Texas A and M Sees 114% Growth In Diversity Without Affirmative Action
What’s Texas A&M’s secret?
The College Fix reports.
Texas A&M sees 114% growth in diversity without affirmative action, it admits students based on merit
A powerful critique of affirmative action has been published ahead of an expected U.S. Supreme Court decision on UT-Austin’s use of affirmative action this month — and it involves another Texas university that has seen triple-digit growth in minority enrollment by admitting students based on merit.
The Texas Tribune reports that Texas A&M University has seen a 114 percent increase in black and Hispanic student enrollment since 2003 — effectively more than doubling its minority student population — despite the fact that it refuses to employ affirmative action. In comparison, black and Hispanic enrollment has only grown by 45 percent over the same time period at UT Austin, which proudly uses affirmative action.
Texas A&M sees 114% growth in diversity without affirmative action, it admits students based on merit (The College Fix)
Comments
This tells us little about admissions policies or indeed much of anything without far more information.
What is the constitution of the applicant pool? How has it changed recently?
What is the competition for those applicants? Are some groups steering clear of the school in favor of greener pastures?
Are “minorities” now over-represented, or were they under-represented in the past? Either condition would show up as an increase in “diversity”.
What events have transpired lately which would make the school unusually attractive to certain types of applicants? Or particularly unattractive to others? (For example, consider Missou.)
Are “admissions” relatively clean, but financial aid, internships, scholarships, etc. doled out in a discriminatory manner?
Those are just a few of the painfully obvious ones. Two minute’s thought could whip up a bigger batch.
Without this sort of contextual information, “114% growth in diversity” is a junk statistic.
And then there are the terminology perversions; what are they calling “diversity”? That’s a “code” word, not a real one with a standardized meaning.