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
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.