Saturday, April 26, 2014

Elitist Colleges Give Admissions Preferences to Children of Alumni: Let's Kick Them Out of the Federal Student Aid Program

Evan Mandery wrote an op ed essay in the New York Times recently decrying the preferential
admissions polices of our elitist colleges.  No--Mandery was not talking about affirmative action, whereby colleges give preference to minority applicants when making admissions decisions. He was talking about the special preferences many elitist colleges give to the children of alumni--often called legacies.

According to Mandery, the children of alumni have a 45 percent greater chance of admissions at 30 of our nation's most elite colleges than non-legacies. Mandery thinks it is wrong for colleges to favor the children of alumni when making admissions decisions, and I agree. The legacy preferences of our elitists colleges stink.

Almost in passing, Mandery acknowledged that our elitist institutions also give admission preferences to racial minorities.  In fact, Mandery noted that being a legacy is "the equivalent of 160 additional points on an applicant’s SAT, nearly as much as being a star athlete or African-American or Hispanic."  

So here is the bottom line. If you want to attend Harvard, Yale, or a couple of dozen other elitist universities, it will help enormously  if you are Hispanic, African American, or the child of an alumnus.


Like most New York Times essayists, Mandery probably thinks he is a liberal progressive. But his suggestions for ending legacy preferences are about as radical as 1950s era Reader's Digest article.  Here are  his suggestions: "a huge reform" of the nation's tax structure and "improved access to higher education."  My God, Mandery's an anarchist!


Such twaddle.


Mandery's suggested reforms have nothing to do with the rotten and corrupt way our nation's elitist colleges are admitting students.  As Mandery admits--these slimy institutions give preferences to their rich alums and to racial minorities.   What's more, they brag about it!


 I suppose laws could be passed to ban these practices, but as Justice  Ruth Ginsburg said in her dissenting opinion in Gratz v. Bollinger, our nation's colleges would probably continue giving racial preferences when admitting students even if it were illegal; they would just lie about it. 

Evan J. Mandery
photo credit: Amazon.com

As for me, I think we should kick the elitist colleges and universities out of the federal student loan program and invest this money solely in public universities and public community colleges.  I favor letting Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth, Brown, Wesleyan, Smith and all the other private elitist institutions stew in their own postmodern and often racist juices.  Let them admit  students however they want; just don't give them access to federal student loan money or  Pell Grants. 

Moreover, just as our elitist colleges give special preferences to minorities and the children of their alumni when making admissions decisions, I think the American public should give a special preference to anyone who did not graduate from one of these sleazeball institutions when choosing our nation's leaders.

In other words, people who graduate from Harvard or Yale should be penalized in the public mind if they run for president, seek a federal judgeship, or apply for a cabinet post .  As everyone knows, our government is now run almost entirely by elitist college graduates, and the Russians are showing them up to be fools.

References

Evan J. Mandery. End College Legacy Preferances. New York Times, April 24, 1014.  Accessible  at: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/25/opinion/end-college-legacy-preferences.html?_r=0

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