Equity

International Berkeley: Enrolling International Students Yesterday and Today, Debates on the Benefits of Multicultural Diversity, and Macro Questions on Access and Equity by John Aubrey Douglass

John Aubrey Douglass
2014

The argument that cultural and other forms of diversity enhance the educational experience of all students is generally associated largely with post-1960 efforts to expand the presence of disadvantaged groups on the campuses of America’s universities and colleges. Yet, in the case of UC Berkeley, debates on the merits of cultural diversity have much earlier roots in the historical enrollment of international students. Debates in the late 1800s and early twentieth century revolved around the appropriateness of enrolling foreign students, particularly those from Asia. The result was an...

Affirmative Action, the Fisher Case, and the Supreme Court: What the Justices and the Public Need to Know, by John Aubrey Douglass

John Aubrey Douglass
2013

Once again, the U.S. Supreme Court will decide on the contentious issue of Affirmative Action, and specifically the use of race in admissions decisions in public universities. Despite differences in the details, seasoned veterans of affirmative action debates are experiencing déjà vu. In this case, Abigail Noel Fisher claims overt racial discrimination when the highly selective University of Texas at Austin (UT) rejected her freshman application in 2008. The Court’s ruling could range from upholding the legal precedent of allowing race to be one of many factors in admissions; to a...

A Social Contract Between the Public Higher Education Sector and the People of South Africa, by Ahmed C. Bawa

Ahmed C. Bawa
2000

The higher education sector in South Africa is experiencing an existential crisis. For all of its diverse elements and activities and values as a system, its historic mission and the role that it plays in society were defined for it in the previous era - this not withstanding the progressive roles played by some of the . However, it is an existential crisis which stems only partially from its history in our Apartheid past. Its intellectual and organisational shape stems also from its place on the edge of the global academic metropole from which it attempts to draw its academic...

Affirmative Action in Higher Education in India and the US: A Study in Contrasts

Asha Gupta
2006

The 21st century has brought new challenges and opportunities for higher education. In the wake of the transition from elitist to mass education, universities worldwide are under pressure to enhance access and equity, on the one hand, and to maintain high standards of quality and excellence, on the other. Today the notion of equity not only implies greater access to higher education, but also opportunities for progress. In recent debates on higher education, the notions of equity and access go beyond minority to diversity. Affirmative action, too, has become race-exclusive and gender...

Privatization and Access: The Chilean Higher Education Experiment and its Discontents, by Cristina González and Liliana Pedraja

Cristina González
Liliana Pedraja
2015

President Barack Obama recently announced a proposal to eliminate tuition charges at community colleges so that everyone can easily complete the first two years of a university education. At the same time, the administration is creating new regulations to curb the worst abuses of for-profit universities. This suggests that the country has reached a turning point regarding access to higher education. There is a practical limit to privatization, and the countries that have privatized their higher education systems most aggressively, such is the case of the United States, are now...

Winners and Losers? The Effect of Gaining and Losing Access to Selective Colleges on Education and Labor Market Outcomes, by Sandra Black, Jeffrey Denning, and Jesse Rothstein CSHE 2.20 (May 2020)

Sandra E. Black
Jeffrey T. Denning
Jesse Rothstein
2020

Selective college admissions are fundamentally a question of tradeoffs: Given capacity, admitting one student means rejecting another. Research to date has generally estimated average effects of college selectivity and has been unable to distinguish between the effects on students gaining access and on those losing access under alternative admissions policies. We use the introduction of the Top Ten Percent rule and administrative data from the State of Texas to estimate the effect of access to a selective college on student graduation and earnings outcomes. We estimate separate effects on...

ASYMMETRY BY DESIGN? Identity Obfuscation, Reputational Pressure, and Consumer Predation in U.S. For-Profit Higher Education, by Adam Goldstein and Charlie Eaton CSHE 5.20 (May 2020)

Adam Goldstein
Charlie Eaton
2020

This article develops and tests an identity-based account of malfeasance in consumer markets. It is hypothesized that multi-brand organizational structures help predatory firms short-circuit reputational discipline by rendering their underlying identities opaque to consumer audiences. The analysis utilizes comprehensive administrative data on all for-profit U.S. colleges, an industry characterized by widespread fraud and poor (though variable) educational outcomes. Consistent with the hypothesis that brand differentiation facilitates malfeasance by reducing ex ante reputational risks,...

The Poor and the Rich: A Look at Economic Stratification and Academic Performance Among Undergraduate Students in the United States

John Aubrey Douglass
Gregg Thomson
2008

A number of national studies point to a trend in which highly selective and elite private and public universities are becoming less accessible to lower-income students. At the same time there have been surprisingly few studies of the actual characteristics and academic experiences of low-income students or comparisons of their undergraduate experience with those of more wealthy students. This paper explores the divide between poor and rich students, first comparing a group of selective US institutions and their number and percentage of Pell Grant recipients and then, using...

The Evolution Of A Social Contract: The University Of California Before And In The Aftermath Of Affirmative Action

John Aubrey Douglass
1999

This essay provides an analysis of the history of admissions at the University of California (UC), including the development of affirmative action programs in the 1960s and, more recently, the heated political battle over the use of race and gender preferences at the University. In an era of mass higher education, the debate over affirmative action has renewed a persistent question within democratic societies: who should and should not have access to a public university education? Two general themes will be discussed. The first reflects different stages in the historical development...

Preservation of Educational Inequality in Doctoral Education: Tacit Knowledge, Implicit Bias and University Faculty, by Anne J. MacLachlan

Anne MacLachlan
2017

Making doctoral education accessible and successful for students from low income, first generation families as well as members of immigrant or specific ethnic groups is a world- wide problem. In the US the traditional explanation for the low numbers of Ph.D. recipients from these groups are lack of preparation, lack of interest and a “leaky pipeline.” These alone are not enough to explain disparities. This article argues that the most powerful vehicles of exclusion are tacit knowledge and the implicit bias of faculty and is related to doctoral/faculty socialization. Faculty share the...