Shouldn't Columbia End Legacy Admissions
Guest Writers: Raag Agrawal, Alexander Hempel, Alan Zhang
The authors are students and alumni of Columbia University; opinions expressed are their own.
Amidst a climate of profound disillusionment with American institutions and their role in perpetuating structural inequality, Columbia administrators have expressed their support for social justice in a series of emails. However, the university can, and should, go beyond mere statements. Admissions reforms, especially the abolition of legacy admissions, offer a concrete means of strengthening Columbia’s commitment to equity. Ivy League universities, with their need-blind policies and emphasis on diversity, lay claim to a meritocratic ideal wherein all qualified individuals can gain admission. But, as every Columbia student knows, the university’s domestic student body is a highly distorted sample of America.
President Bollinger has stated, on record, that “a significant portion of each entering class at Columbia benefits from the legacy factor”. While Barnard College releases the proportion of admits who are legacies -- around 14% -- Columbia declines to do so. Since the number of legacy applicants cannot be determined from official statistics, the policy’s impact has been difficult to quantify. However, a never-before-analyzed Spectator survey of the Class of 2021 allows us to demonstrate the racial and economic inequities that legacy admissions creates. In our view, the takeaway is obvious: legacies — who are richer and whiter than the student body at large — do not deserve yet another advantage in the admissions process.
According to our data set, legacy admits are disproportionately high-income. Specifically, legacy families are more likely to earn >$250k/year (P<0.001) than non-legacies. Considering the job opportunities available to Columbia graduates, this finding is unsurprising. Nonetheless, we question whether a policy that favors high-income individuals is worth retaining, especially since Columbia disproportionately admits those from the top 1% and under-represents low-income households. When Johns Hopkins eliminated their legacy admissions policy, the number of Pell Grant-eligible students more than doubled, illustrating how many spots for deserving low-income students are often occupied by legacies. Rather than ossifying the wealth divide in America, Columbia should seek to admit the most promising students regardless of income. And a student body more representative of America as a whole would help foster more realistic and nuanced discussions of the economic and social issues which plague the United States.
In addition to favoring rich applicants, legacy admissions functions as affirmative action for white people; we find that legacy Columbia students are far whiter than their non-legacy peers (P<0.001). This mirrors the situation at other universities, including Harvard, where 21% of white admits were legacies, versus only 6.6% of Asians and 4.8% of black students. The broader literature suggests that legacy admissions is almost always inimical to racial diversity, a conclusion supported by our data. While future cycles might see a more representative legacy pool, any improvement would be gradual at best, and legacy may never be as diverse as the overall student body. White individuals already enjoy innumerable advantages in American society — they should not receive a leg-up during the admissions process as well.
But what about the benefits of legacy admissions? After all, the practice is supposed to encourage alumni engagement and giving. There may be some fundraising advantage to retaining legacy preference, but numerous peer institutions have maintained a strong community and donor base without it. Prestigious universities such as Caltech and MIT are able to promote alumni giving campaigns and endowment growth at rates higher than Columbia without legacy admissions. Additionally, studies have failed to establish a link between legacy admissions and alumni giving after controlling for wealth. In the end, a focus on admitting the best and brightest has long-term returns greater than the preservation of family ties to a university.
In light of these findings, we call on Columbia to end the usage of legacy status as a factor in admissions. According to our dataset, legacy preference works only to advantage applicants who are richer and whiter. And the success of institutions like JHU and MIT should put to rest any argument that it can’t be done. If we are to build a more diverse and equal America, we must remove the structural barriers that prevent POC and low-income individuals from accessing higher education. And because none of our Ivy peers have ended legacy admissions, Columbia has a unique opportunity to lead the Ivy League in forging a more genuinely equitable higher education landscape. Columbia’s motto is “In thy light shall we see light” — let us see the light in all applicants and realize Columbia’s potential as an engine of justice.