United States | News & Politics

Why not use income and where you live rather than race, then?

I think similar logic to the paradox of tolerance may be applicable here...

It wasn't a perfect solution, but directly correcting the proportions affected by the systemic problem (using same or similar discriminators as the actual problem) was progress in the right direction. That bigot's opinion goes the exact wrong direction; the goal should have been to reach a point where there isn't enough scarcity in higher education for anyone to "lose out". In other words, the policy should try to make itself unnecessary.

I don't claim to have the solution to systemic racism, but I wouldn't be surprised if a reversal of the last half-century's anti-education trends did a lot of the legwork on that by itself. And if there are still systemic issues to address, hey! Now you have a whole lot more educated folks to help figure out what to do from there.

The solution should have been, and still should be, fixing access to schools at the K-12 level. I'm a huge proponent of school choice, but unfortunately that usually ends up just meaning wealthier people get to choose and poorer people get stuck with whatever has bus service.

So my solution is:

1. get rid of school buses entirely in larger cities
2. require cities in larger schools to ensure mass transit exists to all schools in the city
3. provide free transit passes to all students in the city
4. allow students to select their schools with the guidance of a school counselor if parents choose to not get involved
5. allow schools to offer apprenticeship programs during the last two years of K-12 school in lieu of a college-track program
6. allow college debt to be discharged in bankruptcy

This would hopefully do a few things:

• give kids some control over their education
• provide flexibility for kids who decide they college isn't for them
• allow a reset of college ends up not working out for them

The goal shouldn't be getting as many kids into college as possible, but preparing kids for the workforce and post-education life. College is certainly a good path for many, but also it's not for everyone, and the education system should reflect that.

Basing any assistance on race is a terrible policy that will lead to countless kids falling through the cracks because they weren't the right color and live in the wrong location. That's unfair to those kids and it's clear as day. If wealth inequality is the problem, target wealth inequality, don't slap on some half-assed racial band-aid.