- Critics: Donald Trump's demands for meritocracy on college campuses should include elimination of legacy admissions.
- Legacy admission policies allow for children of alumni to receive preferential treatment.
- National and Utah polls reveal little support for legacy college admission practices.
Many of America’s most storied educational institutions — including Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Duke and Notre Dame — still consider legacy status in admissions.
It’s been dubbed “affirmative action for the rich.”
Now critics of legacy admissions argue that such practices run counter to the Trump administration’s insistence that merit alone be used by colleges in deciding who gets in — and who gets left out.
And they note that President Donald Trump remains mum on the controversial admissions practice.
Approximately 24% of American colleges and universities still consider legacy status — giving preferential consideration to applicants who are related to an institution’s alumni, most commonly their parents, according to an Education Reform Now news release.
The practice of providing a legacy preference, the release noted, remains most prominent among “old, wealthy, elitist colleges and universities concentrated in the Northeast.”
“The willingness of elite institutions to put money ahead of merit epitomizes why many Americans across the political spectrum are wondering not just about the value of higher education but the values of higher education,” noted James Murphy, the director of postsecondary policy at Education Reform Now.
“Getting rid of legacy preferences is a way for colleges and universities to show the country that they share our values and that they still care about fairness and merit.”
No Utah college formally considers legacy status as a factor for admission — although several schools’ alumni associations offer scholarships to children or grandchildren of alums.
‘Heredity privilege … without any sense of shame’
In recent months, the Trump administration has leaned on colleges to prove that they do not consider race in admission and other programs.
Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered that admission to any of the country’s service academies be based “exclusively on merit.”
Those federal actions come two years after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected affirmative action policies — a ruling long sought by many U.S. conservatives who complained that white and certain other applicants were being disadvantaged.
After the court banned the consideration of race in college admissions in 2023, 92 colleges stopped considering legacy status, an 18% decrease since 2022, according to an Education Reform Now release.
But some argue that legacy admissions still get a pass in some college admissions offices.
Richard Kahlenberg, a researcher at the Progressive Policy Institute think tank, told The Associated Press that Trump often rails against systems he describes as “rigged” — but he is overlooking a glaring instance in higher education: legacy admissions.
“It’s hard to think of a more flagrant way in which the system is rigged than legacy preferences,” Kahlenberg said. “Rarely is a system of hereditary privilege so openly practiced without any sense of shame.”
Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., has saluted the Trump administration’s efforts to eliminate race in college admission consideration. But restoring meritocracy, he added, warrants more.
“Federally accredited institutions should eliminate ALL preferences grounded in arbitrary circumstances of ancestry that students have no control over, such as legacy status,” Young wrote on his X account.
And last year, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, signed a bill barring legacy admissions at public institutions, following similar measures in Colorado, California and elsewhere, The Associated Press reported.
Stanford University said in July it will continue considering legacy status, even after a California law barred it at institutions that receive state financial aid.
Stanford opted to withdraw from the state’s student financial aid program rather than end the practice. The university said it will replace the funding with internal money — even as it begins layoffs to close a $140 million budget deficit, according to The Associated Press.
Last year, as part of a state transparency law, Stanford reported that about 14% of its new students were relatives of alumni or donors.
Trump’s silence on legacy admissions caught the attention of the nonprofit Lawyers for Civil Rights, which has an open complaint with the Education Department alleging that Harvard University’s use of donor and alumni preferences amounts to illegal racial discrimination.
The group’s 2023 complaint says the practice overwhelmingly benefits white students.
If the Trump administration wants to make admissions a meritocracy, it should start by ending legacy preferences, said Oren Sellstrom, litigation director for the group.
“These deeply unmeritocratic preferences simply reward students based on who their parents are. It’s hard to imagine anything more unfair or contrary to basic merit principles,” Sellstrom told The Associated Press.
Most Americans — including Utah — are not ‘legacy admissions’ fans
A national AP-NORC poll in 2023 revealed that few Americans think family ties should be much of a factor in college admissions.
Just 9% said it should be very important that a family member attended the school, and 18% said it should be somewhat important. Views were similar when it came to students whose families had donated to the university, with just 10% saying donations should be highly important.
Most Utahns apparently agree.
When asked about giving legacy students preference in college admission, 70% of Utahns responding to a 2023 Deseret News/University of Utah Hinckley Institute of Politics poll said they oppose the practice.
Slightly more than a quarter — 26% — said they approve while 4% said they did not know.
While the poll revealed widespread opposition to legacy playing a role in college admission decisions, those most opposed were respondents ages 24-40, those who identified as somewhat liberal, women and those earning $25,000 to $49,000 annually.
Seventy-five percent of Utahns polled with “some college” were either somewhat opposed or strongly opposed, while 82% of people who described themselves as “somewhat liberal” were opposed.
The least amount of opposition was among Utahns age 57 and up, although 65% said they strongly or somewhat disapproved of legacy admissions.
Along partisan lines, 68% of Republican respondents said they were somewhat or strongly opposed. Among Democrats, a combined 75% were opposed.