By Jenna Somers
At some highly selective colleges and universities, cohorts of mostly white, wealthy applicants have three to eight times greater odds of admission than other similarly qualified applicants. These beneficiaries are legacy applicants, those who receive an admissions bonus for having alumni relatives.
Legacy preferences have long been criticized as perpetuating racial and socioeconomic inequality in higher education, which is why many institutions have gotten rid of them. The Supreme Court's ruling in SFFA v. Harvard in 2023, which banned consideration of race in admissions decisions, catalyzed renewed interest by colleges and state policymakers in eliminating legacy preferences to make the admissions process more equitable and to increase student diversity.
However, a recent policy brief, published in Education Finance and Policy, reveals that bans alone won't increase diversity. A variety of state policies and institutional practices create mixed results. Most notably, in states that banned race-based affirmative action prior to the SFFA v. Harvard decision, colleges that also instituted a legacy admissions ban saw no change to racial diversity.
"Efforts to remove legacy preferences are expanding, and while legacy bans may increase perceptions of equity and fairness, it's not clear that they consistently lead to increases in student diversity," said Brent Evans, co-author of the brief and associate professor of public policy and higher education in the Department of Leadership, Policy and Organizations at Vanderbilt Peabody College of education and human development.
The brief reveals pivotal differences in how legacy preference bans are structured. Some state policies apply to all colleges, while others target only public or private institutions. Furthermore, many state policies focus exclusively on banning legacy preferences but allow donor preferences, and most do not include sanctions or other enforcement mechanisms.
Case study findings
Evans and co-author Cody Christensen, a doctoral student in higher education leadership and policy at Vanderbilt, examined seven cases where legacy preferences were banned: Amherst College, Johns Hopkins University, Texas A&M University, the University of California system, the state of Colorado (the only legislative ban), the University of Georgia, and the University of Pittsburgh. Results varied significantly:
- Amherst College is a school of about 500 students. Prior to its legacy preference ban, only 11 percent of incoming students were legacies. Following the ban, the college did not see an increase in racial diversity.
- Johns Hopkins University saw gains in Black, Hispanic and Asian enrollments and significant decreases in white enrollments following its legacy preference ban in 2014-15. Notably, neither the university nor the state of Maryland banned race-based affirmative action in admissions decisions prior to the Supreme Court decision.
- Texas A&M University banned legacy preferences in 2004-05. The share of white students declined by four percentage points while Hispanic students and students from low-income households increased. Texas had an affirmative action ban, but the state's "Top 10 Percent rule," which guarantees college admissions to students who graduate in the top 10 percent of their high school class, most likely contributed to the increased diversity.
- Colorado offers the only example of a legislative ban among these case studies. Despite the policy, public institutions across the state saw negligible effects on diversity, possibly because many of them had high admission rates where legacy bonuses had limited impact.
- The UC system banned legacy preferences in 2000-01 in the wake of the state's affirmative action ban. The University of Georgia also eliminated legacy preferences in 2002-03 in response to a federal court ban on its affirmative action practices. In both cases, little changed in campus diversity, due in part to the affirmative action bans preventing admissions offices from considering race in admissions decisions.
- The University of Pittsburgh eliminated legacy preferences in 2020-21. White and Black student enrollment declined, but Hispanic and Asian student populations increased, with Asian students far outpacing Hispanic students. Students from low-income households also increased. Pitt receives 32,000 applications for 4,000 seats, so admissions officers may have decided to admit more qualified, economically disadvantaged students. Notably, Pennsylvania didn't have an affirmative action ban in effect.
In contrast to racial diversity, only Texas A&M and Pitt increased enrollments from economically disadvantaged students, suggesting that legacy applicants at other institutions were often replaced by other high-income students.
Policy implications and recommendations
Policies eliminating legacy preferences may address fairness concerns, but in many contexts, they cannot single-handedly increase racial and socio-economic diversity on college campuses. Evans and Christensen offer several recommendations:
- States interested in banning legacy preferences should apply bans consistently to both public and private institutions and include sanctions to motivate compliance.
- Institutions pursuing racial and socio-economic diversity should increase recruitment in underrepresented communities as well as expand financial aid, guaranteed tuition programs and mentorship initiatives- practices that have proven to be effective.
