You're saying they wouldn't necessarily succeed once they get into college, and that's a fair point. I think once they get in, if they can't succeed with the numerous resources available to every student at the college, they shouldn't be there. But more to the point, they're given the chance to succeed in college, are they not?
From my point of view, AA is about giving youth from disadvantaged backgrounds a chance at college, rather than ensuring they succeed once they're in college. At that point, a whole array of other things have to come into play, such as the quality of their high school education, but that's distinct from AA.
You'd be surprised how lacking resources are at a lot of colleges, especially the ones they're likely to get into, which are public universities with budgets stretched to the breaking point.
I've tutored in college English, and you know what used to always amaze me?
Half the time, we never wound up talking about English.
Because for a lot of them, their issue was related to being able to access resources for their classes
in the first place. This mostly took two forms.
1. Kids who were inappropriately placed in a class that was too advanced, despite having taken a placement test. Sometimes, they didn't have the option of dropping to a lower level. If they did, they only had 4 days to figure it out before they were no longer allowed to register for a different class, or drop the old one without it hurting their transcript. That's not enough; you haven't even really started in the first week. So we wound up having to slog through it, trying to get them through course work that's several years too advanced for them, and we were happy if they just
didn't fail.
2. Technological deficit. This is a HUGE problem with older students, and students from poor backgrounds. The online infrastructure of even the most basic colleges is getting more complex, and these are people who may not have ever even had access to the internet, let alone learned the in's and out's of uploading, downloading, file compatibility, forums, and all the other things that are becoming essential in college.
These kids
don't have a chance. That's like dropping a hungry kid in the forest, and when they get eaten by a bear, saying "Well, they had a chance." No, they didn't.
You can say what you like about the resources at colleges, but in a lot of cases those resources don't even exist. And when they do exist, you're expecting a college to be willing to help a student make up as much as 3 or 4 grade years of educational deficit. That's just not realistic.
More often than not, by the time they got to me, they were fighting a losing battle. It's really frustrating and saddening to watch.