It's so easy for us all to forget that *both* can be true.
Programs designed to help minorities can have the effect of protecting them from failing, because in order to prove that they are working you have to show that minorities are receiving degrees. If you allow them to fail, your university fails to meet the program standard and can lose state and federal grant money. So universities can actually get paid to keep minorities in degree programs.
Still, that doesn't mean that there aren't some, perhaps even most, minorities who have earned it. I don't think they "hand out" degrees, Dr S. They still force you mortgage your future and a portion of any afterlife that may exist to pay outrageous tuition.
All that said, AOC has done nothing in Washington to justify her lauded education.