Should colleges end legacy preferences? Many public and private colleges give preferential treatment in admissions to the children of alumni, known as 'legacies'.

• Author: Mandery, Evan J.
• Position: Debate

Getting into a top university in the United States is harder than ever. Bombarded with a record number of applicants, most selective colleges are rejecting the vast majority, including many students they would have accepted just a few years ago. Last year, Stanford admitted just 5 percent of its applicants, and Harvard and Yale about 6 percent. Even top public schools like the University of Virginia and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill accept fewer than 3 out of 10 applicants. With competition so fierce, the practice of giving preferential treatment in admissions to children of alumni has come under fire.

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YES Many children of alumni are smart, hardworking, and deserving of a seat at a top college. That's different from saying the system of legacy preferences is fair. At Harvard, the legacy acceptance rate is 30 percent, not an unusual number at elite schools. That's roughly five times Harvard's overall acceptance rate of 5.9 percent.

Reviewing admissions data from 30 top colleges, researcher Michael Hurwitz concluded that children of alumni had a 45 percent greater chance of admission. A Princeton study found the advantage is worth the equivalent of 160 additional points on an applicant's SAT.

Because of legacy admissions, elite colleges look almost nothing like America. One recent study found that 74 percent of students at the nation's top colleges come from families with incomes in the top 20 percent.

Economic inequality is the defining failure of our generation. The richest 1 percent of Americans possess 40 percent of the national wealth. At the same time, 22 percent of American children live in poverty. Barring major tax reform, the only solution to this inequality is improved access to higher education.

Few investments yield a greater return than a college degree. I've seen firsthand what the data show: College is a ticket out of poverty. Education can combat inequality, but continuing the practice of legacy preferences makes that much harder.

Elite colleges defend legacy admissions as necessary to fund-raising. It isn't. Technology has transformed fund-raising: If presidential candidates can raise money through grassroots efforts, colleges can too.

Legacy preferences in admissions emerged after World War I, largely as a way to exclude high-achieving Jews from elite schools during an era of...