[Lawtonfogle]

I think the argument was 'if you ban quotas based on race in favor of other measure which should still help increase diversity, you don't get as good an effect as just quotas'.

That it is lower shouldn't be surprising, but how much lower or higher than the expected lower might be surprising.

[gareim]

>which should still help increase diversity

I think quotas by income would be a much more interesting experience for college students than quotas by race.

[bduerst]

You would still have people complaining that it's not entirely merit based.

The point is that socioeconomic status (correlated with race and family income) has already impacted someone by the time they reach college application age. The idea behind quotas in public institutions is that it gives opportunity to those who did not have them previously.

A better analysis would be based on graduate performance, rather than admission rates, for demonstrating success.