Amid growing scrutiny over the fairness of college admissions, California lawmakers on Wednesday announced an effort to ban state financial aid to private campuses (including USC and Stanford University) that give priority admission to children of alumni and donors. has been renewed.
These incentives, known as legacy admissions, follow a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last June that struck down race-based affirmative action in a case involving Harvard University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. are under increasing attack. Critics argue that legacy admissions disproportionately affects wealthy applicants, most of whom are white, just as race was prohibited in determining admissions to the nation's most selective universities. They argue that it is advantageous and should be abolished.
“We want to ensure that every student who applies to the most elite schools in our state has a chance and is fair,” Rep. Phil Ting (D-San Francisco) said Wednesday as he announced the new bill. . At a press conference in Sacramento attended by equity advocates and two Stanford University students.
USC, Stanford University and Santa Clara University are the biggest providers of legacy Donor preferences in California, according to annual data submitted to the state for the past four years.
The University of California and California State University systems do not give preferential treatment to children of alumni or donors, and some private universities, such as Occidental College and Pomona College, have eliminated the practice in recent years.
The bill, AB 1780, would prohibit universities from participating in the California Grants Program if they give admissions preferential treatment to applicants related to donors or alumni. The Cal Grant program provides financial aid covering full tuition and fees to eligible financially needy students at UC and CSU, and partial support to students at private universities . A portion of living expenses will also be provided with restrictions.
USC accepted 1,740 applicants with heritage or donor ties, representing 14.4% of the fall 2022 entering class, according to data submitted to the state. Of those, 96% were relatives of alumni, and nearly 4% were related only to donors. Stanford University offered admission to 287 students, or 13.8% of the class, of which 92% had alumni ties and 8% had donor ties only.
Santa Clara enrolled 1,133 students with alumni or donor connections, representing 13.1% of the class. His four other campuses that adopted priorities set them more modestly, reaching between 1% and 3.6% of the fall 2022 entering class. Their data was not broken down into ties between Assn alumni and donors only. Independent University of California Report to the State.
Stanford University has not yet taken a position on Ting's legislation, campus spokeswoman Dee Mostofi said. She said Stanford has a holistic admissions process that considers legacy status as one of many factors to admit students who contribute “a diversity of thought, backgrounds, identities, and experiences.” Stated.
Stanford students received $3.2 million in California state aid in the 2022-23 academic year, compared to $263 million in total institutional aid, Mostofi said. He added that the campus has expanded support for low- and moderate-income students in recent years, including fully covering tuition for students with household incomes up to $150,000. For those whose household income is less than her $100,000, additional assistance will cover room and board. In 2018, Stanford University removed home equity from its financial aid calculations.
USC has also not taken a position on Ting's legislation. The University of Southern California said in a statement last year that it is deeply committed to diversity, with one in five students coming from low-income backgrounds or being the first in their families to attend college.At the time, the campus maintained that all admitted students met high academic standards and “valued each student's lived experience and how they contributed to the vibrancy of the campus, thrived in the community, and Benefit from education and fulfill our promise unify values”
Santa Clara University did not respond to questions.
In 2021-2022, 2,972 USC students received $26.6 million in California State Grant financial aid, according to state data. In Santa Clara, 507 students received about $4.6 million, according to the California Student Aid Commission.
If Ting's bill is successful, that funding could be in jeopardy. Assn. Some of California's independent colleges opposed his previous bill, saying it could strip low-income students of needed financial aid.
Professor Ting said campuses that continue with traditional admissions “have enough funds to continue to offer scholarships to those students, and they should be offering those students scholarships.”
The high court's ruling on affirmative action and new research may change the national climate around legacy admissions, making the bill more likely to pass than before. The 2019 attempt ended in failure, but Ting said. This earlier bill was later amended and signed into law, requiring private institutions to annually report data on traditional admissions to the state.
Ting said: Harvard University research last fall Ivy League and other elite universities are more than twice as likely to admit students from high-income families (families in the top 1% earning $611,000 or more) compared to comparable standardized less affluent universities It was found that the main reason for the high enrollment rate was legacy enrollment. test score.
Legacy applicants were admitted at high rates at all levels of parental income, but the biggest boost was given to those from families in the top 1% of incomes, who were admitted to eight Ivy League campuses. They were five times more likely to be admitted. According to the study, the University of Chicago, Duke University, MIT, and Stanford University.
The findings were “pretty shocking, even to me, who knew clearly that people in higher income brackets had an advantage,” Ting said.
Just days after the high court's affirmative action ruling, 3 civil rights groups filed suit Joined the U.S. Department of Education in opposing Harvard University. The group says Harvard's preferential treatment of undergraduate applicants with ties to alumni and donors overwhelmingly benefits white students at the expense of students of color and prohibits racial discrimination. It alleged that it violated federal law.
The lawsuit alleges that nearly 70 percent of Harvard applicants with family ties to donors or alumni are white and are about six times more likely to be admitted than other applicants.
Stanford senior Sophie Carrott said Wednesday that her heritage is considered in admissions because she is the daughter of two Stanford alumni, but she wants to end this practice. .
“I don't want my accomplishments to be overshadowed or questioned by the possibility that I got into Stanford just because my parents went there,” she said at a press conference. . “We also recognize that dismantling traditional admissions systems is one of the important steps on the path toward more equitable admissions and higher education across the board.”
