Justice Dept. to Take On Affirmative Action in College Admissions

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Originally Posted by InformedConsent

I'm not buying that. There are all kinds of government grants, scholarships, and other financial aid available to low-income minority students that the white middle class students can't get.

ReineDeCoeur is correct to asses that money does play a factor in college attendance for many black people.

What about working class to middle class blacks? That makes up the majority of black americans. What do they get? My sister graduated with $38k in student loans. I no longer qualified for a pell grant when my income reached $12k my first year working combined with my dad's working class $42k yr at the time. He could in no way help me pay for school and they don't give out student loans for public community colleges to my knowledge. If I didn't have an academic scholarship I would have had to stop attending after my first year.

If a one time $300 minority grant towards my tuition, that I didn't ask for or had any knowledge of, constituted as lopsided unfair advantage against white students, I don't know what to tell you.

Black students have to take out loans just like their white counterparts. I would say that the majority of black college students don't know about all of these 'wonderful loans' for minorities that you guys always talk about. Many of them end up saddled with student loan debt with mediocre job prospects just like any other student in today's economy. Only, they don't have the same general economic safety net that their white counterparts have. The wealth gap between whites and blacks as a whole are real, even if it's not so apparent to some who like to act like an ostrich.

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Originally Posted by InformedConsent

Why are their public schools subpar? We already know it isn't lack of funding. Camden, NJ and Washington, DC spend among the most per student of all public school districts in the US yet continue to have subpar schools.

How much of that funding actually makes it into the classroom? It seems that many public school systems tend to be top heavy in administration.

Low test scores! Let's cut teachers and add some more administrative level people to micro manage teachers even more.

I will agree with you; that the majority of your inner-city public school systems leave much to be desired. I just don't think a voucher program or charter schools will solve the problems. In my city, charter schools, which just came online in the last few years, for the most part are doing worse than the city schools.