How would the sacrifice be for naught? The kid is presumably smarter and harder working and better prepared for success no matter what college they go to.
But for college admissions, I don't think it is unreasonable to judge a kid for how well they did relative to the advantages they were given.
Your parents making a sacrifice isn't the same thing as you making a sacrifice.
If my dad makes a sacrifice by working 100 hours a week to buy me a Maserati, the car is definitely a privilege not something I earned. And yeah, I may have lost out on spending time with my dad, but that wasn't a choice I made, so while it cost me something it wasn't a sacrifice on my part.
For many Asian-American's their children's education is a dream that they plan out and sacrifice for so that their kin can have better opportunity than what they managed for themselves. Many are tightly knit families where children look after parents or other close family members later in life. To penalise and denigrate the efforts of such families as "privilege" is awful.
Many White, Black, and Hispanic families do the same thing. It's not denigrating that sacrifice to acknowledge that being born into cohesive, supportive family that values hard work is a privilege that many poor children do not have.
Are you truly comparing the scholarship need-based policies of one wealthy, private college to a fundamental change in the Scholastic Assessment Test used nation wide ? You have a choice to apply to Harvard - there is very little choice apart from SAT/ACT for higher education in the states.
Are you avoiding the question? I'll rephrase it. If I give $5k dollars per year for college to every student in America whose parents make under $100k a year, am I denigrating the hard work of the parents who make more than that?
If I give $5k dollars per year, for college, to every student in America whose parents make under $100k a year, am I denigrating the hard work of the parents who make more than that?
No, you certainly are not. But this is completely different from adding a hidden adversity score to the SAT. Your proposal is equality of opportunity to earn merit. The other proposal is manipulation of outcome to negate merit.
Equal opportunity vs equal outcome is just a matter of perspective. If we take the desired outcome as can complete college then both proposals are attempting to provide equal opportunity.
Declaring that one denigrates people while the other doesn't based solely on outcome vs opportunity requires arbitrarily picking an observation point that supports your view.
From any remotely objective view-point, a policy that chooses to add a hidden adversity score based on poverty, single-parenting and perceived hardship to a test that is designed as a measure of your scholastic ability is most certainly denigrating to folks who have chosen to lift themselves out of that adversity through experience of great adversity!
A policy that gives 5K to low-income families to allow their children to compete effectively on the SAT is not denigrating.
I firmly believe that if you pose this question to the world, a near complete majority of people will rule the latter is fair, the former is not. There is no arbitrary pick of an observation point here. These are two completely different policies.
And the first sentence is strange. If equal opportunity versus equal outcome is a merely a matter of perspective, then you can draw your lines even further! After all, whatever effects poverty and weaker education had on students in their ability to perform on the SAT certainly won’t have disappeared once they stroll across the campus green!
You can contribute the hidden adversity scores to course grades, contribute it to graduate honors, contribute it further to employment opportunity and promotion. You can draw your line at retirement and benefits if equal opportunity vs equal outcome is merely a matter of perspective.
Yes, of course you can because the distinction is arbitrary. What people decide to think of as outcome vs opportunity tends to reflect the distinction that benefits them the most.
Even the definition of merit and earned achievement is largely arbitrary. I'm successful because of the way I was created and raised. It's not a personal accomplishment.
Hard work should be rewarded because it's a basically useful for society to do so, not because it's some kind of absolute moral imperative.
To the extent that this proposal ceases to award hard work, from a societal perspective, it's gone too far. However it doesn't come close to doing that.
Looking at the metrics they're using, the only likely widescale impact on behavior is that people are less likely to move to rich neighborhoods with high scoring schools. I don't see this as a problem.
I agree, but do we really want to disincentivise parents sacrificing for their children's education? I'm fine with taxing Maseratis at whatever rate, not so fine with this.
For society as a whole I don't think it is particularly beneficial to encourage people to move to rich neighborhoods/better school districts. The other factors are so far removed from most individual's control that I don't think we'll see much of an impact on behavior.
Sometimes it's hard to see the second order effects of our actions, but it seems pretty clear cut how society will be affected if you punish people willing to invest in their childrens' education.
