It’s not just private, Ivy League universities that practice legacy admissions

In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision curtailing affirmative action, the spotlight has once again turned to the controversial practice of granting preferential treatment to students with family ties to alumni.

Criticism of legacy admissions, from legal action against Harvard University to renewed scrutiny in the media, is well justified. The practice is incompatible with overhauling race-conscious admissions in the name of equality, since we know that legacy admissions disproportionately benefit white students.

But an important piece of this conversation is being overlooked.

Public universities also engage in this troubling practice, and have an even stronger imperative to end it. State legislatures across the country should mandate it to protect the integrity of public institutions.

Using Common Data Set reports — a standardized form to track frequently analyzed college metrics — I examined the admissions practices of the flagship universities of each of the 50 states, as defined by the College Board. Twelve of the 50 consider alumni relations in undergraduate admissions decisions.

These 12 schools currently serve more than 245,000 undergraduate students, more than three times the number of students at all Ivy League universities combined. Beyond flagship schools, a 2019 survey found that 14 percent of all public universities — a non-negligible figure — practice legacy admissions.

It is short-sighted to focus solely on Ivy League schools in the legacy admissions debate, because there is far less room for defending legacy admissions in the context of public universities.

Even though many private universities receive some government funding, public universities are funded in significant part by taxpayer dollars. Each public university is therefore a public good, obligated to supply equal opportunity for all prospective students, regardless of family ties. To prioritize the interests of one select group constitutes a gross misuse of government resources.

Public universities should be engines for increasing social mobility, a core tenet of higher education. That includes helping low-income and first-generation students — and those otherwise facing tough odds — access a college education.

Legacy admissions policies effectively reserve seats for the relatives of alumni in each class. This reduces the space available for these students from less privileged backgrounds. As a result, perpetuating legacy admissions is directly at odds with the objective of advancing social mobility.

These seats could make a world of difference for a student whose family has no higher education credentials. But to a student with plenty of resources, and likely other college options, they might be inconsequential.

Legacy admissions also compromise the principle of transparency that is intrinsic to effective public institutions. The college admissions process already elicits deep distrust among Americans, as outcomes are increasingly unpredictable. And many of the factors that determine any given admission decision are out of students’ control.

Now a rising sophomore at the University of Maryland, I applied to college less than two years ago. I know how many students, including myself, find the process enigmatic. I was accepted to schools where I had never expected to get in, and rejected from others where I felt I was certain to be accepted.

For people to maintain trust in public systems, it’s vital that processes are well understood and communicated. As long as the exact impact of a legacy status remains unknown — it is simply reported in Common Data Set forms as “considered” — this only injects more fear and uncertainty into an already confusing process. To remove it altogether would restore the public’s faith in that process.

Public universities also have fewer financial resources than elite, private ones, which tend to have far more substantial endowments and to charge students higher amounts for tuition. Every dollar that a public university has at its disposal should help provide a high-quality education to students who contribute meaningfully to its campus community. Applicants with family ties to alumni are not necessarily those students, yet legacy admissions diverts these scarce resources toward them regardless.

Last year, Senator Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Representative Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) introduced federal legislation to ban legacy admissions at schools that receive federal aid. While I admire their efforts, I am skeptical of anyone’s ability to pass this measure through Congress. Although the educational background of federal lawmakers has become less Ivy-centric over time, the legislative body is still steeped in elitism.

I hope efforts continue in Congress, but in the meantime, incremental progress at the state level is better than no progress at all. In 2021, Colorado became the first state to ban the practice of legacy admissions. For the integrity of our public institutions, state legislatures across the country should follow Colorado’s lead and bar publicly funded universities from considering legacy status in their admissions.

Dhruvak Mirani is a student at the University of Maryland College Park and student liaison to the College Park City Council.