Equity

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...

Developing Graduate Students of Color for the Professoriate in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM), by Anne J. MacLachlan

Anne J. MacLachlan
2006

This paper presents part of the results of a completed study entitled A Longitudinal Study of Minority Ph.D.s from 1980-1990: Progress and Outcomes in Science and Engineering at the University of California during Graduate School and Professional Life. It focuses particularly on the graduate school experience and degree of preparation for the professoriate of African American doctoral students in the sciences and engineering, and presents the results of a survey of 33 African American STEM Ph.D.s from the University of California earned between 1980-1990....

Rethinking standardised testing to end discrimination

John Aubrey Douglass
2020

In a shot heard around the United States, on May 21, 2020, the University of California’s Board of Regents suspended the requirement and use of standardized tests, including the SAT and ACT, for freshman applicants. UC will be test optional for campus selection of freshman in fall 2021 and 2022, and “beginning with fall 2023 applicants and ending with fall 2024 applicants, campuses will not consider test scores for admissions selection at all, and will practice test-blind admissions selection.”

The Regents, along with some 1,200 other universities and colleges, had previously...

Top Percent Policies and the Return to Postsecondary Selectivity, by Zachary Bleemer, CSHE 1.21 (January 2021)

Zachary Bleemer
2021

I study the efficacy of test-based meritocracy in college admissions by evaluating the impact of a grade-based “top percent'' policy implemented by the University of California. Eligibility in the Local Context (ELC) provided large admission advantages to the top four percent of 2001-2011 graduates from each California high school. I construct a novel longitudinal dataset linking the ELC era’s 1.8 million UC applicants to educational and labor market outcomes. I first employ a regression discontinuity design to show that ELC led over 10 percent of barely-eligible applicants from low-...

Intimidation, Silencing, Fear, and Academic Freedom, by Steve Brint, CSHE 4.21 (March 2021)

Steven Brint
2021

The argument of this paper is set against the backdrop of a climate of intimidation, silencing, and fear that surrounds the discussion of several hot-button issues in academe, nowadays mainly having to do with race. An important and painful feature of this situation is that people on both sides of the issue feel vulnerable. The contribution of this paper is to help all involved to understand what academic freedom means and how it supports or fails to support the expression of controversial views. I show that a climate hostile to academic freedom is not an academic freedom issue per se. It...

Raising Graduation Rates While Maintaining Racial-Ethnic Equity in Graduation: The UC Riverside Recipe by Steven Brint CSHE 9.21 (September 2021)

Steven Brint
2021

The University of California, Riverside has raised its four- and six-year graduation rates significantly over the last decade while maintaining near-equity in graduation rates among the four major racial-ethnic groups and across socio-economic strata. The paper discusses campus policies and practices that have helped to produce these results. The campus has contributed to nearly equal graduation outcomes by maintaining strong network ties with parents in minority communities, by offering high levels of academic support and research opportunities to students from under-represented groups,...