Yale President On Legacies

mini
Sun, 31 Oct 2004 16:26:05 +0000

My point was simply that the President of Yale didn’t have one. If the legacies are stronger it is because they CHOOSE to make them so. If they are weaker, that is true too. Yale can choose whomever they want, build a class any way they like. They could choose to have a class with no legacies that would overall be stronger than the one they have, or they could choose to have a class with even more legacies. Folks forget that there are literally hundreds and hundreds of students who get into Yale every year (legacies and otherwise) who couldn’t get into the Univ. of California at San Diego (because of the 12%/4% class rank rule).

And they could choose to measure achievement differently. Works for Amherst.

But to do so costs money, and Yale chooses not to make the investment. Consider for a moment what it costs. Let’s assume we are comparing Smith with Yale (or Macalester with Princeton, or Occidental with Brown, it doesn’t really matter.) Let’s assume for the sake of argument a class of 2,500 students. (At Smith, that eliminates all the older students, 84% of whom receive financial aid.)

Now at Yale, under 10% are on Pell Grants; and only 40% receive needbased aid. So roughly it costs them:

$35k per Pell Grant recipient X 250 Pell Grant recipients = $8.75 mil.
Another 30% receive financial aid avg. $15k per -
$15k X 750 = $11,250,000

TOTAL INVESTMENT per year in the student body (of 2,500 students, I realize it is larger) = $20 mil, give or take.

Now, take Smith:
25% Pell Grant recipients (actually a little higher), and 40% others receiving needbased aid:
$35k X 750 = $26.25 mil
$15k X 1,000 = $15 mil

TOTAL INVESTMENT per year in the student body - $41.25 mil, give or take.

Now the numbers are rather interesting. A school with an endowment 1/16th the size of Yale’s (Macalester’s would be 1/50th the size), and which is not “need-blind” (doesn’t exist anyway), CHOOSES to spend more than twice as much on assuring a diverse student body. This doesn’t even count the additional investment in the admissions office getting said diverse student to apply.

There is no question in my mind, having attended a school that was not economically diverse (Williams), that the ACADEMIC quality of the school suffers as a result. I even see it in the off-handed comments of the Presidential candidates. (subject for another time.) If you are hoping to be part of setting a public policy agenda for the nation in the future, you are definitely handicapped if your exposure to half the population (or more) is limited by your schooling. To my way of thinking, Yale (not to single them out, because it is common), academically and socially handicaps its wealthier students by its admissions policies. It is not happenstance - they choose to do so (remember, Yale can attract and admit virtually anyone they want to come, and 50% of the time, will get them to attend - except much of the yield results from the fact that for the majority of students, financial considerations don’t come into play).

And this is why I favor more legacies, and making them pay more for the privilege. If Yale feels that it can’t scrape together what a school with 1/50th their endowment can to ensure a diverse academic and social experience for their students, maybe they need to raise the price, and ensure that they will have students attend who will pay for it.

But then I don’t sit on the Yale board of trustees, and I doubt they are going to invite me anytime soon.