Should higher education be available to all
While higher education should be available to all students, I am sorry to say I strongly believe that the higher education of better quality should be available only to better students because this is a simple resource management issue although it would hurt many people’s feeling.
It is given that colleges and universities cannot possibly be built equally with the same quality of facility, faculty, curriculum, etc., which resulted in different school reputation. Therefore, certain schools must be more competitive than others. Then the question is who should be selected to attend the better schools.
In California universities, there used to be a quota system ensuring students’ race distribution does not deviate too much from that of the entire state. However, students in different ethnic groups do score very differently in the standard SAT and ACT exams. As a result, the minimum admission scores were quite different for different ethnic groups. The local newspapers called it reverse race discrimination and California state government reportedly cancelled the quota system few years ago.
As a matter of fact, Germany has been administering an exam at the end of primary school for years to divide their students into two categories. One for higher education and the other for vocational training. A system like this would make sure that limited educational resources are used in the most effective ways.
As for China, late Chairman Mao did make all the universities in China open to public, which lasted as long as 10 years! The result? These students were criticized as having college student’s title, using high-school textbooks and staying at primary school level. Not only the society refused to recognize them as college students, even the government called them college trainee instead of college student!
Again, it would hurt some people’s feeling, but the policy is strongly supported by early genetic research. My education psychology textbook described tracking investigation on twins from the same egg, but growing up in different families for whatever reasons. If all babies were born equal in their future physical and mental abilities, there would be much less correlation between the twins than that between the twin and his/her sibling in the foster family. Unfortunately, statistics is science from God. The conclusion in the textbook is that the babies’ future physical and mental abilities are 75% related to genes and 25% to the post-born environment and personal effort.
The truth is obviously there, but to be politically correct is something I admit very necessary. This is why every country is sending better students to better schools, but keeping the issue low-key.
