Well yeah, but you still want the best performers in college (and later too), and things like these should be solved "back then" (eg. extra language classes...

Well yeah, but you still want the best performers in college (and later too), and things like these should be solved "back then" (eg. extra language classes... fixing culture is hard, but again, if your peers make you a worse student, you're still a worse student, even though you blame your peers). Giving some groups a push, especially on racial grounds (where you group together bill gates' kids with bobby from a trailer park in bumfuck alabama on one side, and Will smiths kids vs some random kid from philadelphia fighting on a basketball court) is really bad... both for people who should be accepted on merit, but don't, because they're in the wrong group, and also for their later careers (do you really want a doctor, who only got accepted to college because of affirmative action?). Government paying for books for the poor, programmes for gifted students, actually "leaving bad students behind" (and having special schools for them, like we had), etc. would help more.