What If We Leave It Up to Chance? Admissions Lotteries and Equitable Access at Selective Colleges

Many prominent social scientists have advocated for random-draw lotteries as a solution to the “problem” of elite college admissions. They argue that lotteries will be fair, equitable, eliminate corruption, reduce student anxiety, restore democratic ideals, and end debates over race-conscious admissions. In response, we simulate potential lottery effects on student enrollment by race, gender, and income, using robust simulation methods and multiple minimum thresholds for grades and standardized tests. In the overwhelming majority of lottery simulations, the proportions of low-income students and students of color drop precipitously. With a GPA minimum, we find the proportion of men could drop as low as one third. Admissions lotteries with minimum bars for GPA and/or standardized tests do not appear to produce more equitable outcomes.

Between College and That First Job: Designing and Evaluating Policies for Hiring Diversity

Despite widespread caste disparities, compensatory hiring policies remain absent from the Indian private sector. This paper employs novel administrative data on the job search from an elite college and evaluates policies to promote hiring diversity. Application reading, written aptitude tests, large group debates, and job choices do not explain caste disparities. Disparities arise primarily between the final round, comprising non-technical personal interviews, and job offers; the emergence closely parallels caste revelation. For promoting diversity, hiring subsidies — similar in spirit to the government-proposed Diversity Index — are twice as cost-effective as improving pre-college achievement. Conversely, quotas mirror a hiring tax and reduce university recruitment by 7%.

In-and-Out: How Fashion Journalists Write About Black NBA Dandies

The National Basketball Association (NBA), now flush with lucrative television contracts from its broadcast partners and an owner-friendly collective bargaining agreement, is as popular as ever. Besides athleticism only reserved for a small portion of humans and basketball plays that can only be made by not even most elite college players, what also keeps fans on the edge of their seats are the outfits worn by Russell Westbrook, James Harden, Lebron James and the many other fashionable players. Using what Bourdieu’s (1984) termed cultural intermediary in Distinction as a conceptual framework, this study will examine how 12 fashion journalists write about Black NBA dandies. According to Bourdieu (1984), cultural intermediaries are involved in the presentation and representation of cultural and symbolic goods and services, some of whom are salespeople, advertising executives, and interior designers. Cultural intermediaries serve as the link between production and consumption, giving the end consumer access to legitimate culture. As fashion journalists, these participants educate their readers on the latest in bespoke wear, haute couture clothing and Black style. The Black NBA body provides a medium for fashion journalists to highlight the exclusivity and democratic ideals of fashion because of the ways in which they peel off the layers of celebrity, position Black NBA dandies within a network of images, and create a dialectic tension between Black culture and a generic White culture.

The relationship between college athletes' health literacy and COVID-19 anxiety levels

Background and Study Aim. Health literacy is the ability to access health information, understand, evaluate and apply health information. The health literacy of athletes may be determinant in the understanding of the COVID-19 pandemic process and in the level of the impact of this health-related anxiety factor. Therefore, the aim of this study is to examine whether there is a relationship between college athletes' COVID-19 anxiety levels and their health literacy levels during the COVID-19 pandemic. Material and Methods. College athletes between the ages of 18 and 32 participated in the study and the average age was 24.2. A total of 234 elite collage athletes participated in the study. 133 of the participants were males and 101 were females. COVID-19 Anxiety Scale was used to determine the COVID-19 anxiety states and Health Literacy index was used to the level of health literacy of the participants in the COVID-19 pandemic process. Pearson correlation analysis and stepwise regression analysis were performed for statistical analyses. Significance level in analysis has been accepted as p. < 05. Results. Our findings revealed that there were significant relationships between elite athletes' health literacy sub-dimension scores and COVID-anxiety level. In addition, it was determined that access to information and understanding information sub-dimensions from health literacy sub-dimensions predicted elite college athletes’ the COVID-19 anxiety level at 21.2%. As a result, elite college athletes had low levels of anxiety against COVID-19, and this situation associated with their high level of health literacy. Conclusions. The increase of elite college athletes' the level of health literacy will decrease their anxiety levels. It will be beneficial to implement training programs that can increase their health literacy levels in order to reduce the impact of the unexpected health crisis due to COVID-19, especially the anxiety levels of college athletes.

Do elite colleges matter? The impact on entrepreneurship decisions and career dynamics

Elite college attendance significantly impacts students' entrepreneurship decisions and career dynamics. We find that an elite college degree is positively correlated with entrepreneurship (i.e., owning an incorporated business) but not with other self‐employment forms. Our overlapping generations model captures self‐selection in education and career choices based on heterogeneous ability and family wealth endowments over the life cycle. Our estimates show that (1) entrepreneurs and other self‐employed individuals require different types of human capital, and (2) elite colleges generate considerably more human capital gain than ordinary colleges, particularly for entrepreneurs. Distinguishing between elite and ordinary colleges improves our prediction of entrepreneurship decisions. Providing subsidies for elite colleges is more efficient than subsidizing their ordinary counterparts to encourage entrepreneurship, enhance intergenerational mobility, and enhance welfare. In contrast, although start‐up subsidy increases entrepreneurship, it does not improve their performance, and it is inferior to education subsidy in generating efficiency, equality, and intergenerational mobility.