Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by dominotw 3459 days ago
We already have a very accurate system of privilege in 'parental wealth'. It has always puzzled me why people refuse to use this instead of relying of race/sex ect .

wtf. why is this downvoted?

4 comments

Because America has a belief system of a flat society vs a class hierarchy.

Both wealth hierarchies and social class hierarchies exist, but that goes against the narrative.

My theory is that affirmative action gives colleges an excuse to bump up rich, "underprivileged" minorities over poor, "privileged" races so they don't have to give as much financial aid
Absolutely, its not just financial aid but also how much donations you can pull from alumni and their families.
That's certainly a valid suspicion, given the mercenary nature of university management these days, but is it actually borne by facts?
This question nerd sniped me quite hard, and I'm unfortunately having trouble answering it. I figured a first step would be to look at aid as a portion of cost of attendance over time, tracked against affirmative action endeavors. The problem I'm having is finding consistent measures of both aid and COA, let alone over time. If anyone knows a data source that proffers this I'd be quite curious.
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/10/immorality-...

From the article I posted above has some details but not the precise metrics you requested. I'd be interested in those too.

Many colored women say mainstream feminism is primarily for white wealthly women, so it would be why the biggest issue of wealth inequality is dismissed in favor of gender.
Because "wealth" isn't the only sort of privilege that exists in society.
it is the primary one but it doesn't seem to be taken into consideration at all. why is that? Certainly a better indicator of privilege than sex.

eg: 'Only 3.8 percent of American families make more than $200,000 per year. But at Harvard University, 45.6 percent of incoming freshman come from families making $200,000 or more. A mere 4 percent of Harvard students come from a family in the bottom quintile of US incomes, and only 17.8 percent come from the bottom three quintiles'[1].

1. http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/10/immorality-...