The Chronicle of Higher Education’s very useful Almanac of Higher Education is now online. It is chock full of good stuff.
For example, it reveals that 53% of the students at institutions of higher learning in California (public and private, 4 year and 2 year) are minority. The Almanac, however, being an assembler of facts rather than a platform for politically correct manifestoes, does count Asians as minorities. If instead we define “minority” in the current fashion — a racial or ethnic group demanding preferential treatment — then the proportion of minorities drops, but only to 33%.
It would appear that Proposition 209, which demanded that the state treat all its citizens without regard to race, was unsuccessful in what the opponents of colorblind equality say was its true intent: to deprive minorities of the opportunity to attend college.
Well, John…California IS a “majority-minority” state. If you ask me, 53% skews pretty low.
–Cobra
Cobra,
If you ask me, 53% skews pretty low.
Cobra, the US Census site gives the 2004 population of CA as 44.5% “non-Hispanic white,” and 2.4% “persons reporting two or more races.” Even if you count all declared mixed-race people as “minorities,” which seems to me to be stretching the “one-drop rule” business farther than even its racist originators took it, we are talking about 53% vs. 55.5%, which doesn’t look much like a “skew” from here.
Especially as not everyone going to college in CA grew up here. I was a New Yorker before coming to UCB, and though out-of-state students were rare, they weren’t absent. I would think that there’d be many more at private universities such as Stanford, Caltech, USC, and the Claremont Colleges, which don’t have a State mission and recruit all over the country with no preferences for CA citizens. Comparing the CA population to the CA college recruiting pool overestimates the minority percentage of the population applying.
Michelle,
Digging further into the Census data, you’ll find that Latinos ALONE make up 43% of the population aged 18-24 in California, but only 24% of the college students.
http://www.chicano.ucla.edu/press/siteart/LPIB_05March2003.pdf
–Cobra
Must be racism that keeps ’em outta college.
Cobra,
You demonstrate how activist use a data point that should not be used to prove a point that cannot really be supported.
The question is not how many 18-24 y/o Hispanics are there or what what is their percentage of the population. What is important is how many 18-24 Hispanic high school graduates as a percentage of all high school graduates in California are there in California. It also should be ask, how many 18-24 Hispanic are there in California that read at or above the 10 grade level? My guess is that taking high school graduation and literacy levels into account that 43% will suddenly become 24%.
Cobra,
You demonstrate how activist use a data point that should not be used to prove a point that cannot really be supported.
The question is not how many 18-24 y/o Hispanics are there or what what is their percentage of the population. What is important is how many 18-24 Hispanic high school graduates as a percentage of all high school graduates in California are there in California. It also should be ask, how many 18-24 Hispanic are there in California that read at or above the 10 grade level? My guess is that taking high school graduation and literacy levels into account that 43% will suddenly become 24%.
Superdestroyer writes:
>>>”The question is not how many 18-24 y/o Hispanics are there or what what is their percentage of the population. What is important is how many 18-24 Hispanic high school graduates as a percentage of all high school graduates in California are there in California. It also should be ask, how many 18-24 Hispanic are there in California that read at or above the 10 grade level? My guess is that taking high school graduation and literacy levels into account that 43% will suddenly become 24%.”
There are many who view what you just stated as an indictment of the K-12 education system in a segregated society.
There are many others who view what you just stated as an indictment of Latinos in general.
Which camp do you pitch your tent in, or do you have a different viewpoint?
–Cobra
Cobra,
If you look at https://www.wiche.edu/Policy/Knocking/1988-2018/profiles/ca.pdf you will see that groups, Hispanics make up the largest share. In the 1991-92 graduating class, there were nearly 66,200 Hispanics, who accounted for over one-quarter of the class; their representation increased to more than 109,000, or one-third of the class of 2002, and is projected to grow by almost 50 percent to over 161,000 by 2013-14.
Thus, half the differences is due to graduation rates from schools with some of the lowest standards in the US.
If you want to attach blame to the reason for the difference, I can think of several ito nclude a school system more interested in creating jobs and helping teacher unions, and social engineering than academic learning; a huge anti-intellectual bias in the Latino community; and illegal immigration of millions of poorly educated mexican immigrants.
It is kind of hard to blame whites in California when they are in the minority. It is also kind of hard to scream racism when Korean, Vietnamese, and Chinese students are performing well above the norm.
Superdestroyer writes:
>>>”If you want to attach blame to the reason for the difference, I can think of several ito nclude a school system more interested in creating jobs and helping teacher unions, and social engineering than academic learning; a huge anti-intellectual bias in the Latino community; and illegal immigration of millions of poorly educated mexican immigrants.”
So you blame society?
–Cobra