UC talks of wider entrance policy - NON-ACADEMIC SUCCESS WEIGHED
The California talk started with seeing decline in minority presence in the UC enrollment. It argues that GPA and SAT only based admission policy is not adequate. It then talk about expanding the UC system and that, with the expansion of the US, it will not affect the traditionally admitted student groups.
What bothers me is that the talks are mixed with all sorts of twists and make you wanted to sort it out for clarity.
In general, it is never a bad thing to provide education to greater population. However, we need to be practical in that resources are limited. The goal is to advance the human race with reasonable resources. The term Advance the human race should include working ethic and not just the knowledge. We could invest all the resources we have in education without any restriction, but will that advance the human race? We may end up with everyone are equally poor - the practice of communism.
The issue is, then, what is the reasonable criteria for admission with a given resources or spots. The admission criteria and the resources commitment are really two questions. If we decided that to advance the society, we need more educated people, we should, then, increase the resources. On the other hand, with the given number of spots, we should debate on what's the best admission criteria. These can include all factors. But the goal remains to best use of the resources to advance the society. The criteria can be a moving target but the goal should be clearly thought and set and is relatively un-moved in relation to the admission criteria! For example, the affirmative action may have it's need at some point in time. However, since the equality or, more broadly, the advance of human race is the goal, the affirmative action can be consider obstruction to the equality at a later time.
After examining the case, the California talk is, to me, like a political motivated policy - relatively low key goals coated with education reform and drawing support by claiming benefit to all with assumed endorsement from public resources. What a policy proposal.