California bans legacy admissions at private universities

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/30/us/california-bans-legacy-admissions-private-universities.html

585 614 2 years ago

neonate• 2 years ago

raincom• 2 years ago

These private universities can come with a solution: remove legacy; add a new dimension, let's say X, to evaluate applicants. Hire legacies because they have higher X.

toomuchtodo• 2 years ago

So you just keep cranking on the policy ratchet until you get the outcome you want. Loophole found? Loophole closed. Humans are tricky, and engineering around them is a never ending process. Certainly, the evidence shows that with sufficient incentives and punitive measures available, compliance is possible.

ryandrake3• 2 years ago

Exactly. I hate this defeatist attitude of "Well a 100% solution to the problem is impossible, so why even try?" So they find a loophole which allows them to continue wrongdoing. Great, resolve that loophole with another law, and repeat. Laws should have frequent patch releases to address zero-day exploits.

LorenPechtel• 2 years ago

I don't see that he's saying it's not a reason to do it, but to expect that they will try to get around the rule.

FredPret• 2 years ago

"Culture fit"

hiddencost2• 2 years ago

"disparate impact"

This is a known and solved problem for the most part.

berbec2• 2 years ago

This is how the insurance industry has operated for ages. They can't charge higher rates due to race, so they find ways around it: "credit-based insurance score, geographic location, home ownership, and motor vehicle records" [1]

1: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220310005380/en/NEW...

gotoeleven• 2 years ago

It is quite nefarious of these insurance companies to use measures of insurability for pricing insurance.

__turbobrew__• 2 years ago

Some geographical regions have higher rates of accidents and crime, if that region correlates with a larger number of minority inhabitants that is not racial bias. As long as the insurance is measuring rates of claims per geographical areas and not rates of minorities I don’t see a problem with that.

JumpCrisscross27• 2 years ago

private universities can come with a solution: remove legacy; add a new dimension, let's say X, to evaluate applicants. Hire legacies because they have higher X

You'd have turned a toothless reporting requirement into criminal conspiracy and wilful intent to file false reports.

whimsicalism10• 2 years ago

Inconvenient fact for lots of commentators here is that at most Ivy Leagues, the legacy students generally have better scores across most stats than the median admit.

m0002• 2 years ago

Maybe because many of the legacy students were born with a silver spoon in their mouth?

It's not a level playing field when it comes to the resources required to complete your studies. One student may have to commute for <2h per day to accommodation the can afford. The other can have a studio next to the campus and a car, both leased through their dada's company. One has to work part-time to bring food to the table. The other has extra time for sports and study.

cultureswitch3• 2 years ago

This could also be simply due to the Ivy league institution providing the service being bought. In other words, the parents of Timmy might be fed up and stop being sponsors if he gets bad grades.

Of course in rigorous fields of study this is hard to do but if your rich kid is studying art, the grades are almost entirely arbitrary.

int_19h8• 2 years ago

Then they should have no problem getting it without those legacy admission privileges, so why are those in place?

sparker726782• 2 years ago

I can't see any way this holds up in court. What am I missing?

htrp• 2 years ago

research grants and preferential tax status I'm assuming are the carrots/sticks here

UniverseHacker• 2 years ago

pretty much all research grants are federal, so the state has no real leverage there

WillPostForFood3• 2 years ago

What you are missing is they didn't actually ban it. It is a name and shame law.

sparker726782• 2 years ago

That's it! Thank you!

Found the text: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billCompareClient.x...

detaro• 2 years ago

Turning it around, what's the obvious challenge that will be guaranteed to work in court in your opinion?

twoodfin• 2 years ago

Freedom of association is in the First Amendment with the other biggies.

If I have a list of people who want to spend $500 to join my weekly poker night club, it’s my Constitutional right to choose whom to let in, assuming I’m not discriminating in a way that has 14th Amendment problems.

Molitor59012• 2 years ago

It's a private university.

paxys6• 2 years ago

Considering "they paid a lot so we let them in" is perfectly valid and legal selection criteria at private schools and universities, I fail to see how legislation like this is going to matter.

Ekaros2• 2 years ago

Just make it outright auction. And release the name of student and how much were bid for admission. Seems the fairest route.

hx82• 2 years ago

The Universities select for total donations yes, but they also select individuals based on the prestige they are likely to bring the University.

MisterBastahrd• 2 years ago

Eh, I'd go the opposite route. You meet a threshold, you go into a lottery. They can all sit there on selection day where the hopper spits out the names of admitted students one by one.

somat• 2 years ago

Are not all universities "they paid a lot so we let them in"? I mean, there are subsidies and scholarships, but by and large it is pay to play.

now... when it is "they paid a lot so we gave them a degree" that is when you have a problem.

hiddencost2• 2 years ago

Sadly half a million dollars isn't a lot of money any more.

criddell• 2 years ago

Are not all universities "they paid a lot so we let them in"?

No.

Being able to pay tuition and all the other expenses is necessary but not sufficient to gain admittance.

My preference for admission is a lottery system. Have the school set the bar for admission (which can still contain some qualitative criteria) and then after that, it's a lottery for all that exceed that threshold.

stronglikedan• 2 years ago

No, but it used to be. I got into the first state university that I attended that way. When I tried it again some years later at a different state university, it no longer worked that way.

anon2918• 2 years ago

Most of the good universities cover 100% of demonstrated financial need.

golergka3• 2 years ago

The most important thing for a university or a school is it's signalling value for a graduate. If people know that "X graduate" is a mark of a well-educated, smart person, a school will be successful beyond measure. If, however, a school starts to admit anyone who's willing to pay and stop failing people, then the signal will dilute quickly, as will the prestige and applicants, eventually.

JumpCrisscross27• 2 years ago

Considering "they paid a lot so we let them in" is perfectly valid and legal selection criteria at private schools and universities, I fail to see how legislation like this is going to matter

(b)(1) "'Donor preference in admissions' means considering an applicant’s relation to a donor of, or a donation to, the independent institution of higher education as a factor in the admissions process, including asking an applicant to indicate their family’s donor status and including that information among the documents that the independent institution of higher education uses to consider an applicant for admission.

...

(c) Commencing September 1, 2025, an independent institution of higher education shall not provide a legacy preference or donor preference in admissions to an applicant as part of the regular or early action admissions process."

§ 66018.4(b) and (c) of the California Education Code, as amended today

Zigurd3• 2 years ago

There are universities for which that would be a valid argument. They are expensive places to store mediocre children of the wealthy and are deigned for purpose.

More prestigious private universities use a lot of government funding to fund widely cited research which is what makes them prestigious.

seneca2• 2 years ago

Government funded research is not, at all, what makes them prestigious. Harvard was prestigious long before the American government even existed.

6274673• 2 years ago

In that case why not just tie government funding to admission rule changes, instead of blanket regulate private institutions? Are businesses not allowed to pick their customers in the US?

Maxion2• 2 years ago

More prestigious private universities use a lot of government funding to fund widely cited research which is what makes them prestigious.

Just a correction, the unversities are NOT the ones that apply for, and receive funding from e.g. the NIH.

It is individual researchers that apply, and receive, funding. And this money goes towards their salary and research. No funding, no salary, no reseacher.

Universities don't themselves receive government funding.

RIMR• 2 years ago

Because that's not what's happening here. They're saying "you had a family member graduate here, so we aren't going to expect the same academic prerequisites for your entry".

That means that a high-achieving student with uneducated parents will get rejected, while a low-performing student with a parent who is an alumni still gets admitted.

This, for an institution that is accredited by the state, that offers credentials that are widely treated as societal merit, represents a profound form of economic discrimination. It also completely destroys any illusion that the college's application process is meritocratic, which is a fundamental assumption of the system at large.

This system in inherently racist, because there are plenty of kids getting admitted because their parents or grandparents are alumni. That means that white kids are getting an easy entry to an elite school because their white parents or grandparents, who were born before the end of segregation, attended and graduated from that school before Black Americans were even allowed to enroll.

With our extremist SCOTUS now stripping Black Americans of the benefit of Affirmative Action, the only measure that actively leveled the playing field, tearing down this discriminatory system is more important than ever. Especially since these elite schools largely require familial elitism and socioeconomic superiority to qualify for admission, leading to the demographics of students at these schools to sway far whiter than the general college-attending population (because Black people are actively being discriminated against because of the nature of their familial history).

stainablesteel2• 2 years ago

It might also be that their family contributed to the success and reputation of the university for a few generations. As small as that contribution might be, there could be merit in it.

dgacmu4• 2 years ago

I found myself wondering how in the world they'd actually manage this and not be violating the universities' 1st amendment rights, and the answer seems to be:

Republicans as well as Democrats in the California Legislature voted for Mr. Ting’s latest proposal, which will punish institutions that flout the law by publishing their names on a California Department of Justice website.

and from the latimes report:

Although the California law makes legacy and donor admissions illegal, it does not specify any punishment for universities that violate it.

Which answers the question but certainly raises some questions of what it means for something to be "illegal" with no actual consequences.

Spivak4• 2 years ago

There's plenty of laws like that. They're a statement about what someone oughtn't do in the hopes that people follow it simply because it's the law. I think it's a good solution to the situations where we want to establish a norm but it's beyond the scope of government to enforce it.

Assuming laws require enforcement is the secular version of "if you're an atheist and don't fear eternal punishment in hell, why are you good?"

winwang• 2 years ago

Isn't this confounding legality and morality? But I do agree with the idea of trying to establish a norm somehow, since legality is a decent proxy.

snickerbockers• 2 years ago

I found myself wondering how in the world they'd actually manage this and not be violating the universities' free speech

One of the primary justifications I keep hearing for Affirmative Action is that legacy admissions are predominantly white, so minorities need an extra edge in non-legacy admissions to balance out the race quotas. If we take this to be true and assume that Affirmative Action is off the table then naturally it's necessary to eliminate legacy admissions.

Of course, you're right that there's no real point in enacting laws if they aren't going to punish institutions who violate them.

scarface_747• 2 years ago

Well, how is legacy admissions free speech and affirmative action “prejudice” and illegal according to the Supreme Court? Neither is based on merit alone.

No I am not arguing for or against affirmative action in college admissions. I am Black and graduated from an HBCU. I haven’t had a reason to think about affirmative action deeply enough to have an informed opinion.

dgacmu4• 2 years ago

Don't get me wrong: I think legacy admissions should be eliminated. And my understanding is that my university (Carnegie Mellon) has stopped considering legacy status as part of admissions.

But the answer is that legacy is a one-hop removed racial bias instead of a direct one, where the schools engaging in it can claim that it's based on a purely financial incentive and that it applies equally to all of their legacies. It's like money laundering for bias: Finding a proxy metric that happens to correlate extremely well with race but never explicitly mentions it. With the current supreme court, that laundering seems kinda likely to succeed.

Manuel_D9• 2 years ago

Race is a protected class. Wealth is not. A bank can require a certain amount of money to be deposited in a checking account to qualify for certain cards and benefits. They can't just say "this card is for X race only".

JumpCrisscross27• 2 years ago

Admittance isn't speech. (There might be an argument for assembly. But we already have precedence in e.g. the Civil Rights Acts that it can be regulated.)

vineyardmike3• 2 years ago

It absolutely is assembly.

Also, "businesses" have the right to pick their customers (in compliance with laws like fair housing).

I don't have a strong preference for/against legacy admissions, but I think it makes no sense that saying "we can admit only people of religion X" is ok but its wrong to say "we can admit people preferentially who have a family connection". Same with affirmative action vs race-based admissions.

There are so many sticky issues with the legality and meritocracy of admissions, that targeting a few rich kids seems like the wrong battle.

dgacmu4• 2 years ago

I agree, I should have said 1st amendment rights more generally. I've edited my post to update that - thank you.

jjmarr4• 2 years ago

There's still a non-zero cost for compliance because universities have to report their legacy statistics.

tacticalturtle2• 2 years ago

which will punish institutions that flout the law by publishing their names on a California Department of Justice website

Important to note that this is the only enforcement mechanism. You get put on a naughty list.

Will be interesting to see how important that is to the selective universities in the state. I don’t see how being named and shamed on an official government website is much different than the status quo of being named and shamed in a media report on legacy admissions.

gambiting• 2 years ago

Or it ends up acting like an advert for those universities.

kurisufag2• 2 years ago

yeah, the legacy option is a big reason to go to Harvard or Stanford instead of MIT or Caltech. the success of your lineage will be automatically secured.

JumpCrisscross27• 2 years ago

it ends up acting like an advert for those universities

Because parents and donors are confused about which two elite California schools that observe legacy?

Moto7451• 2 years ago

So… is the way for these institutions to “win” by performing a large scale Prisoner’s Dilemma exercise by all admitting at least one legacy student at the next opportunity?

berbec2• 2 years ago

You get put on a naughty list.

I don't see it that way. Sounds more like the state is doing free advertising. "Here is the list of schools Junior, who got a 4.0 in their basket-weaving major in high school, has a shot".

moate• 2 years ago

1- I’m 40, and childless, so maybe I’m just out of touch, but do high schools do Majors? (Fwiw I’m from the northeastern US)

2- How would that work? Legacy admissions mean your family has a legacy. You can’t just conjure that up because you have a kid who can’t meet academic admissions standards.

3- If you pull a 4.0 in any specialty of academics, no matter how much engineers might sneer at you on their message boards, somewhere a school will admit you because they’re the “forefront of basket weaving in the country”, and I think that’s pretty cool.

mikeryan• 2 years ago

There’s what two schools an applicant can be a legacy to? This isn’t rocket science to begin with.

r00fus• 2 years ago

You know everyone who cared already knew that.

JumpCrisscross27• 2 years ago

Important to note that this is the only enforcement mechanism. You get put on a naughty list

"In 2019...[Assemblyman Phil] Ting tried to push through a bill banning legacy preferences in California. That effort fell short. But he did succeed with a measure requiring private colleges to report to the Legislature how many students they admit because of ties to alumni or donors."

This time, "an earlier version [of the bill] had proposed that schools face civil penalties for violating the law, but that provision was removed in the State Senate."

This is a battle against powerful people. Wins will be incremental. About the smartest things those opposing this could have done would have been firing up (a) nihilistic elements about how nothing changes and (b) outrage at anything short of an absolute ban with criminal penalties and forced revocation of degrees to legacy graduates or whatever.

0cf8612b2e1e2• 2 years ago

Do universities keep admissions data at that granular of a level? I would add a generic “culture fit” component to each candidate score which you could use as a hedge to admit legacies without calling them as such.

alephnerd7• 2 years ago

This is a battle against powerful people

Powerful institutions especially.

USC is the primary political powerbroker in Los Angeles (and by extension Southern California, and thus by extension all of California).

They're the largest land developer and one of the larger employers in Los Angeles (city and county), and both Democrat and Republican mayoral candidates make sure not to cross USC's path, and USC has been caught in LA corruption scandals multiple times due to this [0][1][2][3][4]

[0] https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-09-11/usc-la-m...

[1] https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-12-19/lapd-chi...

[2] https://www.justice.gov/usao-cdca/pr/mark-ridley-thomas-foun...

[3] https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-usc-george-ty...

[4] https://documents.latimes.com/los-angeles-memorial-coliseum/

-------

Anecdotally, I and my SO seriously considered doing part-time grad programs at USC (something EngMgmt or CS for me and Medical for my SO) because of the legacy+donor boost (specifically donating to the Athletic Fund, Association Chairman Fund, Widney Society, Parent Teacher Circle, and a couple other donor programs) which could help any kids we might have in the future.

It's not "that" expensive to donate to USC to get the donor boost assuming your kid isn't an idiot - it's just a couple million total over a consistent period (5-15 years depending on when your kid is starting).

Glad to see we probably don't need to worry about that anymore, as I expect penalties for offending private schools to become stringent over the next 30 years, as us Latinos and Asians are underrepresented in legacy admissions but are now the plurality in California but also a swing demographic.

We're much happier spending a similar amount in actual philanthropy instead.

bobthepanda• 2 years ago

There are also laws that primarily rely on adversarial lawyer enforcement, even without the possibility of monetary damages from the defendants.

The most famous example of a law that gets enforced this way is the ADA.

hinkley• 2 years ago

I wonder what fraction of legacy people end up in politics and/or board rooms.

A lot of value for the legacy people is in the connections you make, so I bet it's relatively high.

giantg26• 2 years ago

"This is a battle against powerful people. Wins will be incremental."

More likely there is concern over first amendment rights of association invalidating the law if they take it too far.

tivert2• 2 years ago

Wins will be incremental.

I think the words you're looking for are "hollow gesture, dishonestly presented," not "win."

hammock• 2 years ago

You get put on a naughty list.

Might actually help kids pick where to apply and where not to, in the unintended way. Which institutions are meritocratic at best or "woke captured" at worst, and which are invested in perpetuating a ruling class

whatever1• 2 years ago

They could also stop state backed research funding

odo12422• 2 years ago

Heck, they could stop administrative fees (fees the university gets to itself) on state backed research funding at legacy schools and it would probably be very effective lol

OkayPhysicist3• 2 years ago

The only private universities in California that are existentially dependent on research funding (unlike, say, LMU, which is basically just an undergrad teaching institution/networking mill) are CalTech, Stanford, and USC, and frankly I don't think anybody's arguing CalTech is doing anything but the most extreme meritocracy in their admissions.

Such a law very well could be challenged on it's constitutionality for how laser focused on USC it would be.

IncreasePosts2• 2 years ago

The naughty list might actually work if they were required to report a demographic breakdown of the legacy admission as well. It would probably be extremely bad PR to point out 93% of students given a free entry pass were white.

WillPostForFood3• 2 years ago

Stanford 2023 incoming class was 23% white, so the change in legacy policy will primarily impact future non-white children of non-white Stanford graduates. This is a win for fairness, not much more.

https://facts.stanford.edu/academics/undergraduate-profile/

paxys6• 2 years ago

Is it even about shame? Universities are proud of having multiple generations of (wealthy) families attend, and will go out of their way to advertise it.

pyuser5836• 2 years ago

I see that as legitimate. Especially for lesser known colleges.

WalterBright4• 2 years ago

I bet Ford is proud that multiple generations of families buy Fords. Why not? It validates that Ford is satisfying its customers.

throwawaymaths• 2 years ago

Yeah that sucks. I'm all for private institutions doing whatever they feel like, but schools like Stanford get a lot of privileges from the state, e.g. they have a charter of incorporation to have their own city. The state could revoke the city charter and revert jurisprudence to the county, for example.

yieldcrv• 2 years ago

I think reframing it as a consumer protection disclosure is fine

Maybe they only way for them to mandate it was to only gain leverage after an action was found, as opposed to forcing them to report the action

ninetyninenine3• 2 years ago

It’s possible to sue now. That’s my guess. They just wont get a lawsuit from the DA.

For example if I’m a clearly qualified and another person clearly less qualified then me gets in to Stanford but has a father who donated… I can sue for that because the school would be in violation of the law.

The listed name will clearly mark the school as a violator of the law.

NavinF2• 2 years ago

What exactly do you sue for? Being poorer isn't a protected class

TulliusCicero• 2 years ago

This is a good incremental step though. Once some colleges are on the list, it'll be easier to stir up some populist rancor.

RajT882• 2 years ago

Will be interesting to see how important that is to the selective universities in the state. I don’t see how being named and shamed on an official government website is much different than the status quo of being named and shamed in a media report on legacy admissions.

That government website will become ammunition for bad press, which will be driven by disgruntled parents (of which there are many). The list itself they don't care about, it'll be the downstream actors who do something with it which will create the problems.

Once those problems start landing, the schools will change their behavior to get off that list (but continue their selective admission shenanigans however possible).

pyuser5836• 2 years ago

There are plenty of lists of “bad colleges” that are laughable.

j452• 2 years ago

For all the attention maybe there's changes planned.

pbreit• 2 years ago

Seems strange the government can enforce such a thing on private organizations.

How would they even determine? Would need to prove that a legacy is clearly underwhelming.

If I ran an organization, I'd probably prefer the ability to accept family members and donors.

EasyMark2• 2 years ago

I could see this working for the majority of people who donate money but not millions. If you donate millions your kid will get in, they will find a way.

ramraj07• 2 years ago

You’d think that but no. IITs in India would be filled with rich kids, India is a fairly corrupt place after all. But with education if you fully standardize all admissions and are strict about identity then you really can clamp down on it.

lern_too_spel• 2 years ago

It's not hard to imagine that there will be a push to include this information in college rankings.

wombatpm• 2 years ago

It will only matter to alumni donors. Friends of mine both graduated from the same institution. Their plan with donations was to use their corporate 3x match plus their own wealth to set their daughters up with admission locks.

giantg26• 2 years ago

Considering that they already publish how many legacy students each university takes each year, this law doesn't really do anything new other that stronger wording.

alephnerd7• 2 years ago

It's a good start. It's paving the road for penalties at a later day.

I guarantee you penalties will be added within the next 20-30 years because of the political aspect in California.

Us Asians and Latinos are the plurality now and underrepresented in legacy admissions - and it's a single voter issue that could flip entire demographics to vote for a candidate.

dwighttk• 2 years ago

Newsome really seems to be trying to stay in the headlines these days. Seems like a new law notable enough for headlines signed every day the past week or so.

dlkf• 2 years ago

The main difference is that the media report will be read.

steveBK123• 2 years ago

This is, as a left leaning guy myself, one of my general frustrations with our current vintage of progressive thought..

Passing laws with weak enforcement mechanisms that leads to passing more laws with more weak enforcement mechanisms which leads to...

You get the drift

tivert2• 2 years ago

> which will punish institutions that flout the law by publishing their names on a California Department of Justice website
Important to note that this is the only enforcement mechanism. You get put on a naughty list.

It's official: the word "ban" has lost all meaning, according to the New York Times.

You can call anything you want a ban now.

valval• 2 years ago

And of course why should they be able to enforce it? The government should have zero business interfering in private university application processes.

someperson• 2 years ago

Tangentially the US immigration system also has "legacy admissions" (called family based immigration)

paxys6• 2 years ago

As does US citizenship

blitzar• 2 years ago

Tangentially the US immigration system also has "legacy admissions" (called Immigrant Investor Program)

pimlottc• 2 years ago

Not going to the same college as your parents is not in the same league as not being able to live in the same country.

mainecoder• 2 years ago

Yeah Americans should be able to bring their parents to the US, they should be able to bring their kids, their SPOUSE ans sponser their siblings.

In addition a rich person should be able to BUY the GREEN CARD OUTRIGHT at a SET price the investor process is so tiring just set the price and sell it without this investor stuff which wastes time because people what to do other things with the money just set a price that goes straight to the IRS and get the green card mailed.

xpl• 2 years ago

just set the price and sell it without this investor stuff

Another idea is not to set an arbitrary fixed price, but to auction green cards off, with a limited annual cap. So the market would decide the price (the highest bidder wins).

mullingitover• 2 years ago

If this 'ban' doesn't mean they lose their tax exempt status if they flout it, it's not really a ban.

tick_tock_tick• 2 years ago

The California legislator is just pissed that we the people keep voting "wrong". They've been grumpy ever since we voted down https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_California_Proposition_16

JumpCrisscross27• 2 years ago

Prop 16 wouldn't have touched, and Prop 209 doesn't touch, private universities.

Molitor59012• 2 years ago

I'm not sure I agree with this, only because it's a private university. Public, no question, ban legacy admissions. But private? Maybe goes a step too far.

paxys6• 2 years ago

Stanford received $1.82 billion in public funding in 2023 for research alone. The "private" in its name is meaningless. Top private universities in the country receive as much or more government support than state schools.

isatty• 2 years ago

For research. That’s not welfare. Research funding is a merit and application based process with multiple reviewers. This is the same for every university or professor.

refurb• 2 years ago

So any private organization that accept public funding should be regulated as if it were public?

So if you're running a startup, and you accept a government grant, you should be treated as a public company?

imzadi• 2 years ago

What if it is just removing state funding from those schools?

JumpCrisscross27• 2 years ago

The law: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billCompareClient.x...

finnthehuman• 2 years ago

By enforcing fairness in the process, it perpetuates the con that the process and its result are worthwhile.

legitster5• 2 years ago

I get annoyed by legacy admissions as much as the next guy, but this strikes me as problematic. An institutions' membership or selection criteria is pretty fundamental to their right to exist.

Especially when the whole point of a "private" university is their exclusivity. Not only that they will lose their appeal in the first place, this has the potential to really mess up their endowments.

It's an ironic problem because California's public colleges already have an exclusivity problem.

Zigurd3• 2 years ago

If private universities are doing actual important research, it's government funded. This is a reasonable condition of funding.

Your other point is valid though: Public universities could set an example and compete more effectively for students who would otherwise go to a private university by increasing capacity.

vineyardmike3• 2 years ago

If private universities are doing actual important research, it's government funded. This is a reasonable condition of funding.

Sure, but most of that research is done by actual employees, who were (presumably) already hired in line with hiring law.

Public universities could set an example and compete more effectively for students who would otherwise go to a private university by increasing capacity.

This is certainly already the case. UC's are way bigger than private schools, and already some of the best schools in the nation. Could be even bigger, I guess.

JumpCrisscross27• 2 years ago

institutions' membership or selection criteria is pretty fundamental to their right to exist

Private universities enjoy tremendous benefits on account of their public benefits. If they want to have virtual sovereignty in how they admit students, they should be taxed and regulated like any other business.

jessriedel• 2 years ago

legister is claiming this essentially threatens the existence of Stanford in something like it’s current form. Whether that’s true can certainly be debated, but it seems glib to say “if Stanford has to be crushed or radically transformed, so be it; nothing is more important than government-style admission procedures”. I think one needs to actually argue that it won’t be that damaging.

legitster5• 2 years ago

Not sure if I understand the argument - private universities are still non-profit organizations and wouldn't be subject to business taxes.

If anything, non-profits generally have less responsibility. The Anti-Defamation League should not be forced to admit anti-Semites. You wouldn't expect Planned Parenthood to be forced to admit anti-abortion providers.

anon2918• 2 years ago

Businesses are taxed because they produce income by distributing dividends to shareholders. If you tax Stanford et al to punish them for legacy (I am categorically against legacy admits, BTW), then you'd have to allow them to declare dividends and distribute to their shareholders. Fair is fair. Truthfully, I doubt Stanford would care.

drawkward5• 2 years ago

Seems like the public benefits from the private universities' research too.

s1artibartfast2• 2 years ago

I think it would be a different story if the state was using those benefits and the threat of withholding them to negotiate compliance. However, this is not that. This is the state simply ruling on private affairs by dictate.

I think people should be deeply wary of this logic of unilateral ex-post recontacting you seem to be raising.

I think it threatens the rule of law and contracting, social or otherwise.

bluGill2• 2 years ago

There are a lot of private universities most nobody cares about. Without looking it up what is your opinion of Drake university? I'm sore most of us the answer is 'who'. (i hadn't heard of them either until I moved nearby. they claim they are great but who knows - not me)

most of us have heard good things about stanford. They won't lose any reputation because that isn't what it is built on. Drake isn't in california but even if they were not being on this list (if they are not I don't know) wouldn't make anyone not go.

alephnerd7• 2 years ago

Especially when the whole point of a "private" university is their exclusivity. Not only that they will lose their appeal in the first place, this has the potential to really mess up their endowments.

Tell that to MIT or CMU - both of whom do NOT accept legacy admissions on principle (George Eastman and Andrew Carnegie being self made men).

They're both doing fine.

whyenot• 2 years ago

It's an ironic problem because California's public colleges already have an exclusivity problem.

Can you please go into a little more detail about the irony you see, because as someone who works at a public university, it's not obvious to me.

legitster5• 2 years ago

UC Berkley and UCLA for example have ridiculously low admittance percentages.

These are public universities, but you are still more likely to get into a private university, legacy admissions or not.

throwup2382• 2 years ago

They’re tax exempt organizations. I don’t think they have a “right to exist” nor to have absolute control of association just like we don’t allow their directors to self deal.

They are allowed to exist because they provide the public a benefit, which is degraded by legacy admissions depriving the deserving members of the general public of those slots.

kristopolous5• 2 years ago

The students are people who work really hard and those who were born right.

That second group, why are they there?

Let's not let some abstract amorphous principle about some legal fiction prevent us from fixing things.

TacticalCoder• 2 years ago

The students are people who work really hard and those who were born right.

You forgot the third group: those that got a free pass due to diversity hiring. These didn't need to work hard at all.

alickz• 2 years ago

The students are people who work really hard and those who were born right.

I would imagine there's a lot of overlap between those two groups

In fact I think it impossible to be part of the former without being part of the latter

cortesoft• 2 years ago

They are still free to choose their membership however they want.

The ‘punishment’ for breaking this law is to be listed on a website, so no one is stopping these schools from doing whatever they want, they will just be on a public list.

bjourne2• 2 years ago

I get annoyed by legacy admissions as much as the next guy, but this strikes me as problematic. An institutions' membership or selection criteria is pretty fundamental to their right to exist.

Eh, it's pretty fundamental to KKK's right to exist! Businesses (e.g., US colleges) have to comply with Title VII of the Civil Rights Acts which curtail what they can set as their selection criteria.

NotYourLawyer• 2 years ago

Title VII has nothing to do with legacy admissions.

legitster5• 2 years ago

Civil Rights Act only excludes discrimination against protected statuses. Organization legacies are not one of them.

mayneack• 2 years ago

IANAL, but this is from the linked bill text:

(2) “Independent institution of higher education” means a nonpublic higher education institution that grants undergraduate degrees, graduate degrees, or both, that is formed as a nonprofit corporation in this state, that is accredited by an agency recognized by the United States Department of Education, and that receives, or benefits from, state-funded student financial assistance or that enrolls students who receive state-funded student financial assistance.

https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billCompareClient.x...

Seems like an institution is free to be fully private (not take state funded financial aid) and do whatever they want.

legitster5• 2 years ago

That's kind of a weird distinction because my understanding is that the Cal Grants go to the student. The intent of the program is that it goes to the student's choice of qualifying institution. The state is free to rewrite their eligibility requirements however they want.

I'm not sure if the intended outcome here is that Standford stops accepting low income students on financial assistance.

Duwensatzaj2• 2 years ago

For example, Hillsdale College and Grove City College do not accept government financial support so they're not bound by various legal requirements.

cherryteastain2• 2 years ago

Every private university takes tons of public cash for research. The most prestigious and exclusive private universities take the greatest amount public research funding. If an institution wants to play the "but we're private!" card, I'd say let them, but only if it means they are not eligible for public research funding.

Maxion2• 2 years ago

It's not the universities that apply for research funding, and then build basketball courts.

Researchers themselves write and apply for grants, and the grants are for the researchers. The money goes to them and their research, not the university.

s1artibartfast2• 2 years ago

I tend to agree. There is a lot that occurs in the private sphere that should be free of governmental influence, even if the consensus is that it would be better for society if they were organized or behaved in a different way.

danans• 2 years ago

I get annoyed by legacy admissions as much as the next guy, but this strikes me as problematic. An institutions' membership or selection criteria is pretty fundamental to their right to exist.
Especially when the whole point of a "private" university is their exclusivity.

MIT is a private university that does not do legacy admissions, yet it has no problem maintaining its existence or its exclusivity.

bedhead• 2 years ago

Now apply this to every private business and their hiring practices and let me know how things shake out and whether people are happy about the results.

IvyMike• 2 years ago

I went to a state school, but I understood that the system in the Ivy League is:

The smart kids get to take advantage of the rich kid's money and access, and rich kids get to take advantage of the smart kid's smartness. Depending on your point of view this is symbiotic or parasitic, but either way, it's a big part of why they have legacy admissions.

rqtwteye• 2 years ago

That’s the beauty of the system. It’s mutually beneficial.

candiddevmike• 2 years ago

Is it? It seems like the rich kids are still playing a heads I win tails you lose game with the smart kids.

zanellato19• 2 years ago

If those were the only two kinds of people who existed, sure.

mtv43• 2 years ago

Never change, HN.

dclowd99012• 2 years ago

This is a fun platitude but what does it actually mean? How does this… relationship play out?

cthalupa2• 2 years ago

Rich kid's tuition and endowments from their families fund the school to a high level allowing them to pay for highly talented individuals and prestigious research. They might not do as well academically, but still get to trade on the name of having gone to the school

Smart kids get in on scholarships and grants and help uphold the prestige of the university name while getting access to the highly talented professors. They are able to take advantage of this access, do well in the school, and have prestigious results in the real world, move on to be involved in that prestigious research, etc.

You also have the elbow rubbing of the moneyed elite with people that might be very well suited to take that money and help grow it to even larger levels.

That's the idea, anyway. Whether or not it's reality, I don't know. I didn't attend an Ivy League (or quasi-Ivy League in Stanford's case) school. They also of course receive significant money from the government via grants as well, so it's not entirely all coming from the pockets of the rich.

reducesuffering• 2 years ago

It's intelligence signal laundering. Take 80% really smart people. Now pay $$$ to throw your rich kid in. Out comes 5 Harvard degrees. Your rich kid looks smart now.

csa8• 2 years ago

That’s a great question.

Here is a good example:

A friend of mine from a humble background in Michigan decided he wanted to go to NYC and make it in finance. He eventually did.

After paying his dues in lower-ranked jobs in finance, some of his professional acquaintances were starting a hedge fund, and a key part of their strategy had to do with parts suppliers to Detroit car manufacturers.

They immediately realized that they needed a “local” to be their boots on the ground there. Northeast corridor (NEC) elites may have high social standing in the NEC, but they come across as pompous city slickers outside of the NEC. People were reluctant to share information with them due to lack of trust. My friend was able to develop that trust, so he was basically a go between for the Michigan parts suppliers and the NYC financiers.

That symbiotic/parasitic relationship netted him an 8-figure exit and an early retirement in his 40s, with a comparable bump for his NEC-born partners.

paxys6• 2 years ago

California does not have any Ivy League universities.

slater• 2 years ago

Stanford?

vectorhacker• 2 years ago

Stanford was setup by people who came from that tradition.

karaterobot2• 2 years ago

True, but that was not their point, and correcting it does not affect their point.

ransom1538• 2 years ago

Why are you downvoted? California does not have any Ivy League universities.

whimsicalism10• 2 years ago

unfortunately for this narrative, there are lots of smart rich people, for obvious reasons

contagiousflow3• 2 years ago

Well then they shouldn't be affected by this changed.

ayakang314159• 2 years ago

The problem with this approach is that the private universities still get benefits of federal funding through student aids and research grants. If no federal money was used for the undergraduate students, I would have no problem with this. Private university can do whatever they want with their admission as long as no public money is spent on the admission process and the admitted students.

throwup2382• 2 years ago

The funding and grants mostly benefit the students and researchers though.

The bigger problem is their endowments and tax exempt status. The amount of wealth going through top universities is insane, with schools like Stanford and Harvard becoming appendages to giant hedge funds.

nashashmi7• 2 years ago

Why would you want to leverage federal programs that were set aside for certain purposes like research and student assistance to also manipulate college programs?

It is sort of like you want to place colleges on similar to a terrorist list where no funding can reach them unless they get in line with the western world.

cryptonector4• 2 years ago

Crazy idea: stop with the federal funding.

Every time federal loan guarantees and grants increase, so do higher education prices. Drastically cutting back on those loan guarantees and grants should lead to a drastic cut to higher education costs.

Private university can do whatever they want with their admission as long as no public money...

We must distinguish "student loan guarantees" (or vouchers) from direct funding, otherwise there will never be such a thing as a "private school", only public schools masquerading as private.

throw48472855• 2 years ago

Luckily, one of the greatest movies of the 21st century is about this very dynamic. It's called The Social Network. It has very little to do with the real historical personage of Mark Zuckerberg but it totally captures the toxic parasitic relationship between the upwardly mobile regular rich kids and the aristocracy at an institution like Harvard. It doesn't end well for anybody.

ralph84• 2 years ago

It ended spectacularly well for all of the people who got Facebook equity.

beepbooptheory• 2 years ago

I don't understand, wouldn't the narrative of that move be somewhat of a negative example, or a kind of "exception proves the rule" kind of thing?

Namely, the relationship importantly (to the story) does not go well, and Zuck's redemption is being able to overcome the fraught relationship with his old-money investors.

shemtay2• 2 years ago

Also, the presence of multigenerational participants in an institution help it to develop unique traditions and culture that improve it in ways that are hard to articulate and measure, which I will artlessly describe as the opposite of the feeling you get from going to the DMV to renew your driver's license.

7thpower• 2 years ago

Do you have any examples? I look see cultural artifacts resulting from multiple generations attending an institution as a negative.

I want educational institutions to be merit based, but when I read this comment I just think of family names being thrown around.

bko• 2 years ago

Legacy kids are pretty smart. The median SAT score for legacy Princeton admissions is between 1525-1585 (the average is 1535 for Princeton overall). GPA is similarly very high.

https://www.dailyprincetonian.com/article/2023/07/princeton-...

hi-v-rocknroll• 2 years ago

Yep. It's a cliche that the token scholarship students are paid to do the homework of and take the tests for the rich kids.

Large public research universities (in STEM) skew to far more rigorous than Ivies because they're always clamoring for prestige and ranking because of their inherent insecurities about not being said Ivy. Little/no grade inflation and less homework and test trafficking. TLDR: Generally, people who put in the work and get things done went to state schools; while people who earn MBAs and found companies like Theranos and FTX go to big name private schools.

elintknower• 2 years ago

Great, now actually follow through and deliver on the state's promise to do away with affirmative action as well.

You should be admitted due to your brain, not race or legacy.

Manuel_D9• 2 years ago

I'm beginning to question how feasible it is to enforce these non-discrimination laws in university admissions. Yale's first class after SFFA vs. Harvard saw a dip in Asian enrollment, despite ample evidence to suggest that removal of race-based affirmative action would show in an increase in Asian enrollment [1]. Universities had previously insisted that race-based affirmative action was the only way to maintain appreciable amounts of diverse students. Yet after its removal, the only ethnic group that saw a significant decline was Asians.

1. https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2024/09/04/in-first-yale-clas....

JumpCrisscross27• 2 years ago

the only ethnic group that saw a significant decline was Asians

Eyeballing the chart, the decline looks indistinguishable from noise. About all we can conclude is no significant effect.

Manuel_D9• 2 years ago

But this isn't just a typical year. This immediately after racial discrimination was banned. Yale had previously insisted that absent race-based affirmative action there'd be an even larger overrepresentation of Asians and reduction in diverse student enrollment. This is what was observed at other universities, like MIT [1].

Instead the group that the Supreme Court had determined was being discriminated against in SFFA vs. Harvard saw a decline when this discrimination was (supposedly) removed.

Imagine a company is taken to court and found to have been discriminating against women. They insist that they've resolved the discrimination, but next year their number of women hired is even lower. That doesn't look suspicious at all?

1. Before racial discrimination was prohibited: https://mitadmissions.org/apply/process/composite-profile/

2. After: https://mitadmissions.org/apply/process/profile/

whimsicalism10• 2 years ago

It's really these sorts of charts that we should be looking at:

https://www.thecrimson.com/widget/2018/10/21/sat-by-race-gra...

If at Yale it still looks anything like that, I suspect it is likely race is still implicitly being considered.

nostromo• 2 years ago

There is an administrative "deep state" (for lack of a less-loaded word) at all American institutions: government, corporate, non-profit, etc.

Corporations and governments and other institutions first and foremost serve themselves. Changes in laws and leadership are often helpless against an army of creative legal teams, adverse middle-managers, and just general bureaucratic resistance.

A new CEO, a new president, a new law, a new supreme court ruling -- they'll move the needle a lot if the bureaucracy is motivated to change, but will barely move the needle at all if not.

I once worked for a CEO and he would frequently talk about how it was nearly impossible to change his own company. This wasn't even a large company. He just knew that certain ideas would meet bureaucratic resistance and would be slow walked until they died on the vine -- even if the change was the right one.

anon2918• 2 years ago

It's the same reasons why corporate profits go up during inflation despite the actual cost of production staying flat. This was not the case in every sector, but it was in some. Contrary to popular belief. There are bad actors.

While we like to attribute bad actors motivation to purely money, in reality, people jockey for status in many more ways than money. Money is just an obvious measurement of status for which people will compete. In university admissions departments and non-profits, a different set of rules governs status and people who are status seeking in these environments may act out in different ways.

whimsicalism10• 2 years ago

The reason profits go up during inflation is because inflation increases demand which (given fixed supply) increases the price markets will bear. In a competitive market, firms will generally always price at what the market can bear. Pricing what the market will bear does not make you a bad actor.

This is completely unrelated to affirmative action.

jgalt212• 2 years ago

Billionaires fking over the millionaires and middle class yet again. Just like their other worn down cudgels ESG and DEI.

debacle• 2 years ago

I'm not a favor of legacy admissions. One of our former presidents was clearly a legacy admission and that didn't work out well for us.

But legacy admissions to private institutions seems...exceptionally legal.

kelnos2• 2 years ago

Everything becomes blurry when institutions accept public funding (for research, etc.) as well as accepting tax breaks or exemption status.

I'm of the opinion that we actually require far too little of organizations that accept public money. We should be getting more public-good guarantees to go along with that money. (I'm thinking stuff like: any research done with public funding should have free-to-access results, published under a permissive copyleft-like license.)

nemo44x3• 2 years ago

The entire reason you want your smart kid to go to these schools is so they can become friends with the rich kids from a legacy family. By banning the rich kids from them it makes the entire institution useless.

JumpCrisscross27• 2 years ago

entire reason you want your smart kid to go to these schools is so they can become friends with the rich kids from a legacy family. By banning the rich kids from them it makes the entire institution useless.

Yeah, kids and parents with this motivation aren't those we want affiliated with our top universities.

alexdw_mgzi3• 2 years ago

Without networking opportunities, what possible incentive would there be to attend a top university? Especially if you aren't directly performing research, you can gain most or all of the benefits of a top-dollar education these days by reading the necessary literature online.

int_19h8• 2 years ago

If that is truly the only reason why those schools are useful, then maybe making them useless is not a bad thing?

searealist• 2 years ago

Note that they also banned affirmative action admissions, but they don't enforce it.

Animats• 2 years ago

It's not that big a deal for California schools. Stanford is 14% legacy admits. Harvard and Princeton, though, are about 30% legacy admits.

olliej• 2 years ago

I feel "banning" legacy admissions is not a reasonable approach (though it sounds like the penalty for legacy admissions is being put on a list of schools that do legacy admissions, but I'm not sure how that's a penalty? we already know which schools do that?) - these are private institutions.

I think the correct approach is to just say "No institution that has legacy admissions, religious restrictions, etc is eligible for government funding". Government/tax payer funding should not be going to educational institutions that are not equally available to all tax payers.

kelnos2• 2 years ago

Absolutely agreed. And I think we'll get there, honestly. This particular bit of legislation feels toothless because it's fighting against some of the most powerful, politically-connected people in California. But we'll slowly chip away at that over time. Maybe it'll take another 20 years, but sometimes progress is slow.

dcchambers• 2 years ago

I don't understand how the government has any legs to stand up to enforce this? Threaten to pull accreditation if they don't comply?

zackmorris• 2 years ago

If I were a rich kid who got accepted into college because my parents paid my way in, I'd be embarrassed. But that's the problem today - the wealthy have no shame.

These laws are necessary because it's self-evident that elites controlling the status quo can't police themselves.

truncate• 2 years ago

The blame here mostly goes to schools and system. If you are rich kid, you're still a kid and you see the world they way you were taught to see the world.

In some ways it applies to rest of the community as well not just rich people. For example the whole school district thing in US; where you get to go to a better public school if you can afford to live in better neighborhood.

metaphor• 2 years ago

If I were a rich kid who got accepted into college because my parents paid my way in, I'd be embarrassed. But that's the problem today - the wealthy have no shame.

At face value, entitlement was never burdened by the concept of shame.

nemothekid• 2 years ago

If I were a rich kid who got accepted into college because my parents paid my way in, I'd be embarrassed.

I don't think the stereotype that the "rich kid" who got in was a C student who's absent parents just paid the right people is accurate. A lot of these wealthy students are more than qualified, the schools themselves don't have enough seats. On paper, they are mostly identical students, credentials-wise, and the legacy got in because Dad donated last semester.

whimsicalism10• 2 years ago

At Harvard, there are two styles of pseudo-'legacy' admissions: standard legacy and z-list.

The z-list is very small (on the order of tens of students per year) but matches the stereotype.

The typical non-zlist legacy student is qualified to attend and has test scores well above the admission median. I am not sure they even consider past donation history for these admissions. A more important factor is that they feel that legacies are more likely to attend vs go elsewhere (the 'yield rate'), which lets them lower their admission percentages further.

B1FF_PSUVM• 2 years ago

Historical note: meritocracy was invented - or first used in large scale - in Imperial China some fifteen centuries ago - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_examination

About a century ago you could still read American university stories mentioning try-hard "black shoe" students, I suppose by contrast with the spats-wearing and better socially connected ones.

vasilipupkin• 2 years ago

it's a terrible idea. It will just result in all things being equal, fewer donations from alumni, hurting the very students this thing aims to help.

motohagiography• 2 years ago

those wealthy people weren't taking up spots at elite schools, they were adding value to the spots that others competed for.

it's window dressing that seems easier than dealing with the cheating, plagerism, and reproducability crisis' that have done way more harm than some wealthy kids have to the school reputations. half the point of going to university is to meet those wealthy and connected people and this ban reduces the point and the continuity a university provides.

DrBenCarson• 2 years ago

I’m a first generation graduate of a private California university.

I am quite annoyed my children will lose the advantages I had to work against to get to where I am. I succeeded against the odds of the legacy admissions system only to lose the advantages it would award my family for having done so. Long story short, it seems legacy admissions policies are working against me in every possible way.

That said, I recognize this is long overdue and a positive change on the whole.

freeAgent• 2 years ago

Assuming this is a serious comment, your legacy status would only help your children at that single institution anyway. They might not even want to go to the same school(s) you attended. I don’t see any real reason for concern.

olalonde2• 2 years ago

I've always found it puzzling why universities seek information beyond a student's academic performance. It seems odd to me. Imagine if professional sports teams had "legacy admissions" or "affirmative action"...

thephyber• 2 years ago

You haven’t thought about this, have you?

Money. Status.

The parents of legacies are… alumni. Alumni are the same people who are the biggest donors, the biggest cheerleaders (spreading the virtues of the university to people they talk to), and might even participate in the university application process. Frequently alumni will identify high talent kids and encourage them to go to their favored school. The joke that “daddy bought the new building on campus so Johnny can attend, despite low grades” is a trope, but it’s not wrong.

Affirmative action was (1) an effort to apply similar representation to the university to the wider population in the country (2) bring more diversified experience+culture+thought to campus and (3) to try and level the playing field after 200+ years of rejecting people based on things that are irrelevant to academic performance.

You seem to think that life is entirely a contest of merit. In practice, large groups of people almost never value merit over wealth, status, exclusivity.

nine_k2• 2 years ago

Because what the most selective universities sell is not just education, which is usually solid but not necessarily top notch. They are selling the exclusively, the promise that the student will mingle with the right kind of folks. They sell intense networking opportunities with upwardly-mobile folks, and with kids from very well-off families.

BTW this is also why such institutions pay so much attention to.extracurricular activities, clubs, sports, traditions of certain elaborate mischiefs, etc. These all are bonding mechanisms that make the alumni networks more tightly knit and thus more valuable to the alumni.

This is a significant reason why they are glad to accept legacy admissions: it helps keep the links between fresh graduates and influential but older alumni, again making the network more valuable.

The academic load helps keep those with weak intelligence and willpower away. It also provides useful knowledge and a formal degree, but it's sort of secondary, technical detail.

olalonde2• 2 years ago

I understand that's what they do, I just don't understand why. I imagine that most academics would want to favor academic excellence over providing a networking service for the rich and well-connected, but I'm evidently wrong. I guess my mental model of what drives US university administrators is flawed. By the way, this is mostly a US phenomenon as far as I know.

walrushunter• 2 years ago

The Los Angeles Lakers quite literally do have legacy admissions. They drafted LeBron James's son even though he's nowhere close to being an NBA-level talent just so that they could keep LeBron happy.

sib• 2 years ago

Let's face it - a lot of universities are pretty much professional sports teams, so professional sports team do have those things...

muaytimbo• 2 years ago

CA wants to control who sits on private company's boards and who can be admitted to private school's student bodies. Is there any limitation on what CA can require of a non-public entity in the state?

paxys6• 2 years ago

For everyone going on about "but they are private!!!", these universities receive billions of dollars in public funds every year. Stanford alone got $1.8 billion in federal and state grants in 2023, sixth highest among all universities in the country. Yale and Harvard are the 9th and 10th in the list. The "private" designation does not mean they are not supported by our taxes.

6274673• 2 years ago

Then: tie that funding to rule changes. If you want government funds, do as we say. Why do things the other way around?

karaterobot2• 2 years ago

If you're talking about research grants, those are awarded based on a extensive, merit-based process, and require them to produce research. These grants have nothing to do with student recruitment. You make it sound like they're receiving government welfare, when what they did was more like winning a competitive contract.

cherryteastain2• 2 years ago

Would you be more comfortable with the government awarding contracts to build bridges to a construction company that hires its civil engineers through family connections, or via a more objective and technical recruitment process?

jillesvangurp• 2 years ago

That, and the notion that most people in power allocating those grants are mostly alumni who might want their descendants to have the same opportunity. The ivy league is deeply entrenched in the power structure of the US government, major corporations, etc.

Those research grants perpetuate the exclusivity of the institutions and are very much part of the appeal. It's what makes students (and their parents) pay extra and bend over backwards just to be close to that hoping that some of that genius rubs off on them. It has everything to do with student recruitment.

This is of course nothing new or world shocking. This stuff works exactly the same way in other countries. Rich people looking after each other is a thing. So is nepotism. And feudalism.

sub72• 2 years ago

Great so I've been giving to Stanford all for nothing? How is this even legal private schools should be able to admit whomever they want and teach whatever they want. If you don't like it, don't apply.

Legacy is a huge incentive for giving these colleges money which they then use to become a better college. This is a moronic law that I really doubt will ever be enforced, but if it is will result in slow degradation of educational quality over time.

cultureswitch3• 2 years ago

Stanford doesn't need your money

sub72• 2 years ago

Yeah but they gave me a full ride and I like the idea of giving some poor kid from a random country who wants to build shit and get rich a shot

Narhem• 2 years ago

Always thought legacy admissions were kind of off.

FigurativeVoid• 2 years ago

Let's see them do children of donors next.

anon2918• 2 years ago

Many states have laws against 'false academic credentials'. It is illegal to claim you're a graduate of X if you never actually graduated for example. This is a fraud claim.

In my opinion, the state should -- retroactively if possible -- require that anyone who was admitted into a university program, public or private, in which legacy plays a role has to note that on any resume. So Joe Schmoe who went to Stanford and got a BS in Comp Sci, will have to write:

Joe Schmoe, BS Comp Sci at Stanford (note: Stanford uses legacy admissions)

on their resume. To not do so would be a crime, because it's fraudulent by the new law requiring legacy admissions to be correctly advertised.

Universities will quickly end legacy admissions. Moreover, the state should probably investigate and be able to label universities as having legacy admissions.

This law would apply to anyone who wants to do a job in california.

This would end legacy admissions overnight, while not violating anyone's freedom. Universities would be free to admit students by legacy and grant degrees. Students would be free to tell employers about the degree they've earned, but california will make sure that the future employer has a full picture of the sort of institution from which they graduated.

Duwensatzaj2• 2 years ago

while not violating anyone's freedom

Compelled speech is a bright line violation. There are very few scenarios where it is allowed by American precedent, and a graduate's resume is absolutely not one.

Note that the legacy admission reporting required here is dependent on the universities accepting funding. The government requiring reports in exchange for funding is very different from compelling people at gun point to include information about their university on resumes.

anon2918• 2 years ago

Presenting false academic credentials is a crime already in most states. Yes, you cannot generally portray false credentials. The state does get to decide what form that might have to take. State regulation of advertising is well established, to prevent fraud. Employers are consumers as well.

boringg• 2 years ago

I have a question: how many students per year get legacy status benefits vs how much energy time and money have we spent trying to figure this out?

Is this a significant and continuous problem or is this some vanity project for a couple of politicians?

Im honestly asking is this a significant enough problem and how this solution helps solve our education system challenges?

6274673• 2 years ago

It's really about jealousy and populist measures

whimsicalism10• 2 years ago

We really have no idea. There are lots of legacy admits at universities, but also legacy students are often pretty good candidates on their own. At my alma mater for instance, legacy students typically had better stats than the median admit.

So it's hard to say how much removing legacy preference would change admissions.

But at max, it is only affecting a few tens of thousands students per year.

tedunangst• 2 years ago

Those reports showed that the practice was most widespread at Stanford and U.S.C., where, at both schools, about 14 percent of students who were admitted in the fall of 2022 had legacy or donor connections. At Santa Clara University, Mr. Newsom’s alma mater, 13 percent of admissions had such ties.

OwseiWT• 2 years ago

gift link: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/30/us/california-bans-legacy...

taeric• 2 years ago

I'm torn on this. At large, I'm rather against legacy admissions. I'm also against regulations that are not necessarily results oriented. To that end, incentives for education facilities should probably be more oriented to testing or positive research?

This is like parents that get upset with kids for having a mess in their rooms. Which, I mean, sure? Seems a bit more appropriate to pay attention to school grades and such, than whether or not the kid is getting to sleep in a spotless room by bedtime every single night.

Granted, if the grades are already hopeless, it can make sense to start with more attainable goals to start. Is that the general idea here?

DrNosferatu• 2 years ago

What about the merit of my ancestry?

egberts1• 2 years ago

How to keep your populace dumber without a governor saying how to keep your populace even dumber.

pyuser5836• 2 years ago

College admissions is really messed up. Both colleges and students are ranked numerically, and the each tries to get the highest scoring counterparts.

This is dehumanizing to students, and makes all colleges look the same.

The advantage of legacy admissions is they aren’t going to the college because it’s the best ranked one. They’re going because they know that college specifically, and want that specific experience.

This obviously doesn’t apply to top tier colleges, but few colleges are top tier.

There are ways around this. Many colleges have “side door” admissions policies for students who clearly are interested in that specific college.

For example, “I want to study nuclear engineering, and your college is the only one in the country that has a live reactor for students to use” gets you fast tracked to Reed.

This is completely legitimate.

Of course a legacy admissions would know the side doors. Nothing wrong with that.

But I think these rules are really intended towards elite colleges, ignoring the fact that few colleges are elite.

evanb2• 2 years ago

There are functioning reactors at a variety of institutions.

In College Park https://radiation.umd.edu/reactor/

In Cambridge https://nrl.mit.edu/reactor

pyuser5836• 2 years ago

I haven’t been applying to colleges for some time.

tonightstoast• 2 years ago

https://web.archive.org/web/20220613065302/https://neup.inl....

22 US universities have a live reactor.

hintymad4• 2 years ago

College admissions is really messed up

I actually think that a national entrance exam (ministered by individual colleges or by a region is okay) is a better way for admission. My fundamental assumption is that the simpler a rule is, the harder it is to game. I understand that many people believe that a holistic admission is more fair to minorities or to economically challenged families, but I'd like to question that belief. Holistic admission is so opaque and complex that families with means will have more advantage over those who don't. Remember the Varsity Blues Scandal? That's just one example. How about getting recommendation letters from a congressman? Which families have a higher chance to get them? And all the consideration about sports? The reality is that sports are expensive. A family who can afford private coaches and frequent travel will have a huge advantage over those who can't. In contrast, everyone can afford a good library to get access to world-class study materials.

BTW, the ivy schools introduced holistic admission to reduce the admission rate of Jewish students back in the 1920s, per Malcom Gladwell. Just because a process is institutionalized does not mean that the process is fare or efficient.

golergka3• 2 years ago

If you have a single national exam, that all the schools are going to teach is this one exam, an example of horrible overfit. If, however, you have a diverse amount of colleges with different entry exams, then schools will have to teach the knowledge and skills required to pass all the different exams — which is closer to knowledge and skills you want to be taught at schools to begin with.

pyuser5836• 2 years ago

The problem with non-holistic assessment is that each college is a very different thing.

Can you imagine West Point admitting students based solely on their SATs? That would be insane.

Many other colleges have similar identities. Some have specific religious identities. Others have unique cultures and curriculums.

It’s totally legitimate for a school to try to find someone who knows and matched the ethos of the school.

For example, one college I know is does not compete with other colleges in athletics, but they offer “athletic-type scholarships” for competitive chess players.

Is that so wrong?

hintymad4• 2 years ago

That's great news. Now do the east coast[1]

[1] My understanding is that legacy admission is more pervasive and takes higher percentage of admissions in the east-coast private colleges.

pyuser5836• 2 years ago

I’m strongly opposed to any legislation that uses elite colleges as the “typical case.”

Your typical private college is a small, liberal arts college nobody outside the state knows exists. It’s struggling financially, but not compromising on academics.

These colleges are great, and a national asset, but it’s not like they’re a golden gateway to wealth and power.

What is the public interest in preventing them from offering legacy admissions?

DonsDiscountGas• 2 years ago

The typical non-elite college is not particularly selective about admissions so laws like this are irrelevant.

Plus graduates from elite colleges have a disproportionately large impact on society, so all this extra focus isn't completely misplaced. Should these rules only apply if the admissions percentage drops below some arbitrary cutoff?

Colleges are admitting students, not their whole families, so legacy preferences never made sense except as a easy to gatekeep the upper class. Laws like this do serve the public interest, and I don't see why a college should be exempt just because it isn't famous

xbar• 2 years ago

Overreach into private education, but fine.

conductr• 2 years ago

They’re not banning legacy admissions, right? They’re banning that criteria from the admissions process. So they’re becoming indifferent to it (in theory). That my skim of it, title is misleading

tracerbulletx• 2 years ago

I'm an extremist on this. No inheritances, no legacy admissions, 0 advantages in life based on lineage. The rest of capitalism is fine. Start a business, become a billionaire, awesome. No more starting on third base, it's just bad game design.

tamade• 2 years ago

better idea: let's ban nepobabies in california politics

mmooss2• 2 years ago

How will we identify a legacy admission?

In the past they were identified, at least in admissions records, because they were legal. Now they'll be admitted as a non-legacy student and then what?

Will someone sue the school, obtain the student's application and records, and create a case against their admission? Think of the student dragged over the coals publicly at 18 years old, accused of being too dumb for the school. How will they know which students' admissions to challenge? Who will have standing to challenge their admission - someone who didn't get in? The state?

If you wonder how a school will select legacy admissions, it seems easy: A private conversation with the dean. Also, any admissions officer will be expected to reliably know the landscape and act 'in th best interests of the school'.

pessimizer2• 2 years ago

It's like how you can't fire somebody for being black, but you can fire them for wearing an ugly shirt. If you can make decisions for arbitrary reasons, getting around specific prohibitions is just an intelligence test: are you so impressed with yourself, or so stupid, that you have to write down your illegal reasoning somewhere? Did you have to brag about it in an email?

mmooss2• 2 years ago

I get your point, but it's also different in several ways:

The fired person knows of the illegal act, knows the facts, and has standing and motivation to sue. For the legacy admission, nobody knows it happened, much less knows the facts (the student's qualifications), much less has standing to sue.

pessimizer2• 2 years ago

This is stupid and pointless. I have no idea how this makes up for the disadvantages caused by American chattel slavery, which was the purpose of affirmative action. I don't know why I'm supposed to feel good that some college can't let in the children of people who went to that college, and with that maintain a continuity of culture, traditions and values. I don't even know why colleges were expected to take on the entire burden of atoning for chattel slavery.

Will one more descendant of American slavery go to college because a legacy didn't? I'd bet the opposite now that race-based affirmative action is over; that's the end of a period that resulted in a lot of black legacies.

These politicians are just pretending to work. Setting racial preferences in opposition to family ties (if you take away our "diversity" we'll ruin your family traditions) is not something that black people are asking for (except out of schadenfreude and does nothing for us other than somehow make us the bad guy in a fight between white people.

The enemy of black people isn't racism in university admissions, and our friend isn't racism to enforce diversity. Diversity is a theory about enterprises being more effective if they hire people from different backgrounds, largely and strangely based in capitalist fairy tales about Goldman Sachs hiring Jews and therefore doing better. If the effect is real, colleges that hire according to that theory will be more successful and others will be desperate to catch up. If it's not real, governments will have to write laws to force people to pretend that it is real.

The crime of slavery has nothing to do with that, and the fact that millions of slaves were released with nothing and without compensation is a problem irrespective of whether diversity is a successful strategy to build a business.

CSMastermind• 2 years ago

This is something that I don't want the government to have any say in.

Make private universities private, don't give the students there any government aid, and let them run however they want.

asadotzler4• 2 years ago

Many, maybe most, would lose massive prestige and possibly fail without all those government grants and the research papers they provide to the school as advertising.

contagiousflow3• 2 years ago

MIT doesn't have legacy admissions. Do they have a prestige problem?

schlauerfox• 2 years ago

Admission by random drawn lot, with a public known fair pseudorandom number generator seeded by the state lotto for public transparency?

nielsbot• 2 years ago

FTA:

Schools with legacy preferences have argued that they have not compromised their high standards and that children of alumni who are admitted are highly qualified, or they would not have been accepted.

So then this legislation will result in no changes for them right?

epolanski3• 2 years ago

European here, don't understand one thing: if the universities are private shouldn't it be their business who they admit or not?

I can understand some sort of protection against racial discrimination and such.

But if a big donor wants his son in, what is the issue?

wileydragonfly• 2 years ago

I worked in the deans office of “prestigious university” for a bit. She’d openly admit how surprised she was to hear that there was a certain level of donation that guaranteed acceptance.

They’d also graduate students from other countries (mostly China) that had a kindergarten level of English. At best.

Experiences like that will really shatter illusions.

stainablesteel2• 2 years ago

I think this is problematic, and not in a way that disregards the backdrop of the supreme court ousting diversity admissions at universities. As far as I understand the state doesn't give any money to private universities via funding.

The supreme court was acting in a manner relative to federal funding, because those schools take federal dollars. On the other hand private schools in CA don't receive state funding, its federal dollars they operate off of, like every other university. So any justification would need to come from the federal side afaik. The private unis might have leverage to allow for this.

I'm not sure what I personally think, there may be a little bit of a reason to distinguish this from something like diversity quotas because of a family's history of attending a school seems somewhat reasonable to preserve. But it's still not completely different in principle either.

freen• 2 years ago

Elite schools are a classic packaging scheme.

Bundle the smart kids with the rich kids and increase the asset value of both.

consumer451• 2 years ago

I am very confident that the anti-DEI mob will be all for this, on principle.

Disclaimer: corporate DEI programs are mostly lackluster windowdressing.

typon• 2 years ago

Here's a better idea: make public universities better and more competitive.

a-dub• 2 years ago

education and socioeconomic sorting are at cross-purposes with each other.

mmmBacon2• 2 years ago

In my view this law violates the institutions freedom of association rights. In practicality as much as many of us decry legacy admits, the fact remains that these institutions were built financially by legacy families. So if you’re talented and lucky enough to get admitted you’re benefiting from legacy admissions.

quotemstr• 2 years ago

Freedom of association has been a dead letter for decades though.

mmmBacon2• 2 years ago

Actually you can’t be more wrong.

* The right to associate is more than just a right to attend a meeting. Instead, it is "the right to express one's attitudes or philosophies by membership in a group or by affiliation with it or by other lawful means." (Griswold v. Connecticut (1965)). The Supreme Court has stated that association in this context is a "form of expression of opinion."

The freedom of association also prohibits laws that require groups to include people they disagree with regarding certain political, religious, or other ideological subjects. The Court has held that compelling groups to include people can violate group members' freedom of association. (Hurley v. Irish-American Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Group of Boston (1995)).*

asadotzler4• 2 years ago

Well, they can stop taking any public money and do what ever the hell they want. it's a simple quid pro quo. Don't like the deal, don't take the money.

TeaBrain• 2 years ago

It's not simple quid pro quo between the universities and the government like you are trying to portray it. The grants primarily benefit the students and researchers who wouldn't have been funded otherwise. The private universities with legacy admissions don't need the money for admissions.

corimaith2• 2 years ago

Isn't the point of an elite college is to rub shoulders with the rich and well connected? If you can't do that and are surrounded by other middle and working class students, why not just go to a flagship state school?

m0002• 2 years ago

No need to worry. They can keep the legacy admissions for the badminton club I guess.

cultureswitch3• 2 years ago

I'm going to have to agree with Scott Galloway here, however much I hate to admit that.

The problem isn't so much how admissions are selected, the problem is that admissions went from a fairly normal thing for any educated young adult to an extremely rare privilege.

To solve the problem, there should simply be more supply of quality higher education. And the government should stop funding institutions that profit from deliberately making their education exclusive.

FrustratedMonky• 2 years ago

I thought the whole point of 'private' was to allow nepotism, and to allow teaching any wacky thing they want.

donohoe• 2 years ago

I love how so many people love meritocracy, but when it is applied to Ivy League universities suddenly it’s considered like autonomy is being taken away.

fdfgyu• 2 years ago

If they receive public funds, they can go and suck limes. They do receive public funds.

That being said, since they receive public funds, they should also be subject to the first amendment as strictly as public universities.

Imagine, Columbia ordered to reinstate the Gaza protestors, and Ivy League generally forced to provide as easy access to forums for conservatives as is provided to progressives.

data_maan• 2 years ago

With the advent of ChatGPT, universities are becoming more like networking clubs, since for all domains where you don't need a lab, ChatGPT already is often much better than a random lecturer in a class of 300 students that you will never have 1-on-1 access to (and the tutors are also busy with their own research of course).

ponow• 2 years ago

When do they ban legacy admissions to weddings? Do uncles and great grandmothers really warrant admission?

wly_cdgr• 2 years ago

While I agree that banning legacy preference is good policy, how do you prove a violation exactly? And who is gonna do the proving?

If you want to make this work, and you should, you need to do something like total application anonymization, which means identity can't be deducible from any application materials. This is doable with standardized tests, which are a good approach to solving the admissions problem anyway.

So, college admissions should be based solely on standardized test scores.

sokoloff3• 2 years ago

But he did succeed with a measure requiring private colleges to report to the Legislature how many students they admit because of ties to alumni or donors. Those reports showed that the practice was most widespread at Stanford and U.S.C., where, at both schools, about 14 percent of students who were admitted in the fall of 2022 had legacy or donor connections.

“Had legacy or donor connections” does not mean “admit[ted] because of ties to alumni or donors”.

fearmerchant• 2 years ago

A large part of what makes elite schools elite is the people you meet. That legacy kid whose dad is well connected or is a VC, is just as important as the smart kid that invents the next great thing. These institutions brought together the brains and the money. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out.

California bans legacy admissions at private universities

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