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A Push to Make Harvard Free Also Questions the Role of Race in Admissions

63 points by Futurebot 11y ago

givinguflac 11y ago
Harvard has enough money in their endowment to easily have everyone go to there for free for centuries without changing a thing.
- function_seven 11y ago
  They do, but that money is restricted as to what it can be used for. From the article: “There is a common misconception that endowments, including Harvard’s, can be accessed like bank accounts, used for anything at any time as long as funds are available,” Jeff Neal, a Harvard spokesman, said. “In reality, Harvard’s flexibility in spending from the endowment is limited by the fact that it must be maintained in perpetuity and that it is largely restricted by the explicit wishes of those who contributed the endowed funds.”
  - logfromblammo 11y ago
    Nevertheless, $37600M earning 12% is enough to cover annual expenditures of $100k for each of 45000 students without ever touching the principal.
    - TulliusCicero 11y ago
      1. Long-term return on the stock market, factoring in inflation and dividends, is a little under 7%. If you can consistently nail 12%, I'd like to know your secret. 2. It's possible that the returns from the principal are also restricted.
      - logfromblammo 11y ago
        1. I would, too. The Harvard endowment gets an average of 12%, according to what I have read. 2. That is why Harvard hasn't already done it, apparently.
        TulliusCicero 11y ago
        > The annualized return on the endowment over the last 20 years has been approximately 12.0% per year and the endowment was valued at $37.6 billion at June 30, 2015. http://www.hmc.harvard.edu/investment-management/performance-history.html http://www.hmc.harvard.edu/investment-management/performance... Huh, but it doesn't specify whether this is inflation-adjusted.
    - jessaustin 11y ago
      Yes but they also like to build stuff with donors' names on it. There are few places in America that are more expensive for construction than Cambridge. Besides, they can't plan on using the maximum from the endowment every year, because the endowment sometimes grows less than usual, or even shrinks.
      - logfromblammo 11y ago
        Harvard enrollment is about 20k and tuition is about $50k per year.
        jessaustin 11y ago
        Don't assume that "tuition" covers the cost of the average student. Don't assume that teaching students is the only thing that goes on at Harvard.
theseatoms 11y ago
Top tier (and/or Ivy league) schools tend to have fairly generous financial aid packages, so this is a less shocking proposal than it might otherwise seem. Disclaimer: not a Harvard grad
- soperj 11y ago
  Yep, at Harvard you already don't pay if you can't afford it.
  - chriskanan 11y ago
    The problem is that many applicants don't realize that. During graduate school, I was active in recruitment in the sciences and I have often spoken with high-achieving but low-income high school students and undergraduates, and many of them have false ideas about financial aid for undergraduate and graduate education.
    - codemac 11y ago
      Well, many of these have prohibitive application fees that take a lot of work to get waved. I think that's a bigger immediate barrier than figuring out how you'd even pay for the schooling. I know I didn't apply to several schools merely out of exhaustion of trying to figure out how to not have to pay the application fee.
      - morgante 11y ago
        That doesn't match my experience at all. I had all my application fees waived with a simple email.
        jessaustin 11y ago
        I guess it has been too long for me... what fees were these? SAT/ACT fees? I don't recall there being any fee for actually filling out the application form and sending it in? Nevertheless, if schools have any control over the "front-end" fees, they might ought to start by eliminating those. Knowing that one needs to send an email like that is also a barrier of a sort.
LesZedCB 11y ago
> And if Harvard abolishes tuition for undergrads, Mr. Nader said, “It will ricochet across the Ivy League.” A proposition like this is really exciting to me! As a recent college grad (though admittedly one who's very lucky to not have loans, though my partner is screwed with them), I am particularly sensitive how how insane it is that college students are sold massive amounts of debt that many will take years to pay back. And a lot of new systems to help students pay them back are ineffective at best and disgusting at worst. I am intrigued to see what the other motives are here. I doubt that there will be much change in how students pay back college debt, but we do need some sort of real change. I would be really excited to see a cultural shift away from profiteering from student debt.
Shivetya 11y ago
If you are going continue to use race as part of the equation they why bother with tests? Its really apparent in medical schools where your MCAT score has to be significantly higher; near perfect; to obtain the same rate of admissions as a minority student with the much lower scores. This cheats both parties in any college admission as the best and brightest may not be able to meet on even ground and you slight those who are pulled up by placing in a situation where they will likely end up dead last in achievement because fellow students just do so much better. That last alone cannot be easily discounted simply for the psychological effects of placing low
- danharaj 11y ago
  [citation needed]
  - itg 11y ago
    https://www.aei.org/publication/acceptance-rates-us-medical-schools-2014-reveal-ongoing-racial-profiling-affirmative-discrimination-blacks-hispanics/ https://www.aei.org/publication/acceptance-rates-us-medical-... There you go
    - danharaj 11y ago
      Good on you for supplying a citation. I might analyze it later if I have nothing better to do tonight than figure out how someone from AEI is deliberately being misleading about a study yet again.
      - vanattab 11y ago
        Really you demand a citation and then it's given you dismiss immediately while also admitting you won't even bother reading it because it doesn't support your view. Why did you even ask?
        danharaj 11y ago
        No, that's not why I won't bother reading. I won't bother reading it because I've found AEI to be garbage before and I have a finite supply of energy and time to verify claims which I thus prioritize based on my perceived quality of the source. To take it to an extreme, I don't bother verifying claims made by neonazis. AEI is obviously not that bad, but it's also not good enough for me to care. What kind of amateur mistakes can AEI make? Well for one, I bet this analysis of the data falls victim to Simpson's paradox. Basic shit like that happens all the time in their analyses.
kelukelugames 11y ago
Harvard also denied discriminating against Jewish applicants before the 70s. Yet Wikipedia says they were one of the worst offenders. I hate how the article phrases helping underrepresented minorities as hurting Asian Americans. The two things are not related. Universities will discriminate against us even without affirmative action. The Ivy Leagues invented "legacy" and "manliness" as admissions criteria. They will create new forms of discrimination. History repeats. Stop using us as an excuse. Stop driving a wedge between minorities. Some links from wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerus_clausus#Numerus_clausus_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerus_clausus#Numerus_clausu... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_quota https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_quota
- mineshaftgap 11y ago
  Identity politics is toxic. Those who use it get what they deserve.
- humanrebar 11y ago
  > The two things are not related. They're related in the underlying implication that it's best to treat applicants as groups and not individuals. But you could be fair with certain minorities and unfair with others. There is not a direct cause and effect relationship there.
  - theseatoms 11y ago
    Or you could be fair with everyone. ;)
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - kelukelugames 11y ago
    Right, of course. But the people who equate the two don't actually care about Asian Americans. They are making a political argument.
oska 11y ago
Philip Greenspun has been pushing the idea of free undergraduate tuition universities for a while now [1], [2]. [1] http://philip.greenspun.com/school/tuition-free-mit.html http://philip.greenspun.com/school/tuition-free-mit.html [2] https://blogs.harvard.edu/philg/2007/12/11/harvard-takes-another-step-closer-to-tuition-free/ https://blogs.harvard.edu/philg/2007/12/11/harvard-takes-ano...
kenjackson 11y ago
The politically charged data holds the potential to reveal whether Harvard bypasses better-qualified Asian-American candidates in favor of whites, blacks and Hispanics, and the children of the wealthy and powerful, the group argues. The problem is that "better-qualified" is not some absolute measure. I don't think any Ivy League-tier school would say that a formula of SAT+GPA is sufficient. There are several factors that aren't easily measured. For example: 1. Difficulty of high school course load. 2. Extra academic work. For example, if you've solved P=NP while having a 2.0 GPA -- would anyone care about your GPA? 3. Performance in academic-RELATED activities. If you win the IMO or the spelling bee or the Intel Science competition, etc... 4. Performance in non-academic activities. If you have a platinum album, does that matter? Or being a famous actor? Or creating a game changing app? Or becoming a top rated Go player? 4. Performance in athletics. Would being a Lebron James level talent matter? Winning an Olympic gold in gymnastics? 5. Having highly regarded morals, conviction, and courage. Would Malala get special treatment? 6. Socio-economics. All other things being equal, do we favor a student who has had no advantages over those who have had every economic advantage (best schools, tutors, etc..)? 7. Diversity of life experience (especially if exceptional). Would the child of a President have an advantage getting in? What about the experience of anyone that is fundamentally against the norm of most of the population of the incoming class. Maybe they navigated combat missions for the South Korean Navy. I do think systemically excluding a certain race is a problem. But I don't think using an old notion of merit is much better.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- FlyingLawnmower 11y ago
  I think that the only data driven conclusion we can derive from "holistic" admissions that consider every factor stems from what happened in California. Most California public colleges (UC Berkeley, etc.) subscribed to the same school of thought, but when race-based considerations were banned, the Asian American percentage at the school shot up considerably. The colleges were still considering the same criteria for admissions, but once race was removed, a significant increase in Asian American acceptances at the schools occurred. I think it's very hard to argue that Asian Americans failed on your aforementioned categories, or that there wasn't a systematic bias against them when considering these facts.
duncan_bayne 11y ago
I don't think they mean free, I think they mean paid for by someone else. Calling things free in the context of taxpayers money is propaganda.
- morgante 11y ago
  That "someone else" would overwhelmingly be private donors who have endowed Harvard with almost 40 billion dollars, not taxpayers.
  - duncan_bayne 11y ago
    Sweet, in which case, full steam ahead.
  - AnimalMuppet 11y ago
    ... except that, if I understand correctly, neither the donors nor Harvard paid taxes on that $40 billion. So, some of it comes from taxpayers, in the form of taxes that would have been paid if the money had been used for something else.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
    - duncan_bayne 11y ago
      I think you have the morality exactly inverted here. It's their money, and ought to be theirs to do with as they please. Those who would force them to spend it on something else are the people employing coercion. It's they who are in the wrong, morally.
      - AnimalMuppet 11y ago
        By that logic, all taxation is inherently morally wrong. I think that should be enough to tell you that your view is unlikely to be correct. You say the government employs coercion? You are correct; it does. For the greatest part, though, it employs it on those who, in the absence of the government, would themselves use coercion on those weaker than themselves. If you're not the strongest, you want a government to protect you from those stronger than yourself. If we want a government at all, someone has to pay for it. (If you don't want a government at all, see the previous paragraph. Or see the horrible examples of places that, right now, don't have one.) Do you want a government paid for entirely by voluntary contributions? Good luck with getting enough money that way. But the free rider problem not only starves the government of enough resources to function correctly, it also leads to citizens who are disengaged because they have no skin in the game. Short of those unworkable extremes, what you probably really want is a much smaller government (like the one laid out in the Constitution, perhaps). It may not be funding government that bugs you; it may be funding that elephant of a government. If that's your position, I'm with you. If there's going to be taxation, then, let it be fairly applied. Let there be much fewer loopholes, so that arguments about what the government should fund can be out in the open, in the budget process, rather than arguments about the mind-numbingly complex details of the tax code.
natch 11y ago
I wonder if they still allow the names of admissions candidates to be revealed to the people who review the applications? It seems that hiding this would be a really basic step. And no I'm not saying that a name tells you the race. But sometimes it is an indication. Not saying it's bulletproof; it's not. But it would help. And I can't think of a valid excuse for not doing it.
- repsilat 11y ago
  From NPR: 6 Words: 'My Name Is Jamaal ... I'm White' ... The principal who hired him told him he was lucky to get the job because they hadn't been planning to take another student teacher. Then Allan's application showed up. "They scanned through it ... and they saw someone named Jamaal who played basketball, listed Muhammad Ali among his heroes and inspirations, and thought, 'We could use some diversity here, so let's bring this guy on, I think he'd be good for some of our younger minority male students,'" he says. http://www.npr.org/2015/05/06/404432206/six-words-my-name-is-jamaal-im-white http://www.npr.org/2015/05/06/404432206/six-words-my-name-is...
  - jessaustin 11y ago
    That's interesting in itself, but this is a discussion of general trends so perhaps I've missed the point?
    - repsilat 11y ago
      It was a tangential comment relating to natch saying, > I wonder if they still allow the names of admissions candidates to be revealed to the people who review the applications? It seems that hiding this would be a really basic step. > And no I'm not saying that a name tells you the race. But sometimes it is an indication. I guess a more relevant point is that if they think your race is relevant to admissions, then they're probably not thinking about removing names from the equation at all. I'd think that they'd happily admit to biases inherent in the process, but at the end of the day they'd argue that more information will allow them to make better decisions than less.
hackuser 11y ago
Harvard can't end racial discrimination in admissions. To get into Harvard, a teenager needs: 1) To know about Harvard and elite universities in general. Believe it or not, research shows that most qualified poor kids don't apply because they don't have any knowledge about the value of an elite education or that places like Harvard exist. Anecodotally, I know a couple of brilliant ones from poor backgrounds who went to their state universities simply because they had no idea there were other options - in fact, it was an imaginative stretch to go to college at all. 2) Family and community support for a college education, much less an expensive elite one far away. Sure, some super-teen can overcome this, but it's a major reason kids don't apply or drop out at high rates. My two friends were constantly asked, why would you want to go to college? Kids in these situations are in alien environments at college (that it seems perfectly normal to white middle-class kids should tell you exactly what environment it is) where they have few people who can relate to them (Edit: and an institution not built for their needs), then they go home and are asked why they are wasting their time and family's money. And as they absorb university life, they also become alienated from people at home who don't have those life experiences or opportunities. 3) Money: There is a very strong relationship between family money and college education. 4) An excellent high school education: Something else that correlates strongly with the family they come from. 5) Connections: It's not what you know, but who you know. Do you think all those kids in Harvard are there on merit? What about the legacies? The big donors' kids? The kids with recommendations from alums? Those aren't avenues available to most kids. And all these things have a strong racial component. If Harvard can eliminate these factors then sure, why not eliminate affirmative action too?
- Swizec 11y ago
  > Family and community support for a college education, much less an expensive elite one far away. Sure, some super-teen can overcome this, but it's a major reason kids don't apply or drop out at high rates. My two friends were constantly asked, why would you want to go to college? Kids in these situations are in alien environments at college (that it seems perfectly normal to white middle-class kids should tell you exactly what environment it is) where they have few people who can relate to them, then they go home and are asked why they are wasting their time and family's money. And as they absorb university life, they also become alienated from people at home who don't have those life experiences or opportunities. This feels strangely familiar to me as a guy who moved from a tiny poor-ish European country to Silicon Valley in his late 20's. I know it's not the same, but holy shit, I never thought a random comment on a message board would peg me so well. At least in my case most of my back-home environment understands the why, even if they do question the rationality of it. But try to explain to the average Silicon Valley dweller that just ~6 years ago, a $5 purchase was a significant expense, and they have very little to relate to.
Xcelerate 11y ago
I always want to comment on articles like this and share my opinion, but then I worry that if mass public opinion shifts or changes a decade from now, everything I've said about a touchy subject will be archived online for any future employer to search. There always seems to be a delicate art to wording one's thoughts in a "neutral" way on issues like this.
- hackuser 11y ago
  I agree it's a concern, but the truth doesn't change with a trend. Slavery was wrong when it was trendy in some places and it's still wrong now that it's not. What do you think of the people who held their tongues? What about the ones that spoke out? I despise intellectual trends. If it was a good/bad idea before, that hasn't changed because the idea (or the entire subject) became un/fashionable. Privacy is one such issue that comes to mind.
- e40 11y ago
  I think hackuser said it pretty darn well.[1] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10904615 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10904615
- curun1r 11y ago
  HN has no real name policy. Why not sign up for another account that you use to discuss riskier topics? As long as you're careful to not include identifying details in posts, you should be okay. Missing out on substantive discourse simply because of fear would make me sad.
  - droidist2 11y ago
    Although people are already working on open source machine learning projects to identify people by how they write.
    - stillsut 11y ago
      I've been interested in this for awhile. Could you post some of examples or open source examples?
hackuser 11y ago
I notice that, generally, the same political groups who want to eliminate race in admissions also want to stop immigration from Mexico and Syria, and to make it more difficult for non-white people to vote. They always frame it in terms of 'fairness', but I see another pattern. Does anyone really believe they are motivated by fairness? There are people facing far more unfairness in the world and in the U.S. than wealthy white and Asian college applicants - I don't see these groups paying much attention to them. Perhaps what outrages people about Trump is that he says what many others in his party say, but doesn't use the dog-whistle[1] coded bulls*t words to cover it up. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog-whistle_politics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog-whistle_politics
- kelukelugames 11y ago
  The HN crowd hates affirmative action and believe that tech is meritocratic. People don't want to believe discrimination exists.
  - dang 11y ago
    Please don't do this here.
    - kelukelugames 11y ago
      Okay, I will rephrase it.
      - dang 11y ago
        Invoking a generalization about "the HN crowd" as a rhetorical device in an argument isn't really legit. You're as much part of that "crowd" as anyone, and such generalizations are mostly just bias (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10889615 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10889615), which explains why the comments that diss the community routinely contradict each other.
        kelukelugames 11y ago
lr 11y ago
The thing that is never, ever talked about in these discussions is "geographic diversity", or "discrimination" as these folks would see it. Harvard could fill its entire freshman class each year with students from east coast private prep schools. They will never do that because it is just bad for diversity in general. A less qualified student from a public school in Iowa (regardless of race) will eventually get a spot at Harvard over yet another rich kid from a private school in the northeast. Diversity of all kinds is important, and since this article talks about "the children of the wealthy and powerful", they must also talk about the children of the middle class in other parts of the country that will indeed get selected over these elite kids just because they are a "fresh face from the Heartland".
- hackuser 11y ago
  To flesh out one aspect of that: Diversity is valuable to the students. Where would you rather get educated: A school with people from all over the world and from all socio-economic backgrounds, or a school only with people from your hometown?
browseatwork 11y ago
"And if Harvard abolishes tuition for undergrads, Mr. Nader said, “It will ricochet across the Ivy League.” And similar top schools, especially private schools in and outside of the Ivy League. My first question would be what impact would this have on schools that actually depend on tuition to pay for things, those that aren't Harvard/Princeton/etc that don't have as huge endowments per student? Would the gap between the quality of the average student widen further between the very very top schools and the other top schools, further entrenching the status quo?
- e40 11y ago
  This is precisely why I hope it happens and why it's important. It could get the trend going of free high ed.
- kevhsu 11y ago
  I'm not sure how this would change the gap between top schools and super top schools. Most of the top students at A tier schools already applied and got rejected by S tier schools in the current environment. So the quality of students theoretically doesn't change. What am I missing in your logic here?
  - browseatwork 11y ago
    Students who got into S schools would have even more reason to go to them over A tier schools. All students would have even more reason to apply to S tier schools. A tier schools, who depend more on tuition dollars and would need to charge or find other sources of funding (likely without much success- governments have been cutting funding for decades, they're all already tapping private sources as much as they can). S tier schools would become comparably less desirable. This loop would continue (other than schools who try not to charge but depend on tuition dollars falling into the A range).
    - browseatwork 11y ago
      "S tier schools would become comparably less desirable." I meant A tier schools.
mattbgates 11y ago
If Harvard is made free, than fuck everyone else who paid for it. Same with every other college university.
patmcguire 11y ago
Getting rid of tuition must only apply to undergrad. A lot of grad school programs (law, mba's, some master's programs) are ludicrously profitable
jobu 11y ago
"Lawmakers on Capitol Hill have proposed requiring that about 90 colleges with endowments of $1 billion or more spend about 25 percent of their annual earnings for tuition assistance — or forfeit their tax exemptions." That seems like a rational requirement. Does anyone know what institutions like Harvard currently do with their annual earnings from endowments?
- bluedevil2k 11y ago
  Build, build and build. My campus is completely unrecognizable from 10 years ago as they keep putting up glamorous new buildings, including a 2nd (2nd!!) art museum.
- its2complicated 11y ago
  No, it does not seem like a rational requirement. It's also none of our business what these institutions do with their earnings. Most of us will never go to Harvard and we need to get over it, regardless of our race.
  - Avshalom 11y ago
    "their tax exemptions" do kinda make it our business.
bootload 11y ago
Lots of angst in this article on university admission could be avoided if selection was thought of as a chance to get in, instead of automatic entry and a right. Barry Swartz, in my view wrote the definitive article about the mess elite university is in. Read it, "Do College Admissions by Lottery"~ http://nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/03/31/how-to-improve-the-college-admissions-process/do-college-admissions-by-lottery http://nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/03/31/how-to-improve-t... Still getting wound up about credentials? ~ http://paulgraham.com/credentials.html http://paulgraham.com/credentials.html
dawnbreez 11y ago
The problem of affirmative action is complicated by several things. One, it is by definition discrimination by race. You are giving preferential treatment to people based on skin color. Two, it creates distrust between students of different colors. If you know that some black students are accepted based on skin color rather than ability, then you'll start to suspect that the black students in your class didn't earn their ride to college, so to speak. In extreme cases, if you've been denied entry to Harvard, you may suspect that you were left out to leave room for a less-qualified but more "diverse" student. These two issues combine to not only make affirmative action hypocritical, but also to make it actively harmful. Affirmative action doesn't "fix" racism, it encourages it.

63 points by Futurebot 11y ago

Harvard has enough money in their endowment to easily have everyone go to there for free for centuries without changing a thing.

function_seven 11y ago
They do, but that money is restricted as to what it can be used for. From the article: “There is a common misconception that endowments, including Harvard’s, can be accessed like bank accounts, used for anything at any time as long as funds are available,” Jeff Neal, a Harvard spokesman, said. “In reality, Harvard’s flexibility in spending from the endowment is limited by the fact that it must be maintained in perpetuity and that it is largely restricted by the explicit wishes of those who contributed the endowed funds.”
- logfromblammo 11y ago
  Nevertheless, $37600M earning 12% is enough to cover annual expenditures of $100k for each of 45000 students without ever touching the principal.
  - TulliusCicero 11y ago
    1. Long-term return on the stock market, factoring in inflation and dividends, is a little under 7%. If you can consistently nail 12%, I'd like to know your secret. 2. It's possible that the returns from the principal are also restricted.
    - logfromblammo 11y ago
      1. I would, too. The Harvard endowment gets an average of 12%, according to what I have read. 2. That is why Harvard hasn't already done it, apparently.
      - TulliusCicero 11y ago
        > The annualized return on the endowment over the last 20 years has been approximately 12.0% per year and the endowment was valued at $37.6 billion at June 30, 2015. http://www.hmc.harvard.edu/investment-management/performance-history.html http://www.hmc.harvard.edu/investment-management/performance... Huh, but it doesn't specify whether this is inflation-adjusted.
  - jessaustin 11y ago
    Yes but they also like to build stuff with donors' names on it. There are few places in America that are more expensive for construction than Cambridge. Besides, they can't plan on using the maximum from the endowment every year, because the endowment sometimes grows less than usual, or even shrinks.
    - logfromblammo 11y ago
      Harvard enrollment is about 20k and tuition is about $50k per year.
      - jessaustin 11y ago
        Don't assume that "tuition" covers the cost of the average student. Don't assume that teaching students is the only thing that goes on at Harvard.

theseatoms 11y ago

Top tier (and/or Ivy league) schools tend to have fairly generous financial aid packages, so this is a less shocking proposal than it might otherwise seem. Disclaimer: not a Harvard grad

soperj 11y ago
Yep, at Harvard you already don't pay if you can't afford it.
- chriskanan 11y ago
  The problem is that many applicants don't realize that. During graduate school, I was active in recruitment in the sciences and I have often spoken with high-achieving but low-income high school students and undergraduates, and many of them have false ideas about financial aid for undergraduate and graduate education.
  - codemac 11y ago
    Well, many of these have prohibitive application fees that take a lot of work to get waved. I think that's a bigger immediate barrier than figuring out how you'd even pay for the schooling. I know I didn't apply to several schools merely out of exhaustion of trying to figure out how to not have to pay the application fee.
    - morgante 11y ago
      That doesn't match my experience at all. I had all my application fees waived with a simple email.
      - jessaustin 11y ago
        I guess it has been too long for me... what fees were these? SAT/ACT fees? I don't recall there being any fee for actually filling out the application form and sending it in? Nevertheless, if schools have any control over the "front-end" fees, they might ought to start by eliminating those. Knowing that one needs to send an email like that is also a barrier of a sort.

LesZedCB 11y ago

> And if Harvard abolishes tuition for undergrads, Mr. Nader said, “It will ricochet across the Ivy League.” A proposition like this is really exciting to me! As a recent college grad (though admittedly one who's very lucky to not have loans, though my partner is screwed with them), I am particularly sensitive how how insane it is that college students are sold massive amounts of debt that many will take years to pay back. And a lot of new systems to help students pay them back are ineffective at best and disgusting at worst. I am intrigued to see what the other motives are here. I doubt that there will be much change in how students pay back college debt, but we do need some sort of real change. I would be really excited to see a cultural shift away from profiteering from student debt.

Shivetya 11y ago

If you are going continue to use race as part of the equation they why bother with tests? Its really apparent in medical schools where your MCAT score has to be significantly higher; near perfect; to obtain the same rate of admissions as a minority student with the much lower scores. This cheats both parties in any college admission as the best and brightest may not be able to meet on even ground and you slight those who are pulled up by placing in a situation where they will likely end up dead last in achievement because fellow students just do so much better. That last alone cannot be easily discounted simply for the psychological effects of placing low

danharaj 11y ago
[citation needed]
- itg 11y ago
  https://www.aei.org/publication/acceptance-rates-us-medical-schools-2014-reveal-ongoing-racial-profiling-affirmative-discrimination-blacks-hispanics/ https://www.aei.org/publication/acceptance-rates-us-medical-... There you go
  - danharaj 11y ago
    Good on you for supplying a citation. I might analyze it later if I have nothing better to do tonight than figure out how someone from AEI is deliberately being misleading about a study yet again.
    - vanattab 11y ago
      Really you demand a citation and then it's given you dismiss immediately while also admitting you won't even bother reading it because it doesn't support your view. Why did you even ask?
      - danharaj 11y ago
        No, that's not why I won't bother reading. I won't bother reading it because I've found AEI to be garbage before and I have a finite supply of energy and time to verify claims which I thus prioritize based on my perceived quality of the source. To take it to an extreme, I don't bother verifying claims made by neonazis. AEI is obviously not that bad, but it's also not good enough for me to care. What kind of amateur mistakes can AEI make? Well for one, I bet this analysis of the data falls victim to Simpson's paradox. Basic shit like that happens all the time in their analyses.

kelukelugames 11y ago

Harvard also denied discriminating against Jewish applicants before the 70s. Yet Wikipedia says they were one of the worst offenders. I hate how the article phrases helping underrepresented minorities as hurting Asian Americans. The two things are not related. Universities will discriminate against us even without affirmative action. The Ivy Leagues invented "legacy" and "manliness" as admissions criteria. They will create new forms of discrimination. History repeats. Stop using us as an excuse. Stop driving a wedge between minorities. Some links from wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerus_clausus#Numerus_clausus_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerus_clausus#Numerus_clausu... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_quota https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_quota

mineshaftgap 11y ago
Identity politics is toxic. Those who use it get what they deserve.
humanrebar 11y ago
> The two things are not related. They're related in the underlying implication that it's best to treat applicants as groups and not individuals. But you could be fair with certain minorities and unfair with others. There is not a direct cause and effect relationship there.
- theseatoms 11y ago
  Or you could be fair with everyone. ;)
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- kelukelugames 11y ago
  Right, of course. But the people who equate the two don't actually care about Asian Americans. They are making a political argument.

oska 11y ago

Philip Greenspun has been pushing the idea of free undergraduate tuition universities for a while now [1], [2]. [1] http://philip.greenspun.com/school/tuition-free-mit.html http://philip.greenspun.com/school/tuition-free-mit.html [2] https://blogs.harvard.edu/philg/2007/12/11/harvard-takes-another-step-closer-to-tuition-free/ https://blogs.harvard.edu/philg/2007/12/11/harvard-takes-ano...

kenjackson 11y ago

The politically charged data holds the potential to reveal whether Harvard bypasses better-qualified Asian-American candidates in favor of whites, blacks and Hispanics, and the children of the wealthy and powerful, the group argues. The problem is that "better-qualified" is not some absolute measure. I don't think any Ivy League-tier school would say that a formula of SAT+GPA is sufficient. There are several factors that aren't easily measured. For example: 1. Difficulty of high school course load. 2. Extra academic work. For example, if you've solved P=NP while having a 2.0 GPA -- would anyone care about your GPA? 3. Performance in academic-RELATED activities. If you win the IMO or the spelling bee or the Intel Science competition, etc... 4. Performance in non-academic activities. If you have a platinum album, does that matter? Or being a famous actor? Or creating a game changing app? Or becoming a top rated Go player? 4. Performance in athletics. Would being a Lebron James level talent matter? Winning an Olympic gold in gymnastics? 5. Having highly regarded morals, conviction, and courage. Would Malala get special treatment? 6. Socio-economics. All other things being equal, do we favor a student who has had no advantages over those who have had every economic advantage (best schools, tutors, etc..)? 7. Diversity of life experience (especially if exceptional). Would the child of a President have an advantage getting in? What about the experience of anyone that is fundamentally against the norm of most of the population of the incoming class. Maybe they navigated combat missions for the South Korean Navy. I do think systemically excluding a certain race is a problem. But I don't think using an old notion of merit is much better.

deleted 11y ago
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FlyingLawnmower 11y ago
I think that the only data driven conclusion we can derive from "holistic" admissions that consider every factor stems from what happened in California. Most California public colleges (UC Berkeley, etc.) subscribed to the same school of thought, but when race-based considerations were banned, the Asian American percentage at the school shot up considerably. The colleges were still considering the same criteria for admissions, but once race was removed, a significant increase in Asian American acceptances at the schools occurred. I think it's very hard to argue that Asian Americans failed on your aforementioned categories, or that there wasn't a systematic bias against them when considering these facts.

duncan_bayne 11y ago

I don't think they mean free, I think they mean paid for by someone else. Calling things free in the context of taxpayers money is propaganda.

morgante 11y ago
That "someone else" would overwhelmingly be private donors who have endowed Harvard with almost 40 billion dollars, not taxpayers.
- duncan_bayne 11y ago
  Sweet, in which case, full steam ahead.
- AnimalMuppet 11y ago
  ... except that, if I understand correctly, neither the donors nor Harvard paid taxes on that $40 billion. So, some of it comes from taxpayers, in the form of taxes that would have been paid if the money had been used for something else.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - duncan_bayne 11y ago
    I think you have the morality exactly inverted here. It's their money, and ought to be theirs to do with as they please. Those who would force them to spend it on something else are the people employing coercion. It's they who are in the wrong, morally.
    - AnimalMuppet 11y ago
      By that logic, all taxation is inherently morally wrong. I think that should be enough to tell you that your view is unlikely to be correct. You say the government employs coercion? You are correct; it does. For the greatest part, though, it employs it on those who, in the absence of the government, would themselves use coercion on those weaker than themselves. If you're not the strongest, you want a government to protect you from those stronger than yourself. If we want a government at all, someone has to pay for it. (If you don't want a government at all, see the previous paragraph. Or see the horrible examples of places that, right now, don't have one.) Do you want a government paid for entirely by voluntary contributions? Good luck with getting enough money that way. But the free rider problem not only starves the government of enough resources to function correctly, it also leads to citizens who are disengaged because they have no skin in the game. Short of those unworkable extremes, what you probably really want is a much smaller government (like the one laid out in the Constitution, perhaps). It may not be funding government that bugs you; it may be funding that elephant of a government. If that's your position, I'm with you. If there's going to be taxation, then, let it be fairly applied. Let there be much fewer loopholes, so that arguments about what the government should fund can be out in the open, in the budget process, rather than arguments about the mind-numbingly complex details of the tax code.

natch 11y ago

I wonder if they still allow the names of admissions candidates to be revealed to the people who review the applications? It seems that hiding this would be a really basic step. And no I'm not saying that a name tells you the race. But sometimes it is an indication. Not saying it's bulletproof; it's not. But it would help. And I can't think of a valid excuse for not doing it.

repsilat 11y ago
From NPR: 6 Words: 'My Name Is Jamaal ... I'm White' ... The principal who hired him told him he was lucky to get the job because they hadn't been planning to take another student teacher. Then Allan's application showed up. "They scanned through it ... and they saw someone named Jamaal who played basketball, listed Muhammad Ali among his heroes and inspirations, and thought, 'We could use some diversity here, so let's bring this guy on, I think he'd be good for some of our younger minority male students,'" he says. http://www.npr.org/2015/05/06/404432206/six-words-my-name-is-jamaal-im-white http://www.npr.org/2015/05/06/404432206/six-words-my-name-is...
- jessaustin 11y ago
  That's interesting in itself, but this is a discussion of general trends so perhaps I've missed the point?
  - repsilat 11y ago
    It was a tangential comment relating to natch saying, > I wonder if they still allow the names of admissions candidates to be revealed to the people who review the applications? It seems that hiding this would be a really basic step. > And no I'm not saying that a name tells you the race. But sometimes it is an indication. I guess a more relevant point is that if they think your race is relevant to admissions, then they're probably not thinking about removing names from the equation at all. I'd think that they'd happily admit to biases inherent in the process, but at the end of the day they'd argue that more information will allow them to make better decisions than less.

hackuser 11y ago

Harvard can't end racial discrimination in admissions. To get into Harvard, a teenager needs: 1) To know about Harvard and elite universities in general. Believe it or not, research shows that most qualified poor kids don't apply because they don't have any knowledge about the value of an elite education or that places like Harvard exist. Anecodotally, I know a couple of brilliant ones from poor backgrounds who went to their state universities simply because they had no idea there were other options - in fact, it was an imaginative stretch to go to college at all. 2) Family and community support for a college education, much less an expensive elite one far away. Sure, some super-teen can overcome this, but it's a major reason kids don't apply or drop out at high rates. My two friends were constantly asked, why would you want to go to college? Kids in these situations are in alien environments at college (that it seems perfectly normal to white middle-class kids should tell you exactly what environment it is) where they have few people who can relate to them (Edit: and an institution not built for their needs), then they go home and are asked why they are wasting their time and family's money. And as they absorb university life, they also become alienated from people at home who don't have those life experiences or opportunities. 3) Money: There is a very strong relationship between family money and college education. 4) An excellent high school education: Something else that correlates strongly with the family they come from. 5) Connections: It's not what you know, but who you know. Do you think all those kids in Harvard are there on merit? What about the legacies? The big donors' kids? The kids with recommendations from alums? Those aren't avenues available to most kids. And all these things have a strong racial component. If Harvard can eliminate these factors then sure, why not eliminate affirmative action too?

Swizec 11y ago
> Family and community support for a college education, much less an expensive elite one far away. Sure, some super-teen can overcome this, but it's a major reason kids don't apply or drop out at high rates. My two friends were constantly asked, why would you want to go to college? Kids in these situations are in alien environments at college (that it seems perfectly normal to white middle-class kids should tell you exactly what environment it is) where they have few people who can relate to them, then they go home and are asked why they are wasting their time and family's money. And as they absorb university life, they also become alienated from people at home who don't have those life experiences or opportunities. This feels strangely familiar to me as a guy who moved from a tiny poor-ish European country to Silicon Valley in his late 20's. I know it's not the same, but holy shit, I never thought a random comment on a message board would peg me so well. At least in my case most of my back-home environment understands the why, even if they do question the rationality of it. But try to explain to the average Silicon Valley dweller that just ~6 years ago, a $5 purchase was a significant expense, and they have very little to relate to.

Xcelerate 11y ago

I always want to comment on articles like this and share my opinion, but then I worry that if mass public opinion shifts or changes a decade from now, everything I've said about a touchy subject will be archived online for any future employer to search. There always seems to be a delicate art to wording one's thoughts in a "neutral" way on issues like this.

hackuser 11y ago
I agree it's a concern, but the truth doesn't change with a trend. Slavery was wrong when it was trendy in some places and it's still wrong now that it's not. What do you think of the people who held their tongues? What about the ones that spoke out? I despise intellectual trends. If it was a good/bad idea before, that hasn't changed because the idea (or the entire subject) became un/fashionable. Privacy is one such issue that comes to mind.
e40 11y ago
I think hackuser said it pretty darn well.[1] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10904615 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10904615
curun1r 11y ago
HN has no real name policy. Why not sign up for another account that you use to discuss riskier topics? As long as you're careful to not include identifying details in posts, you should be okay. Missing out on substantive discourse simply because of fear would make me sad.
- droidist2 11y ago
  Although people are already working on open source machine learning projects to identify people by how they write.
  - stillsut 11y ago
    I've been interested in this for awhile. Could you post some of examples or open source examples?

hackuser 11y ago

I notice that, generally, the same political groups who want to eliminate race in admissions also want to stop immigration from Mexico and Syria, and to make it more difficult for non-white people to vote. They always frame it in terms of 'fairness', but I see another pattern. Does anyone really believe they are motivated by fairness? There are people facing far more unfairness in the world and in the U.S. than wealthy white and Asian college applicants - I don't see these groups paying much attention to them. Perhaps what outrages people about Trump is that he says what many others in his party say, but doesn't use the dog-whistle[1] coded bulls*t words to cover it up. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog-whistle_politics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog-whistle_politics

kelukelugames 11y ago
The HN crowd hates affirmative action and believe that tech is meritocratic. People don't want to believe discrimination exists.
- dang 11y ago
  Please don't do this here.
  - kelukelugames 11y ago
    Okay, I will rephrase it.
    - dang 11y ago
      Invoking a generalization about "the HN crowd" as a rhetorical device in an argument isn't really legit. You're as much part of that "crowd" as anyone, and such generalizations are mostly just bias (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10889615 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10889615), which explains why the comments that diss the community routinely contradict each other.
      - kelukelugames 11y ago

lr 11y ago

The thing that is never, ever talked about in these discussions is "geographic diversity", or "discrimination" as these folks would see it. Harvard could fill its entire freshman class each year with students from east coast private prep schools. They will never do that because it is just bad for diversity in general. A less qualified student from a public school in Iowa (regardless of race) will eventually get a spot at Harvard over yet another rich kid from a private school in the northeast. Diversity of all kinds is important, and since this article talks about "the children of the wealthy and powerful", they must also talk about the children of the middle class in other parts of the country that will indeed get selected over these elite kids just because they are a "fresh face from the Heartland".

hackuser 11y ago
To flesh out one aspect of that: Diversity is valuable to the students. Where would you rather get educated: A school with people from all over the world and from all socio-economic backgrounds, or a school only with people from your hometown?

browseatwork 11y ago

"And if Harvard abolishes tuition for undergrads, Mr. Nader said, “It will ricochet across the Ivy League.” And similar top schools, especially private schools in and outside of the Ivy League. My first question would be what impact would this have on schools that actually depend on tuition to pay for things, those that aren't Harvard/Princeton/etc that don't have as huge endowments per student? Would the gap between the quality of the average student widen further between the very very top schools and the other top schools, further entrenching the status quo?

e40 11y ago
This is precisely why I hope it happens and why it's important. It could get the trend going of free high ed.
kevhsu 11y ago
I'm not sure how this would change the gap between top schools and super top schools. Most of the top students at A tier schools already applied and got rejected by S tier schools in the current environment. So the quality of students theoretically doesn't change. What am I missing in your logic here?
- browseatwork 11y ago
  Students who got into S schools would have even more reason to go to them over A tier schools. All students would have even more reason to apply to S tier schools. A tier schools, who depend more on tuition dollars and would need to charge or find other sources of funding (likely without much success- governments have been cutting funding for decades, they're all already tapping private sources as much as they can). S tier schools would become comparably less desirable. This loop would continue (other than schools who try not to charge but depend on tuition dollars falling into the A range).
  - browseatwork 11y ago
    "S tier schools would become comparably less desirable." I meant A tier schools.

mattbgates 11y ago

If Harvard is made free, than fuck everyone else who paid for it. Same with every other college university.

patmcguire 11y ago

Getting rid of tuition must only apply to undergrad. A lot of grad school programs (law, mba's, some master's programs) are ludicrously profitable

jobu 11y ago

"Lawmakers on Capitol Hill have proposed requiring that about 90 colleges with endowments of $1 billion or more spend about 25 percent of their annual earnings for tuition assistance — or forfeit their tax exemptions." That seems like a rational requirement. Does anyone know what institutions like Harvard currently do with their annual earnings from endowments?

bluedevil2k 11y ago
Build, build and build. My campus is completely unrecognizable from 10 years ago as they keep putting up glamorous new buildings, including a 2nd (2nd!!) art museum.
its2complicated 11y ago
No, it does not seem like a rational requirement. It's also none of our business what these institutions do with their earnings. Most of us will never go to Harvard and we need to get over it, regardless of our race.
- Avshalom 11y ago
  "their tax exemptions" do kinda make it our business.

bootload 11y ago

Lots of angst in this article on university admission could be avoided if selection was thought of as a chance to get in, instead of automatic entry and a right. Barry Swartz, in my view wrote the definitive article about the mess elite university is in. Read it, "Do College Admissions by Lottery"~ http://nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/03/31/how-to-improve-the-college-admissions-process/do-college-admissions-by-lottery http://nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/03/31/how-to-improve-t... Still getting wound up about credentials? ~ http://paulgraham.com/credentials.html http://paulgraham.com/credentials.html

dawnbreez 11y ago

The problem of affirmative action is complicated by several things. One, it is by definition discrimination by race. You are giving preferential treatment to people based on skin color. Two, it creates distrust between students of different colors. If you know that some black students are accepted based on skin color rather than ability, then you'll start to suspect that the black students in your class didn't earn their ride to college, so to speak. In extreme cases, if you've been denied entry to Harvard, you may suspect that you were left out to leave room for a less-qualified but more "diverse" student. These two issues combine to not only make affirmative action hypocritical, but also to make it actively harmful. Affirmative action doesn't "fix" racism, it encourages it.