Admission to selective colleges has grown more competitive, yielding student bodies that are unrepresentative of the U.S. population. Admission officers report using sorting (e.g., GPA, standardized tests) and concertedly cultivated (e.g., extracurricular activities) and ascriptive status (e.g., whether an applicant identifies as a member of a…

In Chapter 1, we study the allocation of homogeneous positions under affirmative action policies where some positions are reserved for underrepresented groups on a "minimum guarantee" basis. Each individual has a merit-based score and may be eligible for multiple reserves. When an individual counts towards each of the reserves that she…

This study examines the perceptions of university students from inter-ethnic marriage families (hereafter as multicultural students) on their experiences with affirmative action policy. Ten university multicultural students who entered leading universities through affirmative action amidst the highly competitive higher education entrance exams in…

The value of a college degree continues to rise. A bachelor's degree in particular provides unrivaled economic and health benefits not just for the individual earning the degree, but for the entire state. Therefore, it is not surprising to see growing demand for a college education coupled with growing eligibility for California's public…

The creation of racially diverse colleges at all levels of selectivity has proven to be no small task, even with the legal use of race-conscious affirmative action. As evidenced in the postsecondary destinations of the high school class of 2004, very selective schools (those with Barron's Selectivity rankings of 1, 2 or 3) have many more White,…

In signing off the majority opinion in "Grutter v. Bollinger," Justice Sandra Day O'Connor opined, "That 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest approved today" (2003, p. 342). The Supreme Court's acceptance of "Fisher v. University of Texas," however, may signal an end to affirmative…

Justice Goodwin Liu reexamined seminal affirmative action in higher education legal cases beginning with the landmark 1978 case, "Regents of the University of California v. Bakke" and leading up to the U.S. Supreme Court's 2003 decision in "Gratz v. Bollinger." Liu argued that the "Bakke and Gratz" lawsuits were…

This paper briefly reviews the various efforts undertaken by the University of California to maintain diversity in the institution, and especially at its highly competitive flagship campuses, UCLA and Berkeley, in the face of the loss of affirmative action during the mid-1990s. It demonstrates the continuing decline in representation of…

In light of the recent bans on affirmative action in higher education, this paper provides new evidence on the effects of alternative admissions policies on the persistence and college completion of minority students. I find that the change from affirmative action to the Top 10% Plan in Texas decreased both retention and graduation rates of…