Advances in Economics, Management and Political Sciences
- The Open Access Proceedings Series for Conferences
Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Economic Management and Green Development
Series Vol. 34 , 10 November 2023
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Expanding Access to Higher Education: The Case for Using Minority Quotas or Reserves to Increase Diversity
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Abstract
This project report aims to explore the use of minority quotas or minority reserves as a means of increasing diversity in university admissions and widening access. The report provides a critical review of the literature on this topic, outlines the benefits and drawbacks of using quotas and reserves, and presents a mathematical model which introduces a fairness constraint to the Men-proposing Deferred Acceptance (DA) Algorithm to address the issues of underrepresented minority groups and promote diversity in the college admissions process. The model is used to match students and schools in a way that maximizes diversity while maintaining fairness and efficiency. This report provides proof and computational results to demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach. The report draws on Alvin E. Roth's “The Art of Designing Markets” to underscore the importance of designing effective market mechanisms that address the challenges of diversity and equity in university admissions. The report concludes that minority quotas and reserves can be effective tools for promoting diversity and social justice in higher education, but that they must be implemented carefully and in conjunction with other policies aimed at addressing structural inequalities.
Keywords
diversity and inclusivity, minority quotas or reserves, matching markets
References
1. Gale, D., & Shapley, L. S.: College admissions and the stability of marriage. American Mathematical Monthly 69(1), 9-15 (1962).
2. Abdulkadiroglu, A., & Sonmez, T.: Matching Markets: Theory and Practice. In D. Acemoglu, M. Arellano, & E. Dekel (Eds.), Advances in Economics and Econometrics: Tenth World Congress. Cambridge University Press (2013).
3. Martinez, E., & Klopott, L.: Racial quotas in Brazil and their effects on university access and racial gaps. World Development, 136, 105123 (2020).
4. Bowen, W. G., & Bok, D.: The shape of the river: Long-term consequences of considering race in college and university admissions. Princeton University Press (1998).
5. Stinebrickner, T. R., & Stinebrickner, R.: A major in science? Initial beliefs and final outcomes for college major and dropout. The Review of Economic Studies, 81(1), 426-472 (2014).
6. Hurwitz, M., & Gersen, J. E.: Learning from litigation: What does the University of Michigan affirmative action case teach us? In The affirmative action debate (pp. 13-24). Routledge (2014).
7. Roth, A. E.: The art of designing markets. Harvard Business Review 85(10), 127-136 (2007).
8. Roth, A. E.: Deferred acceptance algorithms: History, theory, practice, and open questions. International Journal of Game Theory 36(3-4), 537-569 (2008).
9. Roth, A. E.: Who Gets What—and Why: The New Economics of Matchmaking and Market Design. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (2015).
10. Roth, A. E.: The economist as engineer: Game theory, experimentation, and computation as tools for design economics. Econometrica, 70(4), 1341-1378 (2002).
Data Availability
The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study will be available from the authors upon reasonable request.
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- Volume Title
- Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Economic Management and Green Development
- ISBN (Print)
- 978-1-83558-089-9
- ISBN (Online)
- 978-1-83558-090-5
- Published Date
- 10 November 2023
- Series
- Advances in Economics, Management and Political Sciences
- ISSN (Print)
- 2754-1169
- ISSN (Online)
- 2754-1177
- DOI
- 10.54254/2754-1169/34/20231676
- Copyright
- 10 November 2023
- Open Access
- This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited