I don’t see exposure as being any sort of meaningful deterrent against legacy admissions.
They don’t - but some states , and I’m 99% sure California is one of them , have their own state-run student financial aid programs
I think the Trojans would cover the spread.
Even private universities are exempt from real estate taxes, not to mention taxes on their profits.* When I received my degrees, the university president announced something like, “By the authority vested in me by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, I hereby confer on you [the members of the class that was getting the particular degree] the degree of [whatever]”.
*Don’t give me that non-profit crap. Schools like Harvard and Princeton make a whole lot of money that goes into their endowments that can reach tens of billions. The brother of the then president told me around 1990 that Princeton could easily afford to abolish tuition. When I asked why they didn’t, the answer was that they wanted to have wealthy students who would add to the endowment.
Princeton is an interesting example; they don’t have the highest endowment overall (that would be Harvard, Yale and then Stanford) but they do have the highest endowment per student, at about $4 million. That’s certainly enough money to cover the tuition cost for each student, even if they just drew down a couple percent of the investment return.
Two points:
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California cannot regulate the behavior of e.g. Harvard in Massachusetts. But as with so many things, as California goes, so goes the (small and shrinking) civilized fraction of the rest of the nation 10-15 years later. The ignorant reactionary places are going their own way (like the Incel motto) regardless.
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Within California, which is a hefty fraction of US GDP, the legacy-heavy uni’s and their well-connected grads have a massive impact on everything in the state. Which has a hefty impact on the entire USA. The Ivies get the headlines.
Full disclosure: I’m a USC grad (twice) although not a legacy admission.
That’s true of federal regulations, since the federal government only has those powers that are specifically enumerated to it, and regulating schools isn’t an enumerated power (though over the years, the interpretation of the scope of the powers that are enumerated, especially the interstate commerce clause, has greatly expanded). But states are not so limited. States can just directly pass whatever regulations they want.
I believe Harvard can cover tuitions just on the interest their endowments earn.
I believe that an earlier version of the law explicitly authorized the state Education Department to use that stick.
But I think that the law as passed leaves quite an opening for a private lawsuit against that college by any student NOT accepted by the college, if they can cite any legacy admission student who had a lower GPA than they did. Or the student could sue the State Education Department that paid the financial assistance to that college. And when they lost, the Judge could easily prohibit the Education Department from funding ANY college that does legacy admissions.
How would a prospective student find out that the legacy admission had a lower GPA than their own?
I assume you mean the return on their endowment is more than the money they collect in tuition, but Harvard doesn’t need to cover tuition, that isn’t an expense. What they need to do is cover their expenses. Endowment is 37% of their operating revenue. Tuition (including degree and non-degree) are 22% so if they collected no tuition and continued to do exactly what they’re doing they’d have to take about 60% more out of the endowment each year. They would either have to vastly increase donations they get or plan on exhausting their endowment in the not distant future.
I believe that most schools like Harvard takes only two percent or so of their endowment annually, though in most years the investment return is far greater. They could easily take more than they do.
They typically spends 4%. They’d have to take 6.6% to cover what we were talking about. Their nominal return is that high, but not their real return.
Actually, it’s more than that; “As a general rule, Harvard targets an annual endowment payout rate of 5.0 to 5.5% of market value.”
Tue as far as it goes … Subject of course to whatever crackpot ideas are enshrined in their own state constitution. Some state constitutions make for very … ahh … err … entertaining … reading
That was more like what I thought and I know Yale’s is 5.25%, but I saw the other figure elsewhere on the internet. I think 5 - 5.5% is very likely a better answer. That means they’d have to take about 8% per year or more out of endowment to cancel tuition for all.
I don’t think they should cancel tuition for all students; certainly they should charge those from rich families the full tuition amount, which can then be redirected to subsidize the tuition from poorer families.
Now controlled by TEQSA, which is a federal body.
Old universities like RMIT were created by state statute, but the newer institutions were accredited by a federal accreditation body. (When a friend graduated, he had trouble in Israel because RMIT was not on the minor-league ‘accredited institution’ list). And for technical degrees (Med, Engr, etc), technical accreditation is much more important, which is a whole separate thing.
What really matters now is the “approved Australian higher education provider” list. That controls Commonwealth supported place (CSP, the most important one), Higher Education Loan Program (HELP), Youth Allowance (YA), Abstudy, Austudy, other programs like “Pensioner Education Supplement” (PES), and ‘the right to grant degrees’.
By law, “TEQSA complies with the principle of reflecting risk if its exercise of the power has regard to: […] other laws regulating education”
So if somebody passes a random law about selection criteria, degrees and funding depend on adherence.
Note that in Aus, there would be enormous outrage if there was a legacy admission program. Rich people can buy a place if they want: that’s already at the limit of acceptable behavior, and only tolerated because it applies to foreign money.
That’s essentially what they do already. Over half of Harvard students receive some scholarships and about a quarter of students pay nothing after aid and grants.
Moderating
This topic seems to be drifting into IMHO territory. Since the factual part of this topic has been pretty well addressed, I think it is best to go ahead and move this to IMHO so that the discussion can continue along those lines.
Moving from FQ to IMHO.