What College Enrollment Tells Us about Us

 

“It would be great if one could get [racial] diversity without using the tools of affirmative action, but frankly … we’re still in a society where race makes a difference when you’re talking about health care, … when you’re talking about the job market, … when you’re talking about education… And therefore, it makes a difference when you’re thinking about whom to admit to a university.” 

Princeton University President Christopher L. Eisgruber

It’s a big deal. As January 2023 multiyear Brookings Report tells us: “In the U.S., a person who completes a bachelor’s degree will earn about a million dollars more in their lifetime compared to someone with only a high school diploma... College graduates have higher earnings, better health, more stable marriages, and are less likely to be unemployed… The share of young adults with a bachelor’s degree or higher doubled over the last fifty years, from 19 to 40%.1 Despite this progress, bachelor’s degree attainment still varies substantially by gender, race and ethnicity, and family socioeconomic status.”

But creating fair access to higher education, through affirmative action, has challenged courts in differentiating between “reverse discrimination” and compensating for racial imbalance. Racial quotas have been particularly troubling, causing courts to apply a rule of “strict scrutiny” of racially driven admissions practices.

For example, on June 23, 1973, the Supreme Court issued two apparently conflicting rulings on the same day. Writing for a 5-4 decision in Grutter v. Bollinger, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor told us that where each admissions decision is based on multiple factors a university could fairly use race as one of them. The case reaffirmed the court’s position that diversity on campus is a compelling state interest. But on that same day, writing for a 6-3 decision in Gratz v. Bollinger, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist’s opinion supported the Supreme Court’s ruling that according minority applicants with an automatic extra 20 points (where 100 points were required for admission) was inappropriate and did not meet the standards of strict scrutiny established in previous cases. The Grutter and Gratz cases provided a blueprint for how schools could use race as a factor in admissions policies.

In 2016, where a university generally applied a “top 10% admissions policy” but added exceptions to enhance racial diversity, the Supreme Court in Fisher v. University of Texas (Justice Anthony Kennedy writing for a 4-3 decision) ruled that a university should be given reasonable leeway in its review process if it has considered other ways to create diversity. This past October, the Court heard oral arguments challenging affirmative action in two cases, against each of Harvard and UNC-Chapel Hill. Based on the questioning and the conservative shift in the composition of the Court, experts are predicting a ruling that could simply, entirely and prospectively ban affirmative action. So, the questions that the Brookings Report addresses – changes in college enrollment – are summarized in Shalene Gupta’s January 24th contribution to FastCompany.com:

• The gender gap has reversed: In 1972, 22% of men between the ages of 25 to 29 had a bachelor’s degree compared to 16% of women in the same age group. In 2022, 35% of men in this age group had a bachelor’s degree compared to 44% of women.

• Racial disparities continue: Asian young adults are more likely to have college degrees (68% today), compared to 45% of white, 28% of Black, and 25% of Hispanic young adults.

• Socioeconomic status is strongly related to college enrollment: 89% of young adults in the highest 20% socioeconomic bracket enrolled in college. They also averaged 3.06 GPA. By comparison, only 51% of young adults in the bottom quintile enrolled in college. Their average GPA was 2.22. Unsurprisingly, socioeconomic status was also correlated with race. Asian students were more likely to be in the top quintile (37%), while Hispanic students were more likely to be in the bottom quintile (38%).

• Academic preparation is the key to college enrollment: While this sounds obvious, when the analysts compared students who were academically prepared (a mixture of test scores, grades, and courses), they found these disparities vanished or abated. Young men and women with the same academic preparation enroll in college at the same rate, and Black, Hispanic, and Asian students enroll in college at a similar rate, about 5 points higher than white students.

When it comes to diversity, whatever admission standards that are currently being applied seem to be creating a better mix and more diversity, although we have a long way to go. If the ultra-conservative Supreme Court completely dispenses with affirmative action, will it still allow racial criteria to be considered at all? And exactly how will the Court influence the success quotient of future students based on the demographic realities of contemporary America?

I’m Peter Dekom, and the elevation of minority groups within the body of educated Americans would seem to be an essential element to political and economic stability for the foreseeable future… just as denying that access could have precisely the opposite effect.