Virginia Bans Legacy Admissions at Public Universities
“family connections will no longer be of any help to applicants to such prestigious institutions such as the University of Virginia and William & Mary”
Virginia is the second state to adopt such a policy.
NBC News reports:
Virgina bans public universities from considering legacy in admissions
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin signed a bill banning the consideration of legacy to public universities, making the commonwealth the second state to end admission advantages through family connections.
These ties to alumni and donors cannot be taken into consideration for application under the terms of House Bill 48, which Youngkin signed on Friday.
So this means that family connections will no longer be of any help to applicants to such prestigious institutions such as the University of Virginia and William & Mary.
The University of Virginia and William & Mary were ranked the Nos. 24 and 53 national universities in the most recent ratings by U.S. News & World Report. No. 47 Virginia Tech, in Blacksburg, announced last year that it had removed legacy from its admissions calculations.
Colorado adopted a legacy ban in 2021.
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I’m conflicted.
The unis do this because it helps them raise donations from alumni.
So, arguably, the better thing to do rather than banning “legacy” admittances all together might have been to require unis that do so to set aside some minimum percentage of alumni donations to non alumni income-driven scholarships. That way each rich Chads’ Dad p would be paying for low-income students who actually otherwise qualify academically to attend.
Win – win.
In today’s world of lower enrollment that might work (in yesterday’s world a “spot” would still be stolen). I still don’t like the idea of legacy admissions either way.
Why are legacy admissions bad? They give an institution coherence. I think that raises its value, and it’s not that many slots. Meanwhile those alum parents have to give generously. If they don’t give, the legacy status could even count against them as the uni decides to try over with another family that might donate, not this old one that didn’t.
So it will cost Virginia quite a bit of money. Are the taxpayers ready for the hit, the occasional buildings that are no longer funded? Now all the money that falls out of the sky will come from Qatar.
They give an institution money.
The anti-legacy movement is based on “fairness” concerns, which is based on envy underneath that. The rationale is that whitish people made up the majority of (say) Harvard attendees in previous generations, therefore legacy slots will more often go to their (likely) whitish offspring. It’s like affirmative action, but for stupid/lazy offspring of (mostly) white people. It’s one case of affirmative action liberals don’t luv.
Of course, in traditional minority unis the sock is on the other foot, but discrimination against white folks never counts.
Seriously, you want state colleges to get private money donations legacy slots are the #1 fund raising tactic. Cutting off that nose to spite white alumni faces cuts off free money that can be used to educate the non rich kids whose parents aren’t rich alumni.
Sorry no….legacy admissions are low grade form of nepotism. We need less of that everywhere.
Now give me one reason why an alumnus should donate a penny to the university. How does the institution build a tie to a family if they get nothing for it?
Tax incentives?
Maybe they will have to play nicer with other dangling carrots like political harmony and other objectives.
Milhouse, You’re disappointing me. This is just as bad as racial quotas.
How? What’s bad about it? Racial quotas are bad because there’s no reason why the university should prefer applicant A over applicant B, except their race. That makes it inherently racist. There’s plenty of reason to prefer a member of the university family over a stranger; especially when the university’s key strategy for fundraising has for decades been to carefully foster a sense of family, which it is now destroying. It’s now telling the donors it has been pursuing that it regards them as strangers, not as family members. So why should they give anything?
Tax deductions?! There are many far worthier causes to support. No one gives money to a university for the tax deduction. People looking for the tax deduction first decide to give them money, and then choose where to give it. Without a reason to give it to the university they’ll give it somewhere better.
Nepotism? What’s wrong with that? The world runs on nepotism, aka helping ones own. Are you seriously saying that a businessman should not hire his own relatives who need a job, and should instead hire strangers?! What a way to run a business! What a monster such a person would be! What’s the point of having a business in the first place, if you can’t use it to help your own? Should you also not plan to hand the business over eventually to one of your children, and instead hand it over to a stranger?!
Now if it’s not your business, then you shouldn’t be giving jobs to your own relatives at the owner’s expense, without his consent. But you should certainly give jobs to the owner’s relatives, if he wants you to. And if you want to foster a sense of family in the business you should give preference to existing employees’ relatives who apply for jobs.
Which reminds me, are you also against universities giving preference in admission to faculty members’ children? Surely every university does that, as a matter of course.
I hope you don’t get operated on by a legacy admission surgeon.
Gratitude. A sense that the university gave you the tools to succeed in life and you have a moral obligation to reward them in kind and “pay it forward” to improve the life of someone else who is following in your footsteps.
Milhouse, Why do you expect something in return for a donation? Why wouldn’t you donate because you the institution does good work? Do people give to their church expecting something in return? The food bank? Etc. etc. Seems pretty shallow to be buying yourself special treatment and pretend it’s a charitable donation.
It should be because the university is a public good that is encouraging and improving civilization and pushing scientific inquiry and giving will be a better use of money than tax dollars to the federal government.
That the university system has disregarded that in favor of “Give to us entirely because it will give your son/daughter a leg up over people of lesser economic background” is a disgrace and punitive measures against universities for ending their role as a promoter instead of civilization is a positive good.
Universities are running massive DEI programs, massive amounts of middle men who have nothing whatsoever to do with either education or research or student life, and that is why teaching someone what in many cases is literally the same curricula as 40 years ago now costs a kings ransom.
Even in sciences teaching undergrad is not radically different from earlier generations it is just some errors in scientific knowledge have been corrected.
Now that Virginia has struck a blow for civilization by making Universities EARN donations instead of it being in return for preferences we should work to make Universities balance their books and focus on actual education by eliminating student loans.
Student loans have resulted in universities just raising prices every year whatever happens knowing student loans will keep students coming for their chance at a better career than they could get without. I haven’t a clue about your life history but I happen to know you could have worked your way through college by working part time in a restaurant.
That is impossible today thanks to loans.
“Now refund all the money my family has given this institution on the understanding that our children would be attending and would benefit from our donations”.
Parents who attended these failing public schools should rejoice knowing their children won’t be guaranteed access to the so-called “gender-affirming closests” established to give little Billy dresses (and Sally a fake pensis) to wear at the next ice breaker.
Excellent. This should lead to fewer rich alumni donating and the schools having less to squander.
Big state universities have other priorities, like getting the football team on TV.
I am curious whether just giving the school money will allow your child to be admitted.
Yes, it was. There was a story a few years ago in FL of a kid that got into med school who didn’t even take the MCAT (all schools that aren’t a joke require it).
Supposedly, being a legacy applicant gives you a leg up. And having your rich family sponsor a professorship chair or build a new building doesn’t hurt either. Individual unis are mostly free to screen applicants however they wish. With the cautionary notice that it’s (supposedly) no longer legal to screen in or out based on race or religion. So the diehard “we must discriminate to end discrimination” cadre now forced to be more underhanded in doing so. Requiring photos, essay-length “why I want to attend” X, and so forth. Whereas if they truly wanted to “end discrimination” entry would be largely based on test scores and applications would have race/religion/gender clues edited out.
Not by itself, usually, but if your child is qualified, a donation will give them a leg up. In choosing who gets the last spot, it’s only natural to give it to the one whose parents have done so much for the school, rather than to a stranger who has done nothing for it, just because he may have scored a few points higher, or is of the right skin color.