The most common diversion I see when discussing the damage of affirmative action is "wuh about legacy???" Yes, legacy admissions gives students whose parents make donations a significant advantage over others. However, these spots were not available for general competition to begin with. For FY2022, 36% of Harvard's revenue was endowment fund income, far eclipsing the runner up of 21% from tuition. Put another way, donor contributors to the endowment fund are literally keeping the lights on. For the remainder of the seats, Harvard offers need-blind admission and full ride scholarships where applicable. Proposal: setting aside a percentage of each class for students whose parents can pay 10x tuition is no different from an airline charging 10x for a business class seat which subsidizes the economy class, and offers 3x leg space and premium service in return. The business class also gets priority in boarding and adjustments, and are never bumped. As a capitalist society we've deemed discrimination based on price in exchange for premium service to be acceptable in almost all facets of life. On the other hand, it would be unthinkable to have racial preferences for access to the economy class tickets. The existence of a business class is irrelevant and should not be used as justification for racial discrimination. Of course, the caveat is that access to business class (legacy admissions) should only be based on willingness to pay - and not any other factors such as race. Now, before someone brings up that certain groups have more money than others and hence price discrimination = racial discrimination: it turns out that Asian Americans have some of the highest poverty rates, yet are disproportionately harmed by AA policies. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/asian-american-poverty-nyc_n_58ff7f40e4b0c46f0782a5b6 Disclaimer: I grew up poor, went to a good university with drastically reduced tuition thanks to the donors, and did not mind that their kids were in my classroom (and often received lower grades).
“As a capitalist society we've deemed discrimination based on price in exchange for premium service to be acceptable in almost all facets of life.” We’ve deemed no such thing. It’s one obvious discrimination that exists relatively commonly, but that doesn’t mean that it should be that way.
I think op is wrong to categorize it as discrimination. It is basically pay for what you get.
@Google I paid $699 for a 256GB Pixel 7. Are you saying that I overpaid and should've gotten it for $299, the price of a Pixel 6a?
Fyi legacy is discussed here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLG-bG00ErE
This is based on false assumption. Legacy students don’t pay 10x the tuition. Students from philanthropic families are not the same as legacy. A tiny percentage of students come from philanthropic families. You are conflating the two groups. For instance go look up how Stanford defines legacy admission. If you want equality, they should get rid of legacies.
Dean’s list is the donors one, legacy is alumni kids.
Harvard's endowment is like $50 billion with a 23k undergraduate pop. That's ~$22m per undergrad. It can put that much money in the crappiest consumer checking account and more than cover tuition with interest. Legacy admits today are a means of elite nepotism and perpetuation of class hierarchy and Ivies have accumulated more than enough wealth to not rely on it. Worse yet these elite schools have built an entire industry of woke race grifters who sow discord among regular Americans to put themselves under the radar.
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For FY2022, 36% of Harvard's revenue was endowment fund income, far eclipsing the runner up of 21% from tuition. Your argument goes around this. However it’s unclear if Harvard cuts the legacy by 50% how does this change. Also, Harvard didn’t increase the number of available seats despite having $50+ bn endowment in pocket. If it’s not using that not sure what’s the end goal of endowments here.
Generally endowment funds are set up with the restriction that the principal can't be used for spending. I also didn't mean to comment on what fraction of seats should go toward endowment contributors. Nor do I think it's any of my business: as an elite private institution, the university makes its own decisions about how to balance getting more funding vs maintaining a high quality student body. If an airline decides to scrap 50 economy seats and add 15 lie flat seats, who are we to judge? As long as they're not using protected characteristics like race in deciding who gets to buy tickets.
the university makes its own decisions I totally believe in this argument however if this leads to a discrimination then it violates laws of the land. That’s the issue. If they can run the process not affecting racial proportions they should be good