Race and College Admissions: An Alternative to Affirmative Action?
Abstract
During the late 1990s, several states eliminated affirmative action admissions policies at their public colleges. Some of these states substituted a program that grants admission to the top x% of each high school's graduating class. These new programs were instituted in efforts to restore minority college enrollments to their prior levels. This paper finds that the preferences given to minority applicants under affirmative action are large and that the minority share of admitted students in top-tier institutions would fall substantially after eliminating these preferences. However, there are not sufficient numbers of minorities in the top x% of their high school for the expected recovery from an x% program to be very large. Furthermore, most minority beneficiaries would have been accepted without these programs. As a result, x% programs are unable to replace traditional affirmative action and maintain the share of minority students.
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Selective schools see a drop in minority enrollment following affirmative action bans, while overall college enrollment rates remain relatively unaffected following a ban.
“While estimates suggest selective schools see a drop in minority enrollment following affirmative action bans(Long 2004 andHinrichs 2012), overall college enrollment rates remain relatively unaffected following a ban(Backes 2012 andHinrichs 2012).”
From Affirmative action and university fit: evidence from Proposition 209 (2014) · cites this paper as Long 2004
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Affirmative action and university fit: evidence from Proposition 209
Arcidiacono, P., Aucejo, E., Coate, P., & Hotz, V. J. (2014) · IZA Journal of Labor Economics · doi:10.1186/2193-8997-3-7 · Cited by 70 · see citing works
- Authors
- Long, M. C.
- Affiliations
- University of Washington (US)
- Corresponding author
- Long, Mark C.
- ORCID
- Long, Mark C.
- Venue
- Review of Economics and Statistics
- Publisher
- MIT Press - Journals
- Published
- 2004-11
- Volume
- 86
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 1020-1033
- ISSN
- 0034-6535 (ISSN-L)
- 1530-9142
- OpenAlex
- W2102597136
- Cited by
- 150
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 8 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 9 · 2022: 7 · 2021: 2 · 2020: 9 · 2019: 3 · 2018: 5 · 2017: 5 · 2016: 9 · 2015: 10 · 2014: 12 · 2013: 6 · 2012: 12
- FWCI
- 16.48
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- The Review of Economics and Statistics (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Education › Higher Education Research Studies
- Social Sciences › Education › School Choice and Performance
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Intergenerational and Educational Inequality Studies
- Keywords
- affirmative action, university admission, minority candidates
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