GRE Causes Wealth Inequality
This post talks about how the GRE sets up a situation that favors wealthy applicants over poorer applicants. Not sure how I feel about his position.
Walzer develops an “open ended distributive principle,” whereby “No social good x should be distributed to men and women who possess some other good y merely because they possess y and without regard to the meaning of x.” In the case of education, there is an ongoing debate over the exact criteria of merit that should govern the distribution of admissions slots at colleges and professional schools. However, there should be consensus that using money to get “inside information” about tests is a troubling development. The law should try to ameliorate the differential access of poor and rich to courses designed to prepare them for the SAT, LSAT, MBE, and other pivotal tests.
In a lot of ways this is what i’ve been trying to say. If the GRE does not test knowledge then how why should it be used as a method of evaluating merit?
August 19th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
Your precious free market has allowed ETS to corner the market on graduate testing.
August 19th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
Kaplan saves me bitch.
August 19th, 2008 at 7:27 pm
It’s so true… Kaplan and other advanced preparations have allowed for students to blow away former national averages. For students enrolled in these classes that attend and apply the learning, my guess is they easily out-compete students with similar intelligence and dedication that can’t afford such courses.
The same can be said for private schools and admission to college. I’m sure that prestigious schools on an applicant’s resume impress college administrators much more than a random public school.
I’m not sure what the ultimate answer may be, but I have no trouble believing the notion that colleges and professional schools still cater to the financially elite.
Oh, and if state sponsored financial aid allows too many “regular joes” in the door, the republican president will just support bills cutting back on graduate student loans!!!
August 20th, 2008 at 9:59 am
So what if the tests do favor wealthy applicants over poor ones? Wouldn’t you be comfortable with the assertion that the fact that an applicant is wealthy indicates that he or she is better?
August 20th, 2008 at 10:38 am
But Steve, you think that rich people should have a larger vote in governemnt because they’ve proven how competent they are by getting rich. Shouldn’t they also be considered more highly by graduate programs for the same reason? Isn’t this just a mechanism for that advantage to be expressed?
August 20th, 2008 at 10:54 am
Darwin,
I think wealthy people should have a say over how their money should be spent because they have proven track record of creating wealth. I make no claims about expanding the power of the wealthy in government. In fact, I would argue that many of the policies you support unintentionally expand the rich people’s power in goverment.
Dan,
Are you smoking crack?
Jamie,
VOTE MCCAIN. KEEP THE ELITES ELITE.
August 24th, 2008 at 4:26 pm
No. Have you or have you not asserted that wealthy people are those who are more valuable to society?
How can you object to the test providing an advantage to individuals who are more valuable to society?