The number and proportion of minority students in selective colleges is a function of supply and demand. Most of the controversy, and hence attention, focuses on the demand side of that equation–the steps that selective colleges take to enroll more minorities. These include affirmative action outreach, outright racial preference, “holistic” admission standards that always seem to benefit minorities more than others, etc. Three recent reports, however, reveal that the limited supply of highly qualified minority applicants presents a serious obstacle to even the most ambitious racial tinkering in admissions offices.

It is a sad but simple fact, as ACT and the United Negro College Fund report in a summary of their new report, that “African American students are less likely to meet key benchmarks for college readiness than any other group of underserved students, even when they successfully complete the high school coursework intended to prepare them for college.”

That report, The Condition of College and Career Readiness 2014: African American Students, studied college readiness in four areas: English, reading, math, and science. The results are sobering:

  • Nearly two thirds of African American test takers met none of the four college readiness benchmarks (compared to 31% of all test takers);
  • 17% of African American test takers were found college-ready in reading, 14% in math, and 10% in science (compared to 44%, 43%, and 37% of all test takers);
  • Only 5% of African Americans were found college-ready in all four benchmarks (compared to 26% of all test takers);
  • 11% of African American test takers met three or more of the four benchmarks, compared to 49% of whites and 57% of Asians.

And even the qualified minority students might not apply. Inside Higher Ed, summarizing a new study by National Bureau of Economic Research, reports that minority students were more likely than whites to “under-match” themselves by not applying to selective colleges for which their records would give them a good chance of admission. Instead, “even when controlling for college readiness, high school quality and other factors,” minority students were more likely “to apply to colleges that were closer to their homes, that enrolled large numbers of minority students and that students from their high school had attended and succeeded at in the past.” If they do not apply, no amount of preferential treatment is likely to enroll them.

ACT, along with the National Council for Community and Education Partnerships, also recently tested the college readiness of low-income students (annual family income less than $36,000). That report found that low-income students, a category which of course includes but is not limited to minority students, perform better than minority students alone: 26% were found college-ready in reading (compared to 17% of African Americans), 23% in math (compared to 14%), and 18% in science (compared to 10%). Eleven percent of low-income students were found college-ready in all four areas, compared to 5% of African Americans.

These numbers strongly suggest that class-based affirmative action, if applied in a colorblind manner, would not significantly increase the numbers of minorities admitted to selective institutions.