College Admissions Quotas Despite Recent

College Admissions Quotas Despite Recent Criticism, Colleges Still Benefit from Their Admissions Quotas Diversity is an essential part of life on a college campus. Colleges need to bring in people from all kinds of diverse backgrounds and cultures as a way to provide a rich atmosphere for all their students. College admissions quotas also give many prospective students a chance they would have normally been unable to pursue. This gives many students the opportunity to truly educate themselves and provide for themselves a more stable future.

Therefore, despite some noted flaws within the structure of affirmative action, many campuses need college admissions quotas to ensure the best academic environment possible for all of their students. Many critics of college admissions quotas have expressed their belief that race should not be the overall factor in the admission of students; many believe this is unfair and racist in itself for it automatically carries on stereotypes that minority students cannot get into universities with their own academic strengths.

After realizing that admissions quotas based purely on race are not always whole beneficial, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that admission quotas can be used but in much more specific ways. The high Court explored the idea that incorporating minorities in higher education is important for academic life, "a broad social value may be gained from diversity in the classroom," (CNN.com 2003).

Although the Court ruled that race cannot be the ultimate decision maker or breaker, colleges should have quotas in mind in order to provide a diverse environment for the benefit of their campuses. Take for example the new procedures of Brazil and the entire backlash that has come with its use of affirmative action. Brazil has recently implemented a race-based quota system in its universities which has been met with harsh criticism.

As Ricardo Rochetti explains in his work, "Not Easy as Black and White: The Implications of the University of Rio de Janeiro's Quota-Based Admissions Policy on Affirmative Action in Brazil," there is not a fully drawn line between the races in Brazil. Therefore, these policies do not fully do what they were meant to do. Due to the racial mixture of the Brazilian people, affirmative action is failing its intended goal. However, Rochetti does see how this system could benefit the population of Brazil with some benefits.

In order to help bridge the gap between the rich educated Brazilians and the poor, uneducated people there, Rochetti believes that admission quotas should be used based not solely on an individual's race, but rather their class (Rochetti 2004). This would help bring in students of all races and mixed races, who would have been otherwise denied access to higher learning and all its benefits after graduation because they did not fit the exact racial profile.

Rochetti believes that admissions quotas are ineffective in Brazil not because they are bad policies, but that they are just not being applied to the populations which need them most. Once adjustments are made, Brazil will also see the benefits of college admissions quotas. Despite criticism, the essential goal of college quotas is beneficial to students and colleges everywhere. Thomas Sowell in his work "Racial Quotas in College Admissions: A Critique of the Bowen and Bok Study," explains how quotas and affirmative action benefit minorities, especially in smaller campus environments.

Not only do they bring in needed cultural perspectives, but.