Abolishing Legacy Admissions Won’t Make College Accessible

It’s no secret that higher education in America is highly inaccessible.

Myopic pundits have lauded new legislative initiatives abolishing legacy admissions — practices that result in less racially and socioeconomically diverse student bodies. Yet while these bills certainly promise greater equity in college admissions, they neglect to address a key barrier to attendance: tuition.

The cost of a university education has increased by over 197 percent since 1963, after adjusting for inflation.

California’s recently passed law banning the consideration of legacy status — though commendable — does nothing to change this fact. Neither does a similar recent proposal in Beacon Hill.

The state’s attempt at banning legacy admissions is ultimately futile without supplementary efforts to make private education more affordable.

While some schools considering ending legacy admissions are also home to generous financial aid programs, in far too many instances, admission itself is not the greatest barrier to attendance.

Consider a tale of two schools: Federal loan recipients at Harvard pay an average of $19,500 after financial aid. Across the Charles River, at Boston College, where legacy status is also considered, this number jumps to $39,090.

While abolishing legacy consideration makes the admissions process more equitable, it does so in a vastly disproportionate way. The reality is, only so many students can attend Harvard or other institutions providing similar levels of aid. While many schools may offer a world-class education, few have Harvard’s $53.2 billion endowment and its resulting ability to offer adequate levels of financial assistance.

So, what can the Commonwealth do to help?

Very little. That is, unless it is willing to put its money where its mouth is.

To increase accessibility, Mass. must spend more money on its schools. While the state’s “Fair Share Amendment” raised $1.8 billion this fiscal year alone, it is unwilling to spend this money on recurring costs like college tuition. Instead, the revenue generated from this amendment is required to fund capital projects.

Indeed, the most pragmatic mechanisms for making higher education accessible lie at the federal level. The U.S. government oversees the most robust student aid programs, offering grants and loans of tens of thousands of dollars in the form of direct subsidized loans and Pell Grants.

With the exception of grants — in particular, the Pell Grant program — federal assistance typically takes the form of loans requiring repayment, with full or partial interest.

Forcing low-income students to take out loans while wealthy students are able to pay out of pocket traps them under mounds of debt upon graduation, through no fault of their own. This debt renders some recent graduates materially freer than others to pursue passion over profit, to live where they choose, and to exercise the many other freedoms realized only through financial independence.

But the federal government isn’t even doing the bare minimum. It is actively making it harder for students to access the aid they need: While they did expand access to Pell Grants, the government simultaneously terminated the Free Application for Federal Student Aid’s “sibling discount,” which provided further discounts for students with siblings concurrently enrolled in college.

Moving forward, if higher education is to be truly equitable, the federal government must step in and make universities more affordable by offering no-repayment grants up to a reasonable level of financial need.

To be fair, this strategy has its risks. At a time when higher education is under legislative attack, proposing greater government involvement in education may seem naive.

However, if we ever hope to achieve economic equity in education, something must give. Either education is made affordable and knowledge a tool for all, or it will continue to be reserved for the privileged few.

​​Allison P. Farrell ’26, a Crimson Editorial editor, is a Philosophy concentrator in Leverett House.