Yesterday’s New York Times Magazine carried an interesting essay on the subject of why universities spend so much time and effort to achieve racial diversity. Here’s an excerpt: “the reason we like the problem of racism is that solving it just requires us to give up our prejudices, whereas solving the problem of economic inequality might require something more — it might require us to give up our money”.
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A very good illustration of this is that statistics on the racial makeup of univeristy admissions are really easy to find, but on the other hand getting statistics on family income is like pulling teeth.
Ken Gongzalez, the recent Green party candidate for mayor of San Francisco (he nearly won), likes to say he is the son of hispanic immigrants and a poster boy for affirmative action. Indeed he is, but not in the way you would think: his parents are actually millionaires…
Sure, all that it would take would be for ‘poor white america’ to get enough of a clue to start electing public officals to office that would create some financial equity in the schools.
But no, they either abandon the voting process or get suckered into voting for some rich right-winger that throws them a few bones based on religious faith and then goes about sending their jobs overseas.
Gary, the poor white trash vote on the gun thing as much as the religious thing. If the (idiot) Democrats could only lay off the gun thing (AR-15’s for all!) then you would see a lot of blue collar votes whipsaw for the Democrats. The Republican’s worse day possible would be the day that the Supreme Court comes unambiguously (6-3 or better) for a broad interpretation of the Second Amendment. That would rob the Republicans of a huge issue even if the (idiot) Democrats still were on the record in favor of more restrictions.
Of course history has shown that a serious attempt to solve the problem of economic inequality must abolish universities and suppress intellectual activity.
Alternatively, one might conclude that serious attempts to seize political power and destroy all opposition, typically involve both the supression of intellectual activity and empty rhetoric about solving the problem of economic equality.
Erm, because the Universities are the ones controlling all the money right? Seems like it would be fairer to say that solving financial inequality would require *rich people* to give up their money, which is not a good selling point for development offices around the country.
Look… white people in the south have given up many ‘perks’ in the last century or so. This has not been because they wanted to, It has been because a larger part of the society reacted to the social inequity of the situation.
This was particularly true during the equality movements of the 50’s and 60’s where people (black and white) participated actively in social movements to promote their cause. They were vocal, (mostly) non-violent, and the political bodies of this country reacted to them.
The groups that were formed ni this period and their causes still carry a lot of clout in america and, despite the carping of the disenfrancised racists, will continue to result in very popular programs to reach social equity.
Certainly, these programs look their worst when (rarely) they favor the black child of a millionaire over the white child of a poor person.
If the fight against poverty (and people living in poverty do suffer from many of the social ills of any oppressed class of slaves) is to be brought to the public attention, then it will have to be done with the same vocal, non-violent approach that the civil rights cases were fought in the last century.
Unfortunately, once a poor white man gets some money, he finds it easy to act just like another rich white man (votes republican, oppresses the poor, etc…)
the reason we like spewing platitudes about income equality that will not be achieved is because that’s easier than giving up something being accomplished now, giving a hand-up to minorities.
grate session
Solving the problem of economic inequality is what the universities have been focused on since the 60’s – we’ll all end up taxed into poverty.
We’ll be equally poor and equally miserable – it’s called communism.
Tell me why person A and person B have to have the same wages in their jobs?
That is very shortsighted, Patrick. Western Europeans have neither the same wages, nor are they poor an miserable. And certainly not communists. Yet we do have affordable education (and health care) for everyone. Come from a €25K a year family but are smart enough to be a doctor? Then become one. You will have some debt at the end, but that will at most be in the low 5 figures, not 6.
What surprises me is that middle america fails to see is that the economies of scale will work much to your advantage in higher taxes and goverment funding of healthcare and education. Much more so than a small country like the Netherlands – just 1/16th the population of the US – where it is straining the economy a bit, but not to a dangerous degree at all.
Imagine a few percentage points a year in tax hikes on your $50K/year income and doing away with your $300/month health insurance bill and 10K/year for 4 years for two children in college fees. Now calculate that over your working life and you will see that middle america will win. There’ll be no change for the poor (except that they now too will have healthcare and education) and the only losers are the semi-rich (ie: 100K/year+ incomes) or those without children needing education and are never sick. (the very rich will pay a lot more as well, but other than in bragging rights, is there really a purpose to have 10 million in your bank account rather than 8?)
Too bad you can only get elected in your country with massive campaign funds and they come from? Well, you guessed it…
Bas,
The only disagreement I have with what you wrote is “$300/month health insurance bill” – that is a low estimate, it can be a lot higher.
Also, the US-style education involves about half of young people entering a college of some kind (though only about 30% get a degree) which is great for colleges’ bank accounts but is it truly necessary? I mean, in Austria, only 8% of young people get university degrees and Austria is not a poor country. A lot of stuff that is taught in colleges (e.g. elementary accounting, nursing) could be taught in high school.
Hi Philip,
Do you consider socioeconomic diversity more important than a (presumably) great education? If you were deciding where your kids were attending secondary school, would you insist on sending them to say, Lakeside, or do you think deficiencies in public education can be overcome by the right environment at home(well, maybe not in MA, as you’ve written) and the benefits of going to school with people from all walks of life would be worth it?
Given your stance on tuition at MIT, is it much different than the stats cited at Harvard? If you went to Walt Whitman, GWU(Georgetown?), and then MIT, and you believe prejudice fundamentally results in a lack of experience with different people(written in an Ask Philip post somewhere), where did you learn your altruism(not being facetious here), like giving away your minivan, or realizing that people who couldn’t make it to MIT were still, in fact, smart enough to be there?
Woops..I guess a lot of the second paragraph was probably in Travels with Samantha. Haven’t picked it up in awhile. But I remember a paragraph about you having your come-uppance in freshman physics about how you were no better than anyone because you couldn’t do some problems..precocious 15 year old 🙂
The $300 figure is one I got from one of my self emplyed friends in the US. And apparantly that doesn’t include medication. So if your employer doesn’t cover you and you have a whole family to protect, I believe you when you say it can be much more.
That is what surprised me when I heard about how much is done in “university” in many countries. Canada, Australia and the UK are certainly guilty of that and in the UK it is only a recent trend, so people in lower end jobs – accounting, nursing, etc – feel better about themselves. Pathetic. The irony is that it now turns out to be too expensive and the goverment is going to allow the universities to collect more fees – which will also affect those who shouldn’t be in uni in the first place. I wonder how good they feel about themselves now! 🙂
In the Netherlands too, “uni” is not the norm, only proper scientific degrees (medicine, biology, computer science, physics, you get the point) are done at uni. The rest is done at much lower cost school-like structures after one of the lower levels of high school. And as far as I can tell, nobody feels inferior for not going to “university”.
to Fazal – i don’t think the satistic is burning