More on the threat to higher education

OK, last time I covered a new kind of educational practice--companies that offer tests for students to show their abilities without having to attend hugely expensive colleges. Of course, these colleges and universities won't let this happen without a fight.

One way they can strike back has to do with court decisions. The article I read in the Chronicle of Higher Education mentioned Griggs v. Duke Power Co. (1971), in which the U.S. Supreme Court held that companies could not administer IQ tests because they had a racially "disparate impact"--meaning, it discriminates against blacks because they score more poorly on average than whites do.

The Chronicle notes that the disparate-impact test in Griggs, written into law in the Civil Rights Act of 1991, applies only to employers. Educational institutions are free to administer IQ tests, which is essentially what the SAT and other entrance exams are. To assure that their degrees pass muster as a condition of employment, colleges and universities go to extreme lengths to ensure a "diverse" student body, including discriminating in favor of blacks (and selected other minorities) in admissions.

As I blogged some time ago, colleges and universities have developed sprawling bureaucracies to encourage "diversity," at the expense of traditional academics. They suggest strongly that IQ tests are racist, thus keeping them in business and throwing doubt on tests that might replace their power.

The higher education industry's credential cartel is under financial threat owing to the necessity of state and local (and eventually federal) budget cuts and the increasing sense that a degree isn't worth incurring a mountain of debt.

Here's some good news. It has been reported that higher education's use of these racial preferences is under legal threat. There is a strong likelihood that the Supreme Court will abolish or severely curtail the use of racial preferences in college admissions sometime in the next few years. Sounds good to me.

Now, thanks to these testing companies, there is a competitive threat as well. You can expect that the higher-ed industry will do whatever it can to crush this threat. The obvious point of attack would be to claim that the new skills tests have a racially disparate impact. So, get ready, ETS and CAE. The Ivy League is coming after you.