At a Sacramento press conference on Wednesday, Assemblymember Phil Ting (D-San Francisco) announced he was bringing back legislation to prevent California’s private universities and colleges from receiving state funding if they give preferential treatment to legacy applicants.
“We’re told that opportunities are available to anyone who works hard and gets good grades. But that’s simply not true,” Ting said in a news release on his website. “There’s a side door for students who come from wealth or have connections.”
Legacy admissions, or the preferential treatment toward applicants with connections to alumni or donors of the school, is a longstanding practice, particularly in private universities. While there have been attempts to decrease the impacts of the practice in the past, Ting said this bill was a response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling last June striking down race-based affirmative action.
“It’s time to close the door on privilege-based admissions, or legacy admissions as elite private universities call them,” Assemblymember Kevin McCarty (D-Sacramento), joint author of the bill, said in the same press release. “Legacy admissions are based on privilege and wealth, and diminish the work non-legacy admits do to get into college.”
The bill moves to prevent private universities from receiving Cal Grant program funding if they give preferential treatment to legacy applicants, potentially putting USC at risk of losing millions in state financial aid funding. In the 2021-22 school year alone, USC students received $26.6 million from Cal Grant financial aid, according to the Los Angeles Times.
“Taking money away from people who need it, and can’t already afford school, is outrageous and does not address the root of the issue,” said Alejandra Reyes-Perez, a sophomore studying economics and data science who receives financial aid from Cal Grant.
Public universities in the state do not consider legacy status in admissions decisions, and at least two private colleges have ended the practice. Pomona College hasn’t considered legacy status “for many years,” and Occidental College ended the practice last year following the Supreme Court ruling.
However, many of the state’s larger private institutions still engage in the practice. In the fall of 2022, Stanford admitted 287 students with donor or alumni ties, USC admitted 1,740 students, Santa Clara University admitted 1,133 students, and Pepperdine admitted 86 students, according to Ting’s office.
Patrick Nguyen, a first-generation advocate in USG and a sophomore studying biopharmaceutical science, said that while he believes there needs to be reform when it comes to legacy admissions, he did not feel it should come at the expense of student financial aid.
“Cutting funding off actually creates more of a wealth gap for students where the rich who can pay the tuition will be able to attend the school, whereas students who don’t have the Cal Grant won’t have access to USC because of the lack of financial aid,” Nguyen said. “And that’s kind of the way the flaw is.”
While Nguyen said there’s no perfect fix, noting that wealthy students with connections to the university will always be able to signal that to an admissions officer, he said the goal should be to allow more non-legacy students a real chance at attendance.
“The best way to sort of provide the most resources is to allow first-gen students and students from disadvantaged backgrounds to come to a school like USC,” Nguyen said.
In an email to Annenberg Media, USC said it had not taken a position on the legislation.