Friday Edition: Checking In on Affirmative Action
Plus: Putting a price on Trump and Kamala's campaign promises.
Bubba
30 Aug
Fox News contributor Guy Benson had a pretty good take on Kamala Harris’ interview with CNN last night:
Mixed marks for Bash, who pushed on some necessary subjects, but missed glaring follow-ups. I get she was pressed for time. The literal set-up was weird. The shots looked strange & not terribly well lit.
Harris served up a few word-salady struggles, but not the sort of meandering mess we’ve seen before. We gleaned very little in terms of what she actually believes or would do. She offered no actual explanations for her litany of changed positions. Weak spin on economy and immigration. Didn’t seem to break from Biden on any substance, but wants to break from the past, including from her own current administration. Thats an awkward needle to thread & her efforts were not terribly coherent or persuasive.
(Mostly unresponsive and bad ‘answers’ from Walz to some pointed questions btw).
Conservatives calling her performance a total meltdown/disaster are overstating it. Lefties hailing it as some triumph...lol, I mean, even left-leaning CNN commentators didn’t sound too hot on what they’d just watched.
It was generally non-elucidating and unimpressive, offered some fodder for the opposition, and (embarrassingly belatedly) checked a box without inflicting major damage. A low bar was met, but the reasons for the lowness of the bar were re-confirmed.
1. A Surprising Turn of Events
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Have concerns about ending affirmative action at universities been overblown? (The Tulane Hullabaloo)
The latest: Tulane University has revealed the composition of its class of 2028, the first group admitted after the Supreme Court's June 2023 ruling that effectively banned affirmative action in college admissions.
14% of students are first-generation college students, up 4% from the previous year.
13% of students are Federal Pell Grant recipients, also up by 4% from last year.
28% of Tulane’s class of 2028 identifies as a person of color, a 3% decrease compared to the class of 2027.
Tulane dean of admissions Shawn Abbott:
The growth in enrolling students from low-income backgrounds is historic. At the same time, our decrease in racial diversity was very modest.
The trend: Other universities have seen similar results.
Washington University saw a modest decrease in Hispanic, black and Asian students, along with a slight increase in Pell-eligible, low income and first generation students.
50% of Fordham’s class of 2028 are students of color—the highest percentage ever at the university.
A record-high 27% of Fordham’s students are first-generation college students, up from 24% last year.
Related: There was a sharp decline in black and Latino enrollment at highly selective MIT.
Black student enrollment dropped from 15% last year to 5%.
Hispanic and Latino student enrollment fell to 11% from 16% last year.
The share of first generation and Pell-eligible students increased slightly compared to the MIT Classes of 2024–2027.
Bubba’s Two Cents
If you want to help historically marginalized students, focusing on socioeconomic status seems like an approach all Americans could theoretically get behind. It's still early, but the increase in low-income students being admitted to these universities suggests to me affirmative action wasn’t working exactly as intended.
2. Putting a Price on Trump and Kamala’s Campaign Vows
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Judging purely on campaign promises, neither 2024 presidential candidate seems all that concerned about the historically high national debt. (Axios)
Chart: Axios
Donald Trump: Per a new Penn Wharton Budget Model analysis, the former president’s proposals would increase the national debt by $5.8 trillion over 10 years.
Extending individual income tax cuts would cost $3.4 trillion.
Extending corporate income tax cuts brings the total cost to over $4 trillion.
Further reducing the corporate tax rate to 15% from 21% would cost $600 billion.
Abolishing income tax on Social Security benefits would add $1.2 trillion to the debt.
Kamala Harris: The vice president’s proposals would up the debt by $1.2 trillion over 10 years, according to Penn Wharton’s Budget Model.
Harris’ plan to increase the corporate income tax to 28% would raise $1.1 trillion.
Increasing child tax credits, expanding earned income tax credits and other social policies would add roughly $600 billion.
Additional child tax credit expansions would cost $1.7 trillion over a decade.
Related: According to a Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget analysis, Trump ran the debt up higher than President Biden, even when accounting for COVID relief.
Chart: Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget
An eye-popping statistic: Just 2% of voters said the debt was the biggest problem facing the country in Gallup’s latest survey of Americans’ biggest concerns.
Bubba’s Two Cents
Even Trump allies, like Stephen Moore, an economic advisor to Trump’s 2016 campaign, have called the total debt racked up during Trump’s term, “staggering.” On the other hand, it’s not like Democrats are thrifty when it comes to spending either (Side note: The House’s GOP-led Budget Committee takes issue with several aspects of the CFRB’s analysis of Trump and Biden’s debt impacts). The bottom line is it’s a hard political sell to talk about taking stuff away and making cuts.
3. Let the Kids Play
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In an age of screens, social media and declines in youth mental health, could the answer be giving kids more time for unstructured free play? (After Babel)
A case study: After Kevin Stinehart’s South Carolina elementary school introduced a Let Play Grow club, which gives kids screen- and phone-free unstructured play time, students made remarkable behavioral improvements.
Office referrals for behavior fell from 225 per year to 45.
Truancy issues fell from 54 to 30 incidents.
Threats decreased from 9 incidents to zero.
A Long Island University study found a major increase in math and reading scores for students who participated in the club.
Stinehart, who’s been a public school teacher for more than a decade:
Evolution has given children an intense drive to play for a reason. When adults can get out of their way, with our fears and meddling, unstructured play can give kids exactly what they need to navigate the world successfully and thrive -- just as it always has.
Zoom out: A 2016 report from the Alliance From Childhood Policy found children aged 10 to 16 spend only 12.6 minutes per day in vigorous physical activity, while spending an average of 10.4 waking hours mostly motionless.
According to a University of Michigan study, time spent playing among children aged 6 to 8 decreased by 25% from 1981 to 1997.
Another study, conducted by the academic Rhonda Clements, found that while 70% of mothers reported playing outdoors daily as children, only 31% said their children did the same.
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