"A series of emails among top Harvard University officials illustrates the role wealth can play in the admissions process. …
… So-called legacy preferences are common at elite colleges but have come under fire from some campus activists who say it takes seats away from low-income and first-generation students. While the practice is commonly known, it’s rarely discussed as openly as in the Harvard emails revealed Wednesday.
In one chain of emails, a top fundraising official offered Fitzsimmons advice on a potential student whose family had given $8.7 million. The official said the family had been generous in the past but that more recent years were ‘challenging.’
‘Going forward, I don’t see a significant opportunity for further major gifts,’ the official wrote." …
Basically, they want to sell seats to wealthy kids so with that money, they can sponsor poor kids and appear charitable. They don’t care about middle class kids, squeeze full or most COA from them, parents can’t do it, it’s your problem. This is a business, we have a bottom line to meet. Move out of the way and let us give your seat to someone who is of better use for us. You and your parents are used to doing hard work, earning well yet living frugally to save so you don’t need a break, you should manage on your own.
Hardly surprising that donating $8 million to a school would give your kid or grand kid a leg up when applying. What is surprising is that donating $8 million will only give you a leg up if it looks like the money will continue to flow in. It almost makes Harvard look ungrateful.
Harvard is providing extremely generous financial aid to my daughter who is part of an extremely middle class family. In fact, Harvard was the second least expensive option behind a full tuition offer from our state flagship, and costs about 1/3 of any other private college to which she applied.
It’s simplistic to characterize the institution as uncaring about middle class students. Admissions and financial aid is complex and multilayered, and wealthy full pay students do subsidize both low income and middle class students.
Agreed-the prevailing (or loudest) criticism acts as though none of this were fair. Who built these institutions? Wealthy entrepreneurs and philanthropists. Why does someone poor and first generation deserve it more than a hard working middle class kid or even a rich kid? Why does an Asian applicant with perfect scores deserve admission more than an interesting kid with less than perfect scores? They don’t. No one ever said the threshold was any one thing.
Actually, Harvard does care about students from poor, middle and upper middle income class backgrounds. Here’s their current practice in distributing FA based on full-need and need-blind admissions policies:
“Requires no contribution from families with gross annual incomes below $65,000. About 20% of our families have no parent contribution.” [i.e., about 20% of the class is made up of families making gross annual income below $65,000.]
“Families with incomes between $65,000 and $150,000 will contribute from 0-10% of their income, and those with incomes above $150,000 will be asked to pay proportionately more than 10%, based on their individual circumstances. There are several hundred families earning more than $200,000 who are receiving scholarship aid based on extenuating financial circumstances.” [i.e., for many families with incomes between $65,000 and $150,000 and more are actually paying LESS to attend Harvard than their in-state public universities.]
“Home equity and retirement assets are not considered in our assessment of financial need.”
Harvard and its peer institutions have never been as generous as what the families of low to upper middle income class are enjoying today. They’re not only generous but continue to increase the student body to reflect the diversity of racial composition, first-gen, as well as full socio-economic spectrum.
We’re upper middle income, yet my son is attending Princeton tuition free. We only pay for his room and board, and the cost is less than if he were to attend our in-state flag university. Princeton has raised their FA to $177 million this year, and given this year’s over 14% return on their investment that yielded 2.2 billion dollars, I’m sure that’s going to translate into even a larger FA to any students with demonstrated need come next year.
The USNews article reveals nothing new or surprising. The role of wealth in elite college admissions has already been revealed no more brilliantly than Daniel Golden’s a decade old book: “The Price of Admission: How America’s Ruling Class Buys Its Way into Elite Colleges – and Who Gets Left Outside the Gates.”
Don’t assume generous financial aid policies depend on these practices. For example, MIT and Caltech’s financial aid policies are just as generous, but they don’t offer these special incentives to donors, or even alumni.
@TiggerDad: My sister-in-law works in the giving office at Princeton, and according to her, the role of wealth plays a big part in Princeton’s Admissions as well. Doors swing open for the son’s and daughters of families who have millions to donate – that’s how your son (and my daughter and son) were able to attend HYP tuition free. It’s not just a Harvard thing!
I never said it was “just a Harvard thing,” did I anywhere? In fact, my above cited book, “The Price of Admission” by Daniel Golden, is full of examples from HYP regarding development cases and much more. I think you tagged a wrong person!
@TiggerDad: Correct; you did not say “just a Harvard thing.” However, if giving preferential Admissions treatment to the son’s and daughter’s of families who donate millions is found to be illegal, it has the potential to decrease the amount of money donated to HYP et al, which in turn will decrease the amount of financial aid given to middle class families like yours and mine. If this lawsuit is successful, it might negatively impact the FA at many colleges beyond Harvard – that was my point.
I still think you tagged the wrong person, because I’ve been quite busy lately extolling the most generous colleges all over CC. Why would I be critical of those most generous colleges that made poor, middle and upper middle income families to AFFORD attending these colleges?
My son’s at Forbes College, by the way. I know whose money that made this residential college at Princeton possible. After two years at Forbes, my son’s most likely moving to its sister college, Whitman College. I know who paid for that, too. He practices his violin in one of 22 private practice rooms in the newly built, Lewis Center for the Arts, and in fact, he loves that place so much that he studies there most of the time. As a Princeton University Orchestra member, he rehearses in that building, also. I know who paid for that arts complex. The orchestra is touring Spain this Jan. All expenses paid. I know where that “free” money comes from. During the Opening Exercises for incoming freshmen this past month, it rained. All freshmen at Forbes College received “free” rain jacket with the residential college logo. It looked about $60+, and I thought my son used my credit card to pay for it. No, it was just another freebie. I know where that money came from, too. No students at Princeton pay a dime to run their laundry machine. It’s all paid for. I know where all these free money comes from. It just goes on and on and on…
It’s both. Harvard’s admission practice is the cause of the alleged discrimination. There’s no question, by the evidences released so far, that Asian Americans were hurt by that practice. Whether or not that’s intentional is yet to be determined. Whoever wins the trial, one thing is certain: we’ll know much more about Harvard’s (and by extension, its peers’) admission process, and whether it’s a fair and rigorous process or just a bunch of self-serving decisions hidden behind a “holistic” veil.
Here’s a thought experiment. One way for Harvard to better racially “balance” their admitted students might be to racially balance all the buckets including athletes, legacies and donor’s list students. Instead of admitting mostly white students from these buckets, Harvard could admit by race within those list. I know this is a pipe dream but it would be more “fair” because then it is not just the unhooked student pool who have to be responsible for creating racial diversity .The down side would be that Harvard would probably have worse athletic teams and less generous donations.
