It disadvantages low-income students and favors the wealthy

Colleges should end legacy admissions because it overwhelmingly disadvantages low-income students and favors wealthy ones. Legacy admissions are affirmative action programs for wealthy students.^[1] An education software company recently gathered data on legacy applicants and was able to estimate that on average, the admissions rate for legacies was around 31% higher than the official admissions rates for all applicants.^[2] Harvard, an elite university, known for its legacy admissions, the acceptance rate for legacy students is about 33%, compared with an overall acceptance rate of under 6%.^[2] A recent lawsuit against the school, sparked the question “What is so special about wealthy people that Harvard needs to have them overrepresented by a factor of six on its campus?”.^[2] Legacy admissions are usually the children of very wealthy parents who have the financial means to support and donate to the schools they attended. Colleges admit legacy kids at higher rates in order to get hefty financial support from alumni.^[3] This means that legacy kids are being admitted because of their wealthy financial status; it helps them and severely disadvantages those of lesser means. Colleges should end legacy admissions because it hurts low-income students by way of favoring wealthier students.