Lawmakers want to ban legacy admissions at California private colleges, even though few colleges admit students that way. Bill backers say the bill will signal to students that college is for them in the aftermath of the national ban on affirmative action.
Among the few private colleges that have recently offered legacy admissions are USC, Claremont McKenna College and Harvey Mudd College.
Call it a ban on affirmative action for the well-connected: California’s Legislature on Wednesday passed a bill barring the state’s private nonprofit colleges from making admissions decisions based on whether family members of students donated money to the school or had attended the school themselves.
If Gov. Gavin Newsom signs it, the state would join four others that also made legacy preferences in admissions illegal for either public or private institutions. With California’s outsized national role — it’s the most populous state and enrolls the most college students — bill backers say this legislation will serve as a necessary corrective to last year’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling that banned all but military colleges from using race as a factor in admissions.
Assemblymember Philip Ting, a Democrat from San Francisco, wrote Assembly Bill 1780 to ban legacy admissions in part as a response to that Supreme Court ruling.
“We want to make sure that everyone’s getting in because of their own merit, because of their grades, their test scores, what they provide to that institution, not because of their pocketbooks, of their parents or their family members,” said Ting during a legislative voting session in May.
The court undid nearly 50 years of precedent that permitted college admissions offices to consider a student’s racial or ethnic background in their effort to promote campus diversity. In California, the ruling affected just a handful of private colleges that used affirmative action; voters in 1996 changed the state constitution to forbid public schools from using race as a factor in admissions.
And like that court decision, Ting’s bill would affect few colleges. About a half-dozen private institutions consider legacy in admissions; none of California’s public universities do.
However, like the Supreme Court case, bill backers say the legislation could be a powerful force in influencing the decision of high school students who are low-income and students of color to apply for college, especially highly selective schools that are springboards for corporate and political influence.
If the Supreme Court case created doubt for students that they’re welcomed, this bill combats that in California and nationally, supporters say, especially as more high school graduates avoid enrolling in college altogether, particularly men.
“I think that it is fair to say that there are a smaller number of colleges that will be impacted by enrollment slots that will change as a result of this legislative action,” said Jessie Ryan, president of The Campaign for College Opportunity, a California-based advocacy and research organization that co-sponsored Ting’s bill.
Although relatively few enrollment slots are affected by this bill, that misses the bigger picture, Ryan said. With any effort that shows students wealth doesn’t offer a leg up in admissions, “you’re doing something bigger related to culture and (social) fabric as students are questioning the value of college altogether and whether or not they want to pursue a higher education,” she said.
Just as affirmative action was but one tool in increasing college access to marginalized students, so is this bill, her reasoning went.
Few colleges consider legacy in admissions
In fall 2022, only seven private universities out of about 90 in California admitted students whose family members either donated money to the school or attended the school themselves. A little over 3,300 undergraduates — out of an admissions class of 31,633 — were legacy admissions. Last fall, it was six colleges and about 2,100 students admitted with legacy or donor ties as a factor.
At one school, Northeastern University Oakland, fewer than 10 students were admitted who didn’t meet the school’s admissions criteria last fall. The other campuses — which include Santa Clara University and Stanford University in addition to USC, Claremont McKenna and Harvey Mudd — admitted students with legacy or donor ties who all met admissions standards.
The data exists because of an earlier effort by Ting to end legacy admissions. That 2019 legislation was significantly altered to instead require colleges to report their legacy admissions numbers.
“This is not a lot of students, not in the whole landscape of all the students we serve,” said Kristen Soares, president of the Association of Independent California Colleges and Universities. The organization opposed the bill.
“We want to make sure that everyone’s getting in because of their own merit … not because of their pocketbooks, of their parents or their family members.”
— Assemblymember Phil Ying, Democrat from San Francisco
A senior association staffer told lawmakers the group has “strong reservations” about legislative scrutiny of private colleges, oversight that’s typical for public colleges and universities that receive billions of dollars in direct state support to fund their education missions. Private colleges generally only receive tuition aid for low-income students in California. And while the vast majority of students at California public universities are Californians, private nonprofit colleges in the state pull many of their students from outside the state, though it varies by campus.
Colleges will comply with the law if Newsom signs the bill, Soares said.
Like other college leaders, Soares continues to worry about the “chilling impact” the ban on affirmative action may have on students. “We want to do more, and we’ll continue to do more to serve all students,” she said, such as increased student outreach, which the group and its colleges said they’d double down on after last year’s Supreme Court ban
She hasn’t written an appeal to Newsom to veto the measure, she said. The governor’s Department of Finance is neutral on the bill, though it expressed concern that the bill will create the need for the state’s Department of Justice to hire two new employees to monitor the colleges at a time when the state is forecasting large budget deficits.
“You’re doing something bigger related to culture and (social) fabric as students are questioning the value of college altogether and whether or not they want to pursue a higher education.”
— Jessie Ryan, president of The Campaign for College Opportunity
The bill doesn’t have the punitive teeth Ting initially sought. Gone are provisions that would have forced colleges to pay a civil penalty equal to the amount they got in Cal Grant dollars — the state’s main tuition subsidy for low-income students — if they continued to use legacy as a factor in admissions. That would have meant several million dollars for some colleges that enroll relatively high numbers of low-income students.
As it stands, the bill’s only punishment for colleges would be to appear on a list compiled by the state’s Department of Justice. However, Ryan said her organization is part of a coalition of groups that includes legal defense funds “that stand ready to take legal action if in fact campuses do not comply with the law.”
Impact of legacy admissions ban unclear
But others say it’s still too early to declare that this bill, or the Supreme Court ban on affirmative action, will have an effect on students’ decisions to attend college.
On the one hand, Ting’s bill is the Legislature’s reminder to colleges “that they do have a role in providing oversight and accountability for ensuring that higher education is accessible to those who are not just from wealthy backgrounds,” said Steve Desir, an assistant professor at USC who studies racial equity issues in college access and admissions.
That’s particularly true given that private colleges receive Cal Grant funding, he said. Last year, more than 25,000 California students received around $230 million in partial tuition waivers to attend the private colleges.
But he doesn’t think the research is clear on whether ending legacy admissions changes student behavior, “because that’s kind of a new area,” he said.
To him, other decisions, like more financial aid or eliminating the SAT in admissions, are stronger signals to students that college is accessible because students are more directly engaged in filling out forms for grants or studying for standardized tests. The admissions process itself is “opaque” to many, he said.
He’s similarly hesitant to guess how students have interpreted the affirmative action ban. “It’s just so new, and I think everyone’s still trying to make sense of what this actually means in practice,” he said.
He said the onus is on colleges to continue the outreach to students to tell them they’re welcomed, something campuses vowed to do even more last year. Hiring more high school counselors would help students tackle the stress of picking and applying to colleges, too, Desir said.
The bill, if signed, would take effect next year. Pending the governor’s approval, after Sept. 1, 2025, schools won’t be able to use an applicant’s legacy or donor connections as a factor in admissions, a spokesperson for Ting wrote.
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