Grade requirements are responsible for “disproportionately” pushing “students of color” out of STEM disciplines as well as finance and economics fields, according to a recent Salon piece that warned such policies contribute to “persistent racial wage gaps” long after graduation. Salon cites those who suggest adopting a “holistic admissions process” that would “consider not just a student’s GPA but their experiences, their campus involvement, the arc of their academic growth, and other intangibles.”
The Sunday essay — titled “In economics, grade restrictions weed out students of color” and penned by Ashley Smart, associate director of MIT’s Knight Science Journalism program — bears the subheading, “GPA requirements push Black and Hispanic students out of STEM majors — and may widen the wage gap later on.”
The piece, originally published…
