After weathering unprecedented criticism for its revenue-driven admissions policies, the University of California system has appeared to shift officials’ opinion back in its favor, unveiling a modest but symbolic uptick in admissions for in-state students — with an emphasis on certain racial and ethnic minorities.  

The increase in admitted in-staters was broadly distributed, but did not accompany a rollback in a parallel trend — amped up out-of-state enrollment — that had rankled advocates of greater in-state admissions. “Each of UC’s nine undergraduate campuses also admitted more freshmen and transfer applicants for enrollment this fall,” according to the San Francisco Chronicle. “At the same time, UC continued its practice of increasing admissions to out-of-state freshman, who receive no tuition break and pay about three times the tuition that Californians pay.” The schools also allocated $3 million for student food aid, responding to a survey conducted in spring 2015 that suggested some “42 percent of UC students struggled with poor quality food and insufficient sustenance in the past year,” reported UC Santa Barbara’s Daily Nexus.

Turning a corner

The changes arose from a long-in-the-works deal, hammered out between University of California President Janet Napolitano and Gov. Jerry Brown, granting the UCs “an additional $25 million in exchange for enrolling roughly 5,000 more California freshmen this fall than last fall,” the Chronicle reported. “In-state tuition will also remain at a flat $12,192 for the fifth straight year, but will rise in 2017 at the rate of inflation.”

The in-state admissions boost appeared to serve a dual purpose, also keeping critics of a different kind at bay. Included in the incoming class are “the most African Americans and Latinos since voters banned affirmative action two decades ago,” the Los Angeles Times reported, calling the outcome “progress that is likely to ease pressure from state legislators to boost diversity at UC’s most elite campuses.”

“Critics have complained that non-Californians have seemed to edge out equally or more qualified state residents at UCLA and Berkeley, with African Americans and Latinos disproportionately admitted to less competitive campuses at UC Merced and Riverside.”

A complex game

Gathering outrage among Californians regardless of party led to support in Sacramento for a bipartisan inquiry and a sweeping audit. Its results “reinforced what many California parents already suspected: On a constant hunt for more revenue, the prestigious University of California system gave favorable admissions treatment to thousands of higher-paying out-of-state and foreign students, to the detriment of Californians,” as the New York Times recalled.

Auditors reported that “the university had tripled its population of nonresident undergraduate students, reducing the percentage of resident applicants it admitted to 62 percent from 77 percent, while increasing the percentage of nonresidents it admitted to 56 percent from 48 percent,” the Times noted separately. “The nonresidents included thousands of students who were less qualified than admitted Californians, the audit said.”

Instead of provoking a deeper crisis, however, the harsh news cleared the way for a remarkably rapid settlement. Notably, Assemblyman Mike Gipson, D-Carson, “the legislator who requested the audit — and castigated UC on the results — welcomed the new admissions numbers,” the Los Angeles Times observed. There were hints that legislators — especially Democrats — were eager to declare victory during an election year with an unusually populist flavor on both sides of the political spectrum. California tuition had briefly but prominently become a wedge issue in the national Democratic primary for the party’s presidential nomination. With the perception gathering that Golden State discontent was a canary in the coal mine amid a “broader, fundamental breakdown in the traditional operation of the public university,” the UC saga supplied “much of the impetus behind the announcement by Hillary Clinton […] that she was embracing a large part of Bernie Sanders’s proposal to provide free tuition at in-state public colleges,” according to the New York Times. 

“The Big Reveal on Cal’s holistic admissions process created much fuss, most of it on behalf of Asians who are clearly the victims of discriminatory behavior.

“I’m fussed, too. But most people don’t completely understand how this ‘problem’ came about, and why the UC and other universities are discriminating against Asians. It’s not so much ‘affirmative action for whites’ as it is unintended consequences of being forbidden to use affirmative action for blacks and Hispanics.”

‘Immigrant Asians … kill whites on grades’

How did this play out? UC chose to …

“… de-emphasize those evil, racist tests that traditionally represent, in the typical progressive’s mind, a means of reinforcing the institutionalized hegemony of the white man’s values. Grades, in contrast, reflected the school’s values, the school’s priorities. So majority URM schools, both charters and inner city, can put whatever grades they like on classes that can be called whatever they want. UC officials made the change, along with Eligibility in the Local Context, so that majority URM schools could lie about their students’ academic abilities properly reflect the students’ diligence and abilities in subjects simply not valued by the institutional racists at the College Board.

“The problem is, alas, that UC admissions made changes to their policy based on the ‘demographic footprint’ of tests, but they forgot about the demographic footprint of grades.

“Namely: Asians, particularly recent immigrant Asians, kill whites on grades. The test score advantage is getting (suspiciously) worse, but the grade advantage is huge.

“That wasn’t part of the plan. Look, universities know the game as well as anyone: grades are a fraud. That’s why, until relatively recently, all universities weighted test scores as high or higher than grades.

“If high school grades were objectively accurate, why does the University of California have an entry level writing requirement?—and why is that writing requirement either a test or a college level course? (And I have my own doubts of college level courses, but more on that later.) … If high school grades meant anything, schools could just accept students with high grades and hey, presto. Problem solved.”

‘Any outrage is counterbalanced by another’

This is just a powerful, devastating analysis of the racial games that UC officials play. But it doesn’t lead to the tidy conclusion one might expect about UC admissions.

“You know what would have been much easier? Require four Subject tests: English Lit, Math 2c, American History, and a Science. Asians would still do well, but it would have been harder. Dump the SAT, dump or devalue grades. If nothing else, we’d be giving smart kids of all races a chance to show their stuff purely through test scores, imperfect as they may be, rather than the vagaries of teacher assessment.

“But that gets UC right back to the problem it started with, the reason it emphasized GPA over test scores in the first place, the problem that it created just to give them a cover story for ignoring the will of the California voters (and, eventually, the constitution as interpreted by the Supreme Court). A test-score only admissions process would eliminate almost all blacks and Hispanics from consideration. The problem: every attempt to bring in more blacks and Hispanics leads to more Asians.

“Problem? Why is it a problem? Shouldn’t the universities just let the chips fall where they may? If the schools are overwhelmingly Asian, so what?

“Well, for starters, relying exclusively on grades leads to Kashawn Campbell at the low end—hell, Kashawn’s story singlehandedly reveals the need for test scores, the fraudulence of high school grades, and the sketchy nature of college grades in one neat little package.

“But more importantly, a huge number of the Asians admitted are either nationals or first and second generation Chinese, Koreans, and Indians.

“None of what I’ve written or will write is intended in any way to rationalize the discrimination against Asians. Quite the contrary. Any fair admissions process would lead to overrepresentation of Asians. But I hope to persuade readers that college admissions in its current form, in both private and public schools, is so corrupt that getting outraged about discrimination for or against any one demographic is pointless. Any outrage you find is counterbalanced by another, and no, it’s not as if it all works out.”

What a vivid account of how race works at UC, Prop 209 or no Prop 209, and of how college administrators think.

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