A new study on the feasibility of admissions lotteries found “dramatic and negative potential effects” on the admission of students of color, low-income students, and men.
The findings complicate a widely-held notion that random-draw lotteries could make the admissions process more equitable, reported The Chronicle of Higher Education. Proponents argue that lotteries will be fair, equitable, eliminate corruption, reduce student anxiety, restore democratic ideals, and end debates over race-conscious admissions.
“Lotteries have been championed as a potential solution for addressing admissions practices at selective colleges that have long favored White and wealthy families, but our simulations find that lotteries could backfire, dramatically reducing the admit rate of students of color or from low-income backgrounds,” said Dominique J. Baker, an assistant professor of education policy at Southern Methodist University and a co-author of the study.
The study, conducted by Baker and Michael N. Bastedo, a professor of education at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, simulated potential lottery effects on student enrollment by race, gender, and income, using robust simulation methods and multiple minimum thresholds for grades and standardized tests. The researchers found that, in the overwhelming majority of lottery simulations, the proportions of low-income students and students of color drop precipitously, in some models to below 2 percent of the class. GPA-only and SAT-only lotteries did not result in a pool of students with a greater share of low-income admits. Additionally, the study details how lotteries would result in wide and unpredictable variations in the demographics of admitted classes from year to year, even with no eligibility requirements other than a high school diploma or GED.
“This means that institutions could not ensure that each year’s admitted class would have a significant amount of racial or ethnic diversity,” said Baker. “In addition, institutions would have to make new calculations each year about who would actually choose to enroll, and campus offices for housing, financial aid, new student programs, and the like would need to adjust.”
Baker added that colleges would also have less control over the composition of their classes in terms of student majors or extracurricular activities.
Related Links
American Educational Research Association Press Release on the Study
The Chronicle of Higher Education
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