Good morning, and welcome to Tuesday, July 25. Today’s Briefing was written by Rick Seltzer, with contributions from Julia Piper. Write to me: rick.seltzer@chronicle.com.

Legacy admissions aren’t the only way ‘Ivy-Plus’ colleges give wealthy students a leg up

New research from the Harvard University economist Raj Chetty’s Opportunity Insights program takes a harsh look at highly selective colleges’ admissions practices, as our Zachary Schermele reports.

Students from high-income families are more than twice as likely to get into a so-called “Ivy-Plus” college compared to students from low- or middle-income families, the researchers found. They analyzed students with similar standardized-test scores to reach that conclusion.

• In a theoretical class of 1,650 students, admissions preferences for the wealthy led to an extra 103 students from families who are in the top 1 percent of the nation’s earners.

Three main practices give children from high-income families a leg up:

• Legacy preferences for children of alumni account for 47 of the 103 extra students from the top 1 percent in the theoretical class referenced above.
• Nonacademic factors in admissions, such as leadership capacity, extracurricular activities, and personal traits are responsible for 31 of the extra students.
• Athletic recruiting accounts for 25 of the extra students.

Importantly, those three factors aren’t associated with better outcomes after college. Standardized-test scores and academic ratings are more predictive of success after college.

This matters because Ivy-Plus institutions are gilded escalators to opportunity in the United States. Less than 1 percent of Americans attended one of the 12 colleges, defined as the eight Ivy League schools plus the University of Chicago, Duke, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Stanford. Yet their alumni hold a quarter of Senate offices and three-quarters of U.S. Supreme Court justices appointed in the last 50 years.

Socioeconomic diversity at selective colleges would skyrocket if colleges eliminated those practices that benefit the wealthy. In fact, doing so would add to socioeconomic diversity by as much as racial preferences increased racial diversity on campus, the researchers estimated. That’s key since colleges say they’re looking for new ways to diversify campuses after the Supreme Court banned the use of race in admissions.

The takeaway: Highly selective colleges could diversify their classes, and, by extension, the country’s leadership pipeline, but they would have to throw out admissions practices that benefit the rich — and their own finances.

Read Zachary’s full story here.

Quick hits

• Lack of Cantonese certificate prompts apology: City College of San Francisco trustees ratified a proposed 16-unit Cantonese certificate program last year, but then the college’s curriculum committee tried to yank support amid concerns about lacking resources. The college apologized and has committed to developing the certificate for 2024-25. (Bay City News)
• College fiscal-accountability law signed in New Jersey: Newly approved legislation requires annual monitoring reports from public colleges and training for their chief financial officers. It also allows the state to audit institutions’ finances and governance, and to appoint monitors in cases of financial instability. The legislation comes on the heels of deep troubles at New Jersey City University. (New Jersey Office of the Secretary of Higher Education, The Chronicle)
• CAA changes name: The Colonial Athletic Association is now the Coastal Athletic Association, keeping its existing abbreviation and logo after expanding to stretch from Massachusetts to South Carolina. (CAA)

Stat of the day

$1 billion

That’s how much an anonymous donor committed to McPherson College, in Kansas.

The context: Along with other fundraising, the small liberal-arts college has raised $1.59 billion for its endowment. That vaults the institution into a new, rarified echelon. Its endowment was just $53 million previously, and fewer than 150 institutions reported endowments of $1 billion or more in the most recent National Association of College and University Business Officers study.

Quote of the day

“Lincoln College is going to open back up.”

—Tracy Welch, mayor of Lincoln, Ill.

Lincoln College, a predominantly Black institution in central Illinois, closed in 2022 amid financial and enrollment pressures. Welch offered few details about its potential reopening during media appearances last week, but said the college will have a “different dynamic” than a traditional college.

From The Chronicle archives: How a President Decided It Was Time to Close Lincoln College

More presidents depart suddenly

Last week, top leaders at Stanford University, Texas A&M University, and the University of Michigan at Flint announced they were leaving. Add three more to the list:

Seton Hall University: President Joseph Nyre is resigning and taking a sabbatical during the final year of his term, he said Monday. He reportedly disagreed with some members of the governing board of the Catholic institution in New Jersey over how to handle governance at its law school. Law-school employees embezzled nearly a million dollars over several years, Seton Hall said in December.

Berklee College of Music: Erica Muhl will not return from an unexplained leave of absence that started last month, the Boston institution’s Board of Trustees said Monday. She started in June 2021. The board’s chair said in an email that it was “actively engaged in ongoing discussions” with Muhl but is “unable to share further details.”

Thomas Jefferson University: Mark Tykocinski resigned as president and interim medical-school dean, with the university saying he would focus on research as a full professor. He drew scrutiny earlier this year for liking tweets calling mRNA Covid-19 vaccines “overhyped, rushed, profit-driven Big Pharma flops,” criticizing “diversity czars,” and likening a gender-affirming medical procedure for a 13-year-old to child mutilation. He said he liked the tweets to bookmark them in order to learn more, not to endorse them.

Comings and goings

• Sheree M. Ohen, associate dean of equity, diversity, inclusion, and belonging for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University, has been named chief equity and inclusion officer at Amherst College.
• Robyn Hadley, dean of students and vice president for student affairs at the University of Virginia, will step down on August 1.

To submit a new-hire announcement, email people@chronicle.com.

Footnote

Before the Supreme Court declared school segregation illegal in 1954, Black deaf students attended the Kendall School Division II for Negroes on the campus of Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., for two years. They were segregated from white students.

This is far from the only hardship Black deaf students faced because of segregation. I recommend reading more about their history here.

Last weekend, Gallaudet — which serves those who are deaf, hard of hearing, and deafblind — held a graduation ceremony for the 24 students who attended that segregated school. It also honored four Black teachers who worked there. The institution’s Board of Trustees apologized, saying in a proclamation that the institution “deeply regrets the role it played in perpetuating the historic inequity, systemic marginalization, and the grave injustice committed against the Black Deaf community.”

Of the six former Kendall students still living, five attended the ceremony with their families. Gallaudet’s president, Roberta J. Cordano, called the ceremony a “celebration long overdue” and a step on the path of healing.