Conservatives are now targeting legacy admission preference

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:This why we need government funding out of all schools. These universities have sticker prices above $50k a year and most have massive endowments. Let’s then stand, and make decisions, on their own.

The government isn't "funding" the schools. The schools compete for research grants. If you are suggesting the government has no role in asking top academic institutions to conduct research, that is an entirely different discussion.

Anything that gives governments a say over what colleges do isn’t good. Doesn’t matter if it funding or grants they can hold over their heads. Colleges need to be independent. Everybody understood the system of full pay kids subsidizing grants for non full pay kids. When a legacy with a 3.9 and 1400 got into Harvard we all accepted it, because we knew it helped the kid from a less privileged background with a 4.8 and 1590.

I think the opposite is true.

Eliminate tax exempt status and federal funding of private colleges.

well then it wont matter to most of you complaining. Because that $90K yearly costs will skyrocket rapidly and you wont be able to afford to attend even if by some miracle your kid still gets admission

False, because it does not cost $90K+ to educate your kid. That fee covers financial aid (for others), merit scholarships (for others), bloated admin staff; bloated DEI staff and so on. Schools need to start cutting expenses.

You are assuming that they need to cut those items. But, they really don't want too and most endowment money is tied anyway and they cannot just redeploy it as they see fit.

If they need to fund research (newsflash they do or their Phds. will go to the private sector) what will happen is that tuition stays high (probably goes up), some financial aid gets cut and more families like mine who can cash flow even 150K per year get in.

Net net, Harvard goes back to what it used to be and you still do not get access.

This 1000%

Oh, and all that research now costs multiple times more ($30K PHD students who stay for 7+ years or someone in industry demanding $100-150K+ to do the work and the risk they will bounce around after a few years, wanting to take their work elsewhere)

So medical advances will cost much more, and many might simply not happen

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This why we need government funding out of all schools. These universities have sticker prices above $50k a year and most have massive endowments. Let’s then stand, and make decisions, on their own.

The government isn't "funding" the schools. The schools compete for research grants. If you are suggesting the government has no role in asking top academic institutions to conduct research, that is an entirely different discussion.

Anything that gives governments a say over what colleges do isn’t good. Doesn’t matter if it funding or grants they can hold over their heads. Colleges need to be independent. Everybody understood the system of full pay kids subsidizing grants for non full pay kids. When a legacy with a 3.9 and 1400 got into Harvard we all accepted it, because we knew it helped the kid from a less privileged background with a 4.8 and 1590.

I think the opposite is true.

Eliminate tax exempt status and federal funding of private colleges.

well then it wont matter to most of you complaining. Because that $90K yearly costs will skyrocket rapidly and you wont be able to afford to attend even if by some miracle your kid still gets admission

+100

Can you imagine the howls. Can you imagine what the politics would look like if research money was only going to Public Schools. Rather than the best proposal winning it would be the senior member of the Appropriations home state schools collecting the cash. These fools have no idea how endowments actually work; they believe that it is open access to the money pile.

All of this works for me because I can cash flow two kids at current prices without issue but most of us can't do that.

Yup! They also don't get that much of the research grants going to universities are saving the USA $$$$$. You can either pay people in private industry with PHDs in STEM areas to do the medical/scientific research for advances (so likely $150K+ depending upon the area and their expertise) or you can pay MS/PHD students who get $25-30K/year, have to teach as well as give 150% of their lives to the research (because they want to do well, want to succeed and get published with something that makes it big in science).
Hmm...I'll take the "cheap & highly motivated PHD student".

Also, if you cannot cash flow the $90K, well the top schools are not giving merit. So it will still cost $90K even after EA/RD (and hint, they still wont be able to afford it). But there are literally tons of awesome schools that give merit/won't cost $90K, just step outside the T25-30 schools and your top student will get it. Anyone with a resume for a T25 school can easily get multiple great merit offers from the 30-100 range schools

True, but what does Pitt look like when their research budgets get slaughtered. My guess is that the 25-50 start to look more like the 100-200 and the 100 - 200 just drop most research. More research money will go to private companies which suits some of the idiots currently in place just fine.

The elite schools go back to being places suitable for the 'elite' with tightened access.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:They don’t like the educated intellectual elites, so they are trying to break down the whole system of higher education. This is just part of that.

Whatever the reason, you have to agree that legacy has to go. Get rid of ED next. Have a majority, democratic and republican (not politicians, but certainly voters) on both fronts.

If you are getting rid of ED, then schools also need to get rid of preferences for athletes and their alternative admissions path

Athletes are getting in based on merit. It may not be the “merit” that a lot of people here believe that it should be prioritized, but there is achievement required there that isn’t solely based on a characteristic from birth that cannot ever be changed. (If you want to argue that athletics are disproportionately going to favor wealthier families, you can also argue that for every single part of the entire American education system from disparities between public school systems to test scores to other non-athletic extracurricular activities.)

“Merit” at least for most people means a combo of GPA, test scores, and extracurricular activities (not just GPA and test scores alone) and athletics will fit into that last category.

For most people merit probably means GPA and test scores alone. That's how most of the countries of the world do it. Universities are, after all, supposedly academic institutions.

Understood that how most countries of the world use solely GPA and test scores or often only test scores alone.

However, from an American viewpoint, we do care about extracurriculars because most schools aren’t simply STEM factories. Schools want elite musicians, debate champions, national science contest winners, etc. Those are still merit-based achievements and very much distinguished from raced-based or legacy admissions that are solely based on birth and out of the control of the applicable student.

I think this is a massive problem with a lot of the debates on all of these issues. A lot of both sides seem to revert to definitions of “merit” being solely about GPA and test scores (either as a critique about how “schools that just look at numbers are just producing robots and not producing leaders” or as a panacea pointing to other countries), but I don’t think even Blum (someone I have a lot of personal critiques about) is trying to argue. Taking into account whether someone is an elite athlete or musician or debater or anything else IS about merit in a way that a race-based or legacy preference isn’t and I think people on both sides of the debate are doing themselves a disservice arguing otherwise.

The problem is that it takes money to become an elite athlete, debater, musician, etc. Giving preference based on extracurriculars almost certainly will create a wealth preference.

The least wealth sensitive metric is standardized test scores.

No, it's not. Wealth affects everything (school quality, parental involvement, quality nutrition, all which impact test scores)

Wealth does not affect test scores, it affects the things that standardized test scores measure...cognitive ability.

Wealthy kids end up being better educaated and better prepared for college than poor kids.

How do we know this?

We know this because researchers from harvard brown and MIT did a study and it turns out that a poor kid does almost exactly as well as a rich kid with the same SAT score. If SAT scores measured wealth in some way, you would expect rich kids to underperform their SAT score and poor kids to overperform their SAt score and that doesn't happen.

https://opportunityinsights.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/SAT_ACT_on_Grades.pdf

You are proving PP's point:
"Wealth affects everything (school quality, parental involvement, quality nutrition, all which impact test scores)"

SAT scores above a certain level aren't that important. Once you get above a certain threshold of a "college readiness" score, differentiating between scores becomes less valuable. The work at a top college isn't inherently any more difficult than a lower-ranked school. That's more dependent on major. The kid with the 1560 and the kid with the 1390 will both be successfully complete the same work. They will both graduate and get jobs.

Beyond some threshold of college readiness, SAT scores aren't as meaningful for understanding the applicant. Other factors become more relevant for admissions -- schoolwork, leadership, essays, interests/hobbies, etc. Metrics are a factor, but not the only one.

"Merit" (via test scores) gets you in the door, but it's far from the deciding factor. They are tons of qualified students who can do the work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They don’t like the educated intellectual elites, so they are trying to break down the whole system of higher education. This is just part of that.

Whatever the reason, you have to agree that legacy has to go. Get rid of ED next. Have a majority, democratic and republican (not politicians, but certainly voters) on both fronts.

If you are getting rid of ED, then schools also need to get rid of preferences for athletes and their alternative admissions path

Disagree about the Athletes - coordination is valuable to society and tells a lot about your brain - valuing a combination of smarts and athleticism is the best for society, and people realized this centuries ago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They don’t like the educated intellectual elites, so they are trying to break down the whole system of higher education. This is just part of that.

Whatever the reason, you have to agree that legacy has to go. Get rid of ED next. Have a majority, democratic and republican (not politicians, but certainly voters) on both fronts.

If you are getting rid of ED, then schools also need to get rid of preferences for athletes and their alternative admissions path

Disagree about the Athletes - coordination is valuable to society and tells a lot about your brain - valuing a combination of smarts and athleticism is the best for society, and people realized this centuries ago.

What? You just made up a bunch of crap.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They don’t like the educated intellectual elites, so they are trying to break down the whole system of higher education. This is just part of that.

Whatever the reason, you have to agree that legacy has to go. Get rid of ED next. Have a majority, democratic and republican (not politicians, but certainly voters) on both fronts.

If you are getting rid of ED, then schools also need to get rid of preferences for athletes and their alternative admissions path

Disagree about the Athletes - coordination is valuable to society and tells a lot about your brain - valuing a combination of smarts and athleticism is the best for society, and people realized this centuries ago.

Parents of athletes and athletes themselves defend the preferences that athletes get. Almost no one else does.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They don’t like the educated intellectual elites, so they are trying to break down the whole system of higher education. This is just part of that.

Whatever the reason, you have to agree that legacy has to go. Get rid of ED next. Have a majority, democratic and republican (not politicians, but certainly voters) on both fronts.

If you are getting rid of ED, then schools also need to get rid of preferences for athletes and their alternative admissions path

Disagree about the Athletes - coordination is valuable to society and tells a lot about your brain - valuing a combination of smarts and athleticism is the best for society, and people realized this centuries ago.

Parents of athletes and athletes themselves defend the preferences that athletes get. Almost no one else does.

Turns out most DCUM parents justify whatever preference benefits their kid, First Gen, Legacy, Athletics, a SAT score determination or previously affirmative action . . .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They don’t like the educated intellectual elites, so they are trying to break down the whole system of higher education. This is just part of that.

Whatever the reason, you have to agree that legacy has to go. Get rid of ED next. Have a majority, democratic and republican (not politicians, but certainly voters) on both fronts.

If you are getting rid of ED, then schools also need to get rid of preferences for athletes and their alternative admissions path

Disagree about the Athletes - coordination is valuable to society and tells a lot about your brain - valuing a combination of smarts and athleticism is the best for society, and people realized this centuries ago.

Parents of athletes and athletes themselves defend the preferences that athletes get. Almost no one else does.

Turns out most DCUM parents justify whatever preference benefits their kid, First Gen, Legacy, Athletics, a SAT score determination or previously affirmative action . . .

I don't think most DCUM top 25 grads defend legacy preference in admissions.

I'm ok getting rid of legacy and keeping first gen even though my kids are legacy and not first gen.

Overall, I think unless there is some kind of legit discrimination, schools should be able to pick their own classes. The gov't overreach here is huge.

[Anonymous]

“If they need to fund research (newsflash they do or their Phds. will go to the private sector)”

Research should be done in the private sector so that would be good.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This why we need government funding out of all schools. These universities have sticker prices above $50k a year and most have massive endowments. Let’s then stand, and make decisions, on their own.

The government isn't "funding" the schools. The schools compete for research grants. If you are suggesting the government has no role in asking top academic institutions to conduct research, that is an entirely different discussion.

Anything that gives governments a say over what colleges do isn’t good. Doesn’t matter if it funding or grants they can hold over their heads. Colleges need to be independent. Everybody understood the system of full pay kids subsidizing grants for non full pay kids. When a legacy with a 3.9 and 1400 got into Harvard we all accepted it, because we knew it helped the kid from a less privileged background with a 4.8 and 1590.

I think the opposite is true.

Eliminate tax exempt status and federal funding of private colleges.

well then it wont matter to most of you complaining. Because that $90K yearly costs will skyrocket rapidly and you wont be able to afford to attend even if by some miracle your kid still gets admission

False, because it does not cost $90K+ to educate your kid. That fee covers financial aid (for others), merit scholarships (for others), bloated admin staff; bloated DEI staff and so on. Schools need to start cutting expenses.

Love how MAGAs want to tell private businesses what to do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This why we need government funding out of all schools. These universities have sticker prices above $50k a year and most have massive endowments. Let’s then stand, and make decisions, on their own.

The government isn't "funding" the schools. The schools compete for research grants. If you are suggesting the government has no role in asking top academic institutions to conduct research, that is an entirely different discussion.

Anything that gives governments a say over what colleges do isn’t good. Doesn’t matter if it funding or grants they can hold over their heads. Colleges need to be independent. Everybody understood the system of full pay kids subsidizing grants for non full pay kids. When a legacy with a 3.9 and 1400 got into Harvard we all accepted it, because we knew it helped the kid from a less privileged background with a 4.8 and 1590.

I think the opposite is true.

Eliminate tax exempt status and federal funding of private colleges.

The government doesn’t “fund” private colleges.

The stupids hate education. Shocker.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This why we need government funding out of all schools. These universities have sticker prices above $50k a year and most have massive endowments. Let’s then stand, and make decisions, on their own.

The government doesn't fund college education. They pay for services rendered - research that benefits the US.

What are the private colleges doing that state colleges cannot?

Apparently providing good research.

[Anonymous]

Do universities release admission stats for legacy admits (gpa/sat/act/etc.)?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They don’t like the educated intellectual elites, so they are trying to break down the whole system of higher education. This is just part of that.

I think this is it. Same reason they are so focused on Harvard. They want to destroy the existing system and replace it with something far less egalitarian, if you can believe that.

Is it possible that it's because the existing system is extremely illiberal? Very discriminatory and corrupt?

That is utter nonsense

No, it's called cleaning house. Long overdue.

The stupidity runs deep in this one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They don’t like the educated intellectual elites, so they are trying to break down the whole system of higher education. This is just part of that.

Whatever the reason, you have to agree that legacy has to go. Get rid of ED next. Have a majority, democratic and republican (not politicians, but certainly voters) on both fronts.

If you are getting rid of ED, then schools also need to get rid of preferences for athletes and their alternative admissions path

Disagree about the Athletes - coordination is valuable to society and tells a lot about your brain - valuing a combination of smarts and athleticism is the best for society, and people realized this centuries ago.

What? You just made up a bunch of crap.

not at all, the classical ethos was to educate the mind and body. That is why these schools were always on the lookout for "The all around boy" back in the day.