You're bringing up a few straw man arguments like the drinking. The point is "what adversities are preventing this demographic (not individual) from getting th

You're bringing up a few straw man arguments like the drinking. The point is "what adversities are preventing this demographic (not individual) from getting the success that other demographics have in this program" Support should absolutely be given uniformly to all students, but how can you recognize what new forms of support need to exist till you start analyzing things? You're also focusing on the lowering of the bar of passing to make people pass. It's not about lowering standards. I'm not sure why people go there, other than the implicit belief that the people who couldn't meet the bar were all somehow less than It's instead about providing equal footing to be able to reach for that bar. Some people still won't make it. But at least their footing isn't being actively eroded from under them. Think about family support as just one example. Some people are held back because they need to look after children (their own or others). Providing subsidized daycare helps them out without lowering the standard for anyone. What about mental health? Someone's just moved away from their family and support group. They're in a class with local people. Their temporary depression is holding them back and it snowballs. Providing student counseling, or creating communities would help them and in turn help others. Again, not lowering the standard. Now let's talk about discrimination. What if you have a professor with an implicit bias? They are giving certain demographics a harder time. Seeing that they have a much lower rate of passing among those demographics, versus similar programs in other schools, might help identify the program. Again, it hasn't lowered the standard. It's just given everyone equal footing.