Court struck down college affirmative action programs on June 29th, which left many wondering how universities will adjust without it.

Fostering an environment where people with diverse perspectives and backgrounds can learn from one another and feel comfortable speaking their minds is certainly a worthy goal and necessary for academic freedom. 

However, that does not require focusing on a narrow definition of diversity.

The court, in fact, appeared to endorse a holistic review process for applications.

As Chief Justice John Roberts put it, “nothing prohibits universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected the applicant’s life, so long as that discussion is concretely tied to a quality of character or unique ability that the particular applicant can contribute to the university.”

As the name suggests, however, holistic review takes into account a number of characteristics and their impact on a person’s life, rather than focusing on one particular trait or characteristic. This should lead to greater diversity of experience than affirmative action could provide. 

As the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) suggests, “Holistic Review refers to mission-aligned admissions or selection processes that take into consideration applicants’ experiences, attributes, and academic metrics as well as the value an applicant would contribute to learning, practice, and teaching.”

One specific area these holistic reviews could take into account is class, or colleges could otherwise institute class-based affirmative action since socioeconomic status appears to be a more significant factor than race when it comes to difficulty attending college. 

Affirmative action tended to benefit wealthier students of color anyways, especially since it had the most notable impact on elite schools with low admissions rates, which are often a culture shock to low-income and underprivileged students that are admitted.

In addition to holistic review, universities also ought to stop seeking to attract wealthy out-of-state students and instead focus on reaching out to underprivileged students in their local communities. One way colleges have done this and which could be expanded is the Upward Bound TRIO program, which is a federal program that provides advising and tutoring services to at-risk high school students and attempts to bridge the gap between secondary and post-secondary education. 

During the 2008 financial crisis, college enrollment exploded, and the out-of-state student population percentage greatly increased, while state funding for higher education decreased. Universities compensated by raising tuition and seeking out wealthy out-of-state students who could pay an even higher tuition. 

This practice has continued.

The result has been losing sight of the purpose of state-funded public education, which in part is to produce a highly-skilled workforce that will benefit the state economy, not to make money off of students who are unlikely to return to the state. 

The California legislature, in fact, recently put pressure on their public universities to limit out-of-state enrollment to try and address this.

Legacy admissions considerations and scholarships are another ingrained inequitable practice at universities. These give special consideration to children or grandchildren of alumni. Colleges benefit from this because these students are more likely to donate in the future. 

Since the pool of wealthy, white alumni is significantly larger because of current policies and historic discrimination, legacy admissions limits diversity on college campuses. In effect, it is reverse affirmative action. 

Another area of concern is the underfunding of historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs).  They enroll a disproportionate number of Black students and produce a disproportionate percentage of Black graduates in a number of career fields. 80% of Black judges, 50% of Black doctors, 50% of Black lawyers, and 19% of the STEM degrees awarded to Black students come from HBCUs, despite making up only 3% of colleges. 

Community colleges are also underfunded, despite ⅓ of Black undergraduates enrolling at these institutions. 

There is also work that needs to be done to fix the advising process in secondary institutions of education, which can be seen in that Black students and Latino/Hispanic students are more likely than white students to pick lower paying majors and to attend for-profit colleges. Providing more funding for advising programs for underprivileged high school students could help reduce this issue, and if such programs are continued into college, they could help increase graduation rates as well. 

Finally, campuses embracing a whole life ethic could go a long way. Over 65% of African American college students are independent, meaning they must determine how to balance full-time work and family responsibilities, quite possibly including childcare. Low-cost or free childcare could be one way for campuses to embrace diversity on their campus and it could lead to higher retention rates. 

Overall, if universities and state governments address these issues, not only will they be able to embrace a more diverse student body, but they will be truly serving their communities and states by producing more equitable results for the next generation of students.