Diversity, Opportunity, and the Shifting Meritocracy in Higher Education

TLDR

The article investigates how the relative importance of test scores versus performance-based criteria in college admissions evolved during the 1980s and 1990s and what that means for affirmative action. Using four datasets and statistical simulations that manipulate the inclusion of test scores or class rank, the study evaluates how different merit criteria affect enrollment patterns and institutional diversity. Results confirm a shifting meritocracy: institutions increasingly rely on test scores, which hampers diversity unless race‑sensitive preferences are applied, yet simulations and evidence from Texas’s top‑10 percent law show that performance-based criteria can preserve diversity and graduation rates, indicating the merit‑diversity tension arises only when merit is narrowly defined by test scores.

Abstract

This article uses four data sets to assess changes in the relative weights of test- and performance-based merit criteria on college enrollment during the 1980s and 1990s and considers their significance for affirmative action. Our results support the “shifting meritocracy” hypothesis, revealed by selective postsecondary institutions' increased reliance on test scores to screen students. This shift has made it difficult for institutions to achieve diversity without giving minorities a “boost” through race-sensitive preferences. Statistical simulations that equalize, hold constant, or exclude test scores or class rank from the admission decision illustrate that reliance on performance-based criteria is highly compatible with achieving institutional diversity and does not lower graduation rates. Evidence from a natural experiment in Texas after the implementation of the “top 10 percent” law supports this conclusion. The apparent tension between merit and diversity exists only when merit is narrowly defined by test scores.