> For example, the same people who tend to support helping all poor people for certain things (like college admissions) tend to oppose it for other things (like welfare or basic income). The defining line across all of these things tends to be race and which group benefits the most.

Not a westerner. Why is this a bad thing at all? Giving college admission is like giving opportunity to improve someone's condition (teaching to fish), whereas welfare schemes are like giving a fish.

My country also suffers greatly due to many welfare schemes, all of that money could have gone to infrastructure and public education.

Disclosure: I also come from a poor background and have benefitted from both merit-based education and welfare schemes. But I think welfare is overblown. If the same money was put on education, my parents would have been educated one generation ago.