One of the most disastrous shams to have occurred in postmodernity is the socialist presumption that one's achieved status (what you've accomplished) is less important than one's ascribed status (what you were born as) for entrance into higher education.

To justify university admission "because I'm a man/woman," "because I'm Black/White," "because I'm rich/poor" is counter-productive and irrelevant in an intellectual milieu that formerly required advanced critical thinking, advanced logical prowess, and the utmost in honest self-awareness and self-regulation. Admitting too many ill-prepared students without these essential attributes has turned the hallowed halls of education into the hollowed halls of political conceit and contrivance.***

Historically, the sculptor (the educator) shaped the marble (the student), not vice versa, but today, the opposite occurs, forcing or limiting curriculum that barely scratches the surface of what students need to know for a robust education. It's not "higher" education if the student never climbs above the foothills (or even valleys) to the mountain top. Time to return to a Golden Age of education where attainment is more important than appeasement, where students encounter rigorous educators and not just bureaucratic facilitators.

***I blame the secondary education system for poorly training students to be better thinkers, communicators, and better-read BEFORE entering college.