Friday, June 02, 2006

T.T. Ram Mohan: Making a mess of quotas


Affirmative action in higher education requires maintaining a balance between social benefits, such as providing adequate representation to all groups, and costs such as the lowering of standards in higher education.

The higher the quota, the greater the likelihood that the costs outweigh the benefits. Reservation up to as high as 50% in educational institutions can be justified only by large social benefits.

T.T. Ram Mohan, professor of finance at IIM-A, in this opinion piece in yesterday's Economic Times.

Ram Mohan's previous two articles on quotas can be found here (which I had linked to earlier) and here. In particular, the latter is about affirmative action in jobs, a topic so hot that I haven't touched it yet!

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