Your opinion on affirmative action and college scholarship money

• osudarby08

  

  In lieu of the racist field trip thread, It got me thinking about affirmative action. It seems like a pretty controversial issue, and being in college right now I am greatly affected by it.
  
  Since I started college last year, I have seen and talked to many students who got scholarship money solely because they were a minority. In many of these cases, these students were nowhere near as motivated as I was and did not work as hard as I do towards my schoolwork. Yet, just because of their race they get scholarship money.
  
  Now at the same time, I met a kid who was from the middle of nowhere in Ohio and he was white and got money for being from "Appalachia", which also seems wrong to me.
  
  Obviously you can see my opinion on this issue whats yours?
• sleeper

  

  It's bull, but I don't really mind it. Minorities are just hurting themselves in the long run, because they can never accomplish anything without the help of white people. Think Barack Obama, where would he be if not for the hand of white people? Probably in a gang in Chicago with 12 kids to different mothers.
• Gblock

  osudarby08 wrote: In lieu of the racist field trip thread, It got me thinking about affirmative action. It seems like a pretty controversial issue, and being in college right now I am greatly affected by it.
  
  Since I started college last year, I have seen and talked to many students who got scholarship money solely because they were a minority. In many of these cases, these students were nowhere near as motivated as I was and did not work as hard as I do towards my schoolwork. Yet, just because of their race they get scholarship money.
  
  Now at the same time, I met a kid who was from the middle of nowhere in Ohio and he was white and got money for being from "Appalachia", which also seems wrong to me.
  
  Obviously you can see my opinion on this issue whats yours?

  how do you know they were not nearly as motiviated and did not work as hard as you did? maybe they had to work harder...plus maybe you went to a better school with better teachers
• Gblock

  Gblock wrote:

  osudarby08 wrote: In lieu of the racist field trip thread, It got me thinking about affirmative action. It seems like a pretty controversial issue, and being in college right now I am greatly affected by it.
  
  Since I started college last year, I have seen and talked to many students who got scholarship money solely because they were a minority. In many of these cases, these students were nowhere near as motivated as I was and did not work as hard as I do towards my schoolwork. Yet, just because of their race they get scholarship money.
  
  Now at the same time, I met a kid who was from the middle of nowhere in Ohio and he was white and got money for being from "Appalachia", which also seems wrong to me.
  
  Obviously you can see my opinion on this issue whats yours?

  how do you know they were not nearly as motiviated and did not work as hard as you did? maybe they had to work harder...plus maybe you went to a better school with better teachers

  btw i got some minority money and the appalacia money
  
  but i also had a 4.6 gpa and was 10th in my class
• Al Bundy

  I think it depends where the money is coming from. If a private group wants to donate a scholarship to someone of a certain background, I don't have a problem with it. When it is public money or when it is used when deciding who to admit to a university, college, program, etc. it is wrong.
• iclfan2

  

  Affirmative action is a joke. And blacks segregating themselves is just hurting themselves. I just came from my brothers graduation. There was a black student union person sitting up front, as well as a minority student union person...really? Not only that, but the black students decide to wear scarves with there all black frats/sororities on them, something that no other people do. I don't see the need in this day and age for them to segregate themselves from the college population. As for scholarships, private ones are fine imo, but when the government sets standards lower based on race, or gives money based on race, I have a problem with it.
• sjmvsfscs08

  I have a gigantic problem with it. I went to UT for a bit, and was disgusted with the abundance of lazy and unprepared ghetto kids from Toledo and Cleveland. I had three roommates my freshman year, the first two were on scholarships because they were black, and both dropped out because they either 1)spent their time smoking weed or 2)were so ridiculously unprepared for school it was sad. Now, I work for Toledo Public Schools, I have no racist bones in my body. But the dropout rate at UT from the black kids was about 70%, the government is literally throwing money away at kids that will never amount to much because they don't want to. It's that simple, they lack any motivation. Not to mention it's ridiculously annoying that when some are trying to study the ghetto kids band together in the computer labs and check their myspaces and blare rap music until 2:00am. Also, Black Student Unions are ridiculous. I will even go as far as to say that preferring low income people for campus jobs is a joke. Just because someone's parents are above the poverty line doesn't mean they should lose out on college job opportunities.
  
  That said, I have a full ride. But it's not because I'm a minority. No, I'm a white male--apparently the enemy these days.
• cbus4life

  My problem is with my college roommate who qualified for a scholarship because he was technically from "Appalachia" even though his two parents were surgeons in the region. BS.
• cbus4life

  sjmvsfscs08 wrote: I have a gigantic problem with it. I went to UT for a bit, and was disgusted with the abundance of lazy and unprepared ghetto kids from Toledo and Cleveland. I had three roommates my freshman year, the first two were on scholarships because they were black, and both dropped out because they either 1)spent their time smoking weed or 2)were so ridiculously unprepared for school it was sad. Now, I work for Toledo Public Schools, I have no racist bones in my body. But the dropout rate at UT from the black kids was about 70%, the government is literally throwing money away at kids that will never amount to much because they don't want to. It's that simple, they lack any motivation. Not to mention it's ridiculously annoying that when some are trying to study the ghetto kids band together in the computer labs and check their myspaces and blare rap music until 2:00am. Also, Black Student Unions are ridiculous. I will even go as far as to say that preferring low income people for campus jobs is a joke. Just because someone's parents are above the poverty line doesn't mean they should lose out on college job opportunities.
  
  That said, I have a full ride. But it's not because I'm a minority. No, I'm a white male--apparently the enemy these days.

  lol.
  
  Your post can apply to lots and lots of other groups as well, from my experience.
  
  And, i love the "i'm the white male i'm the enemy comments." You aren't the enemy. I love a group of the most privileged people in the entire world whining about being disenfranchised and all that.
• Con_Alma

  I do not have an issue with certain, defined groups receiving secondary education dollars.
  
  I wonder, osudarby, if you are upset that you didn't receive dollars or if you are upset that others received dollars. Would you be OK with others receiving dollars if you too got them?
• Gblock

  cbus4life wrote:

  sjmvsfscs08 wrote: I have a gigantic problem with it. I went to UT for a bit, and was disgusted with the abundance of lazy and unprepared ghetto kids from Toledo and Cleveland. I had three roommates my freshman year, the first two were on scholarships because they were black, and both dropped out because they either 1)spent their time smoking weed or 2)were so ridiculously unprepared for school it was sad. Now, I work for Toledo Public Schools, I have no racist bones in my body. But the dropout rate at UT from the black kids was about 70%, the government is literally throwing money away at kids that will never amount to much because they don't want to. It's that simple, they lack any motivation. Not to mention it's ridiculously annoying that when some are trying to study the ghetto kids band together in the computer labs and check their myspaces and blare rap music until 2:00am. Also, Black Student Unions are ridiculous. I will even go as far as to say that preferring low income people for campus jobs is a joke. Just because someone's parents are above the poverty line doesn't mean they should lose out on college job opportunities.
  
  That said, I have a full ride. But it's not because I'm a minority. No, I'm a white male--apparently the enemy these days.

  lol.
  
  
  
  And, i love the "i'm the white male i'm the enemy comments." You aren't the enemy. I love a group of the most privileged people in the entire world whining about being disenfranchised and all that.

  ha ha thats what i was gonna say
• Manhattan Buckeye

  I see nothing wrong with minority scholarships, or scholarships based on geography, benefactor's money = benfactor's choice...I also think that the idea that a "white male American" is privileged is so ignorant it should have gone away with Eddie Vedder's craptacular song on Pearl Jam's "Vs." album. That idea is so 1994.
• cbus4life

  Maybe "privileged" wasn't the correct word, but claiming that the while male American is now the "enemy" is ridiculous.
• I Wear Pants

  Al Bundy wrote: I think it depends where the money is coming from. If a private groups wants to donate a scholarship to someone of a certain background, I don't have a problem with it. When it is public money or when it is used when deciding who to admit to a university, college, program, etc. it is wrong.

• BoatShoes

  sjmvsfscs08 wrote: I have a gigantic problem with it. I went to UT for a bit, and was disgusted with the abundance of lazy and unprepared ghetto kids from Toledo and Cleveland. I had three roommates my freshman year, the first two were on scholarships because they were black, and both dropped out because they either 1)spent their time smoking weed or 2)were so ridiculously unprepared for school it was sad. Now, I work for Toledo Public Schools, I have no racist bones in my body. But the dropout rate at UT from the black kids was about 70%, the government is literally throwing money away at kids that will never amount to much because they don't want to. It's that simple, they lack any motivation. Not to mention it's ridiculously annoying that when some are trying to study the ghetto kids band together in the computer labs and check their myspaces and blare rap music until 2:00am. Also, Black Student Unions are ridiculous. I will even go as far as to say that preferring low income people for campus jobs is a joke. Just because someone's parents are above the poverty line doesn't mean they should lose out on college job opportunities.
  
  That said, I have a full ride. But it's not because I'm a minority. No, I'm a white male--apparently the enemy these days.

  You don't think white males are privileged? Look at the way this young fellow is speaking about a particular group of people, black college students. Some of what he's saying I'm sure is true but I'm pretty certain some of his inductive logic is equally false and he fails to see the broader picture.
  
  There are white males with power out there in the world who view black students coming into the business world through this same kind of lens.
  
  If it's true that black students lack any kind of intrinsic motivation and don't seem to have the gusto to stick it out and achieve like SJM has been so fortunately blessed with, why is that the case?
  
  Certainly just because they have black skin doesn't make them lazy, unmotivated, weed smoking, dropouts who are happy to live off the government and destined to fail does it?
  
  If what SJM is saying is true and this kind of behavior is so extremely prevalent in the "ghetto" black population and young well-minded white boys like SJM aren't so similarly afflicted, and we can assume it's not simply do to some allele attached to genetic codes which also have the alleles for black skin, this in and of itself demonstrates the privileges many of us white folks receive from the world by virtue of our being white.
• BoatShoes

  Inherent privileges overlap...If I were a white gay male from a trailer park, any things my whiteness might get me through prevailing stereotypes or opinions or what have might be countered by my gayness and then perhaps the schooling and child rearing I received from my upbringing in a trailer park and perhaps a poorer-funded school.
  
  Nonetheless, as to the initial question my opinion in regards to affirmative action policies and minority scholarships is that it is way too late in the game. What good does it do to give a kid a scholarship to college if he's had subpar education his whole life and a bad home life that did not give him proper skills to be self-reliant?
  
  I believe in counties like Cuyahoga County that have Cleveland as the central regulated economic and capitalistic hub that allow for burgeoning outer-ring suburbs like Beachwood and Bay Village where whites have fled away from the inner city but nonetheless benefit from that economic hub, that these suburbs ought not to be guarded by the de facto walls of municipal incorporation and that the property values ought to support schools throughout the county.
  
  The way it is now, I can start a Law Firm in Westlake and get all of my business because of the central economic hub of Cleveland and live in Bay Village and at worst I'm supporting both Bay Village and Westlake but I give nothing to Cleveland. When my kid grows up and is 18 and is denied a scholarship because he's white and gives one to a kid from East Cleveland, this is 18 years too late to try to help that kid.
• Manhattan Buckeye

  BoatShoes wrote: Inherent privileges overlap...If I were a white gay male from a trailer park, any things my whiteness might get me through prevailing stereotypes or opinions or what have might be countered by my gayness and then perhaps the schooling and child rearing I received from my upbringing in a trailer park and perhaps a poorer-funded school.
  
  Nonetheless, as to the initial question my opinion in regards to affirmative action policies and minority scholarships is that it is way too late in the game. What good does it do to give a kid a scholarship to college if he's had subpar education his whole life and a bad home life that did not give him proper skills to be self-reliant?
  
  I believe in counties like Cuyahoga County that have Cleveland as the central regulated economic and capitalistic hub that allow for burgeoning outer-ring suburbs like Beachwood and Bay Village where whites have fled away from the inner city but nonetheless benefit from that economic hub, that these suburbs ought not to be guarded by the de facto walls of municipal incorporation and that the property values ought to support schools throughout the county.
  
  The way it is now, I can start a Law Firm in Westlake and get all of my business because of the central economic hub of Cleveland and live in Bay Village and at worst I'm supporting both Bay Village and Westlake but I give nothing to Cleveland. When my kid grows up and is 18 and is denied a scholarship because he's white and gives one to a kid from East Cleveland, this is 18 years too late to try to help that kid.

  I read this twice and still have no idea what on earth you are talking about.
• BoatShoes

  Manhattan Buckeye wrote:

  BoatShoes wrote: Inherent privileges overlap...If I were a white gay male from a trailer park, any things my whiteness might get me through prevailing stereotypes or opinions or what have might be countered by my gayness and then perhaps the schooling and child rearing I received from my upbringing in a trailer park and perhaps a poorer-funded school.
  
  Nonetheless, as to the initial question my opinion in regards to affirmative action policies and minority scholarships is that it is way too late in the game. What good does it do to give a kid a scholarship to college if he's had subpar education his whole life and a bad home life that did not give him proper skills to be self-reliant?
  
  I believe in counties like Cuyahoga County that have Cleveland as the central regulated economic and capitalistic hub that allow for burgeoning outer-ring suburbs like Beachwood and Bay Village where whites have fled away from the inner city but nonetheless benefit from that economic hub, that these suburbs ought not to be guarded by the de facto walls of municipal incorporation and that the property values ought to support schools throughout the county.
  
  The way it is now, I can start a Law Firm in Westlake and get all of my business because of the central economic hub of Cleveland and live in Bay Village and at worst I'm supporting both Bay Village and Westlake but I give nothing to Cleveland. When my kid grows up and is 18 and is denied a scholarship because he's white and gives one to a kid from East Cleveland, this is 18 years too late to try to help that kid.

  I read this twice and still have no idea what on earth you are talking about.

  Ok. My apologies for poor writing skills. My essential point is that affirmative action and minority scholarships though founded on good intentions ultimately address unique problems facing minorities too late in the game.
  
  One problem I think that is a contributing factor is that in Ohio for instance, public schools are primarily supported by property values. In a County like Cuyahoga County that is incredibly balkanized, whites with the capital to purchase larger and nicer homes moved away from the cental economic hub of Cleveland and incorporated new cities like Beachwood would keep their property taxes away from Cleveland Schools and support schools within their incorporated area.
  
  It seems to me, that if County Governments could reach into these incorporated areas and allow property taxes in places like Beachwood or Bay Village to support Inner City Schools then this problem could start to be alleviated and the schools could have at least one more leg to stand on. And, this seems justified because just because a person lives in Bay Village or Westlake and doesn't work in downtown Cleveland does not mean they are not benefitting from Cleveland's economic center and activity.
  
  This would allow the inner city minority to start to achieve some of the education benefits of the suburban white kid while still growing up in Cleveland public schools.
• Al Bundy

  I think one of the problems of this thread is that scholarship money and students getting accepted into schools or programs is all being mixed together. If a white male applies for a program that only takes a limited number of people, and he scores higher by whatever criteria is being used to rank candidates, and he still doesn't get in over a black female who scored lower, that is wrong. If a student has been accepted to a school and a private group gives them scholarship money because they are african-american, asian, native american. italian-american, irish-american, etc., I don't have a problem with that.
• fan_from_texas

  Al Bundy wrote: If a white male applies for a program that only takes a limited number of people, and he scores higher by whatever criteria is being used to rank candidates, and he still doesn't get in over a black female who scored lower, that is wrong.

  I don't necessarily think that is wrong--it depends on the situation. I don't have a problem with affirmative action in general, though I'd prefer it were tailored along socioeconomic status lines rather than purely racial.
• 2quik4u

  

  sleeper wrote: It's bull, but I don't really mind it. Minorities are just hurting themselves in the long run, because they can never accomplish anything without the help of white people. Think Barack Obama, where would he be if not for the hand of white people? Probably in a gang in Chicago with 12 kids to different mothers.

  you are a fucking retard
• Al Bundy

  fan_from_texas wrote:

  Al Bundy wrote: If a white male applies for a program that only takes a limited number of people, and he scores higher by whatever criteria is being used to rank candidates, and he still doesn't get in over a black female who scored lower, that is wrong.

  I don't necessarily think that is wrong--it depends on the situation. I don't have a problem with affirmative action in general, though I'd prefer it were tailored along socioeconomic status lines rather than purely racial.

  Let's say a graduate program has 50 spots available. They use GRE scores, a score based upon an essay on the application, a score from an interview, and undergrad GPA. They create a formula from these values. Why not offer the 50 candidates, then go down the list in order if someone chooses not to accept?
• fan_from_texas

  Al Bundy wrote:

  fan_from_texas wrote:

  Al Bundy wrote: If a white male applies for a program that only takes a limited number of people, and he scores higher by whatever criteria is being used to rank candidates, and he still doesn't get in over a black female who scored lower, that is wrong.

  I don't necessarily think that is wrong--it depends on the situation. I don't have a problem with affirmative action in general, though I'd prefer it were tailored along socioeconomic status lines rather than purely racial.

  Let's say a graduate program has 50 spots available. They use GRE scores, a score based upon an essay on the application, a score from an interview, and undergrad GPA. They create a formula from these values. Why not offer the 50 candidates, then go down the list in order if someone chooses not to accept?

  I generally agree that schools should admit those who are best qualified/smartest. I disagree that GRE scores, GPA, essay, and interview necessarily determine who is best qualified/smartest.
  
  To use a facetious example, let's say there are two candidates, A & B, applying for undergrad. They have identical results on everything except SAT, where A's score is 10 pts higher. Now, A's parents are Harvard-educated doctors. A grew up in Massachusetts, went to Andover or Exeter, had a private tutor, had parents who poured time into him/her, basically had every advantage life could give him.
  
  B, on the other hand, grew up in southeastern Ohio, in rural Appalachia. B is a first generation college student who has never met his dad. Despite being in a high school where only 10% of people go on to college at all, and despite not having a guidance counselor who had every dealt with a student of B's caliber, B overcame numerous obstacles, taught himself foreign languages and calc in his spare time, etc.
  
  If we're simply applying a formula, the formula says that A is smarter/more qualified and deserves the spot. But bearing in mind that SAT scores (and AP classes . . . and access to info about college . . . and numerous other items) are strongly correlated with socioeconomic status, do you really think anyone would say that A is more qualified and smarter simply because he came out better on the formula?
  
  The formula can provide an idea of where someone stands, but certainly other factors can more than make up for a low test score in demonstrating that someone is smart and can be successful. In those situations, I think it's appropriate to consider the other factors and apply affirmative action.
  
  What many people in flyover states don't realize is that if we eliminated affirmative action, colleges would be full of New Englanders, Asians, Jews, and wealthy suburbanites, who all look much better on paper, have more accomplishments, have higher test scores, interview better, etc. Rural whites, in particular, and those from poor families would benefit the most from SES-based AA.
• HitsRus

  

  The only problem I have with AA is when does it end? I mean when does a minority group become 'equal'....and hence no longer qualifies for AA? Will they give up a favored status? To me, it is legislating permanent inequality. If one is a college admissions officer doing his job, , shouldn't he be able to distinguish that a disadvantaged person should be admitted over a privledged person without having to fill quotas or having it legislated?
• Swamp Fox

  In a perfect world, yes. In the real world I would be very surprised if this distinction would be made. The point is, if it isn't legislated, it won't happen.