"Elite" colleges remain overwhelmingly the province of the rich. As research by the economists Raj Chetty and John Friedman shows, 38 elite colleges have more students who come from families in the top 1 percent than students who come from the bottom 60 percent (families making less than $65,000 a year).

 

We know how this happens. Colleges offer explicit preferences the children of alumni (“legacies”), donors, recruited athletes, and faculty. These so-called “ALDC” preferences are substantial. Combined, ALDCs represent thirty percent of each Harvard class. About forty-three percent of white students at Harvard are an ALDC.

 

In terms of admission rates, being an ALDC improves your chances by an order of magnitude. According to the data produced in SFFA’s lawsuit, approximately 33.6 percent of legacy applicants (and eighty-six percent of recruited athletes) are admitted, while Harvard’s overall admissions rate is approximately 4.6 percent—and remember that includes the ALDCs. A team of researchers at Princeton found that being a legacy was worth about 160 extra points on the SAT—nearly as much as being African American or Hispanic before the end of Affirmative Action. The Atlantic’s Joe Pinsker likened it to having a superpower.

 

Colleges should be a tool for upward social mobility. But because ALDC preferences serve as a means of legitimating the admission of wealthy students, “elite” schools are largely a tool to prevent downward social mobility among the rich. In order for this to change, colleges will need to let in more students who come from disadvantaged backgrounds. 

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The problem is clear and students are ready to act.