THE UNIVERSITY feels the University of Michigan's pain this month, as President Bush petitions the Supreme Court to strike down race-based admissions policies at the law school and undergraduate colleges. Many may recall that it was not so long ago that this institution became dragged into the debate within the national media about race-based admissions. Even this year, questions of a racial nature have been picked up by the local and national press. And now, the Virginia General Assembly is making an issue of race when it comes to institutions of higher education.
Senator Mary Margaret Whipple (D-Alexandria) has introduced a bill that would create a quota-acceptance system at public colleges ensuring the top 5 percent of each graduating class to automatically be accepted to publicly-funded institutions. This bill will likely not create the racial diversity Ms. Whipple intends, and will wreak havoc upon the entire public education system in Virginia.
President Bush created a similar quota system for public schools in Texas during his gubernatorial administration in that state. The concept makes sense at first glance. Although race-neutral in the selection process, by promoting students from less affluent school districts it creates parity for disadvantaged students, thereby tacitly promoting minorities and the socio-economically underprivileged. However, this approach has many unforeseen consequences that make it undesirable for use in Virginia's system.
First, in Texas, after the system was implemented the top ranks of students were statutorily entitled to placement in the public university or college of their choice. This usually meant the University of Texas at Austin or Texas A&M. Incoming class sizes ballooned under the pressure from these students. Although mineral rights owned by these schools in the Lone Star State provided revenue that allowed for construction to accommodate this influx, Virginia benefits from no such fortune. Not only would Virginia not be able to build to keep up with the explosion (we can't even build to accommodate the status quo now), but the increased university size would severely impact the educational mission of the top schools in the Commonwealth, namely the University and William and Mary, because of an institutional commitment to smaller size. All of these considerations would have to be tossed out the window if the percentage system were to pass.
This style of admissions also would wreck the efforts of the past decade to increase the overall competitiveness of Virginia's mid-range institutions. Currently, the University, William and Mary and Virginia Tech do not always take the top five students from every public school. Indeed, not every public high school equally prepares its students for a higher education, and admissions offices take that into account. For students who do not make the cut, James Madison, Longwood, George Mason, Old Dominion and other institutions have become slowly more competitive in relation to the University and William and Mary over the past decade. This trend would reverse should the entire 5 percent population receive their education in Charlottesville, Williamsburg and Blacksburg. Such policies do not take Virginia's public higher education in the right direction.
Finally, as said previously, different regions and disparate school districts produce high schools of varying competitiveness. The playing field is not even. Variety is important -- it has been said before that the entire first-year class could be taken from the Fairfax public school system and not sacrifice much -- but the admissions office values the benefit of a diverse education, both in terms of regional and racial diversity. All of these factors require difficult decisions on a case by case basis. A blanket 5 percent system only ties the hands of school admissions officers and allows less competitive students to displace those who might not rank as highly in more gifted programs. Public schools such as the Thomas Jefferson School for Science and Technology send as many as 100 or more qualified students every year. Norfolk Academy, a mid-sized private school in Hampton Roads, sends a fourth or more of its graduating class. However, the percentage system would most certainly make it difficult for such programs to continue to pump in that kind of yield.
The percentage system would force students out of competitive schools into less competitive programs late in their academic career so that they would place higher in their class. Clearly, this is not the right way to improve the quality of our public education.
Although the president may be very proud of his program in Texas -- and similar systems abound in Florida and California -- the program is not right for Virginia. Even if the program were a good idea, which it is decidedly not, we would not have the resources to implement it effectivly due to the budget cuts. Let us hope that the General Assembly waits for a mandate from the Supreme Court to tinker with college admissions. We have enough problems in this Commonwealth to demand their attention for the time being.
(Preston Lloyd's column appears Thursdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at plloyd@cavalierdaily.com.)
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