Starting with this year’s high school senior class, California will join four other U.S. states in banning legacy admissions for college. This means that private non-profit colleges will no longer be able to take into consideration if applicants are children of donors or alumni of that university. This change, following the signing of Assembly Bill 1780 by Governor Gavin Newsom, will be very beneficial: diversifying schools, promoting merit-based values, and ensuring greater equality in admission opportunities.
Since the 1920s, legacy admissions have increased the likelihood that generations of a family could attend the same university. According to Stanford Law School Filed, legacy admissions leaves schools in the position to offer admissions preference to students from advantaged families. Other schools share this phenomenon, which allows them to disproportionately accept more students from the predominantly white and economically advantaged families that historically have had more access to higher education. Backing this claim, research conducted by the National Bureau of Economic Research suggests that around a quarter of white students would not be accepted into universities without legacy admissions. Banning legacy admissions will help eliminate the problem of racial bias and allow students from all backgrounds to have a fairer chance at being accepted to college.
Colorado was the first U.S. state to ban legacy admissions, in 2021, and since then has been able to foster more diversity in its school system. Many colleges, including the Colorado School of Mines, have admitted more students of color than before the legacy admissions ban. California will likely see the same trend starting next fall.
The benefits of diversifying California colleges go beyond just the moral principle as well. Different ethnic and racial backgrounds mean different perspectives, experiences, and ideas flowing through schools. An underlying goal of education is to prepare students for the world, which is exactly what banning legacy admissions will foster.
Aside from legacy admission bans increasing diversity, it also has the potential to mentally aid students by increasing the value of worth ethic. According to The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Supreme Court had to reassess the idea of legacy admissions, due to the policy being unmeritocratic. With legacy admissions in place, legacy students looking to apply to colleges too easily adopt the idea that they don’t have to work as hard in terms of their grades, athletics, and extracurriculars. It provides them with some guarantee that they will be considered because of their legacy ties. This way of thinking diminishes the value of individual effort and achievement. Getting rid of legacy admissions will push students who may have once relied on that, to apply themselves more to schoolwork and activities that will determine their academic future.
Along with this, according to the U.S Office of Personnel Management, promoting merit-based systems goes hand in hand with the pillars of character that shape children into better individuals, such as fairness and responsibility. Promoting these values in young students is essential to building good character, and banning legacy admissions will encourage this.
Among the schools in California that are subject to the banning of legacy admissions are the University of Southern California and Stanford. According to the LA Times, 14.5% of USC admits and 13.6% of Stanford admits were legacy in 2023. Equal opportunity in terms of college admissions is a more fair and just way to reward hard-working, high-achieving young people.
Following the footsteps of Colorado, Illinois, Maryland, and Virginia, banning legacy admissions will improve the California colleges and universities for generations to come. If you visit a college campus in a few years, expect to see a more diverse student body. If you talk to a high-schooler in a few years, expect to notice a hard working mindset becoming more common. And if you apply to college in a few years, expect to have a better chance at being admitted than those who came before you.
