Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill into law on Monday that will ban private universities and colleges in California from accepting students based on legacy and donor status. This will impact admission across the state’s private institutions including USC, Stanford and Santa Clara University, among others.
While earlier drafts of the bills suggested a financial penalty, this was not included in the final legislation, according to a USA Today article. The law will require these independent, non-profit schools to send an annual report including which newly admitted students have legacy and donor status, and the Department of Justice will decide whether these schools have complied with the law. Consequently, if schools refuse to discontinue legacy admission they will be publicly called out for breaking the law.
An excerpt from the university’s statement to Annenberg Media read “We are fortunate that USC remains a top destination for so many accomplished students across the country and world, and we are always looking to evolve our admissions processes and recruitment efforts to bring as many of these students to USC as we can. We will do so in compliance with the law.”
In addition to the students admitted based on legacy and donor status to the incoming fall class, there is a program called the Trojan Transfer Plan which defers students to an alternate institution offering class credit transferable to USC. Eventually, students are admitted through the transfer application assuming they meet university qualifications. An article by Annenberg Media quotes a statement from the USC Office of Admissions which states that 20-30% of TTP students comprise each year’s transfer class.
USC has historically admitted many students with alumni and donor connections. 14% of students admitted during the 2022-2023 admission cycle and 30% of transfer students in the Fall 2024 transfer class are legacy students, according to a status report by USC.
USC prioritizes the idea of the “Trojan Family,” creating generations of parents, children and their siblings all accepting an anticipated admission to the school. Some legislators argue that this admissions process puts applicants connected through alumni and donors at an unfair advantage over applicants who don’t have those same opportunities.
“In California, everyone should be able to get ahead through merit, skill, and work.” Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a press release. “The California dream shouldn’t be accessible to just a lucky few, which is why we’re opening the door to higher education wide enough for everyone, fairly.”
After the Varsity Blues scandal, a 2019 national investigation that exposed admissions bribes at USC, legislators attempted to crack down on the university’s admissions process. A 2019 bill proposed by Assemblymember Phil Ting was created after the scandal with the intent to prevent California taxpayer money from funding California schools that are prioritizing well-connected or wealthy families. Now Ting proposed the new law, AB 1780, signed by Newsom banning the consideration of legacy admissions.
In an interview with Annenberg Media, Ting commented on the importance of the implementation of this bill following the Supreme Court ruling back in 2023 which effectively prohibited the use of race-based affirmative action in admissions. By prohibiting any university in the United States from looking at race as a factor in admissions “this completely kept open the door that wealth could be a factor in admissions,” he said. Effectively, Ting said this new legacy ban is important to limiting these unfair discrepancies in the admissions process.
He noted a report from Opportunity Insights authored last year, showing wealth as a major factor in admissions. “Students coming from families from the top 1% being twice as likely to be admitted into an elite university than everybody else from the bottom 99% – and that’s when all things are equal,” he said.
Schools who have retained legacy preferences claim that standards of admission are not compromised and that these students must be “highly qualified” to be accepted, according to a New York Times article. Despite these universities’ insistence that these practices are fair, Grace Kirch, a fine arts major, said using legacy preference inherently “favors people whose families were privileged enough to already get into USC.”
“I support the ban. I don’t really see the point of continuing legacy students. I think it’s better if we have people from different backgrounds and experiences,” Kirch said.
Nevertheless, Kirch is “hopeful” about the change. “I think USC is going to comply. USC should comply,” she said.