Context:
How wealth and legacy status impact admissions
Michelle Obama’s speech at the 2024 Democratic National Convention
Kamala has shown her allegiance to this nation. Not by spewing anger and bitterness, but by living a life of service, and always pushing the doors of opportunity open to others.
She understands that most of us will never be afforded the grace of failing forward. We will never benefit from the affirmative action of generational wealth.
The pink part is called legacy admissions. It’s how elite universities grow their endowments. That is their ultimate goal: grow and grow and grow some more.
It isn’t just admissions though, it’s also tuition. Schools like Harvard could easily afford to give free tuition to all their students. The fact that they don’t is rather mysterious. I suspect part of the reason is that the students whose families can afford the tuition see it as a sort of conspicuous consumption.
Legacy admisisons = admitting the kids of people whose parents attended. That’s also a huge thing.
But it’s only part of what’s going on; wealth has a large direct impact too.