Two Universities, One Student, and the Lie That Broke Higher Education

My parents lied to me, and my friends' parents lied to them. Fortunately, I have discovered the truth and can share it with my daughters.

Growing up, our parents told us we could be anything we wanted if we worked and studied hard. Malcolm X told countless followers that "education is the passport to the future." We were sold on higher education as the ticket to the middle class and, most certainly, the great equalizer.

Unfortunately, in my experience, that is not true.

As Harvard University battles the Trump administration over international student enrollment this week, a deeper question emerges about who truly belongs in American higher education.

Higher education is a system that protects the privileged, limits opportunity, and constrains real choice, like any other in America. This reality is evidenced by students of color, low-income applicants, and first-generation college students who still face barriers that their wealthier and more legacy-connected peers could not imagine. The question is not whether institutions offer access and choice but whether those offerings are real, equitable, and sustainable.

The hollow promise begins with how institutions define "access." Universities claim to embrace merit and fairness while maintaining structural barriers that reserve opportunities for the already advantaged. Legacy admissions, development preferences, and faculty tuition subsidies create an inequitable playing field. Data indicates that students who fall into these privileged groups account for twenty-five percent of incoming class seats at elite institutions. This large percentage leaves students who are not as well-connected but highly qualified fighting for admission to a select few seats.

When a quarter of seats are predetermined for the wealthy and well-connected, how can institutions claim they assess students on real merit? Institutions committed to equity must dismantle these legacy systems of advantage and reallocate opportunity based on justice, not lineage, merit, or monetary inheritance.

But even when students of color gain admission through this rigged system, universities that have spent centuries cultivating cultures of privilege struggle to create environments where diverse students can thrive. This struggle isn't an accident. Instead, it's the predictable result of institutions that have structured themselves around the comfort and success of a privileged few.

My educational journey proves this point. In undergrad, I attended Winston-Salem State University (WSSU), a Historically Black College and University (HBCU) that gave me space to find myself as a Black man in America. My institution nourished me and helped me see not who I was but who I could become. The campus environment was welcoming and supportive. I saw my likeness in the university president, provost, and senior leaders. My culture was not only affirmed but supported.

In contrast, my graduate degree is from a predominantly white institution, George Mason University, where I felt ostracized throughout the entirety of the program. As one of the handful of African Americans in the program, I found myself in classrooms where I was often the only person who had lived the policies we discussed academically. When classmates debated cutting social welfare programs, I was the only one in the room who benefited from those programs. I saw one African American professor in my two and a half years there, and I never truly felt like I belonged. This lack of belonging wasn't an accident; it was the predictable result of an institution that had structured itself around the comfort and success of a privileged few.

This matters because universities are supposed to be special places in society, hallowed grounds where people shed their vulnerabilities and come together to learn, where they cast aside aversions and lean into what makes them and others different. However, when universities preserve structural advantages for the wealthy while providing only hollow access to everyone else, they fail this fundamental mission. Students don't have the skills to survive and thrive in a diverse global economy, and our society ceases to create the tolerant and intellectually curious leaders needed to move our country forward.

The future of our democracy depends on universities getting this right. Words matter in higher education. Students write, read, and use them to make sense of nebulous concepts. Academics string them together to connect theories, hypotheses, and frameworks that shape our perceptions and shake our realities. What would happen if higher education honestly used them to guide our consciousness and spur our actions? When leaders write equalizer and access, what would it mean to not just open doors to the institution but redesign them?

The path forward requires concrete action, not just rhetoric. Research by Daniel Golden in "The Price of Admission" demonstrates that legacy preferences alone provide advantages equivalent to 160 SAT points, a massive structural advantage primarily benefiting white, wealthy families (Golden, 2006). Universities must eliminate these legacy admissions and end development preferences that reserve spots for donor families. Golden's research shows that students from these privileged groups account for twenty-five percent of incoming class seats at elite institutions, leaving qualified students, including many students of color, fighting for the remaining spots.

By dismantling these systems of inherited privilege, universities would free up seats that could be allocated through merit-based admissions and strengthen race-conscious affirmative action programs. Universities should also implement transparent reporting requirements, publicly disclosing what percentage of each incoming class comes from legacy, development, and faculty preferences versus merit-based admissions. This transparency would force institutions to confront the gap between their stated values and actual practices.

Universities defend these practices by claiming legacy preferences drive alumni giving. This relationship deserves serious examination but shouldn't override fundamental questions of equity and access.

Higher education institutions perpetuate inequality by preserving legacy admissions while treating diversity as an addendum rather than a core chapter in the institution's story.

Anything less is not equity; rather, it is performance. In a moment when trust in institutions is crumbling, performance is no longer enough. Higher education institutions have a responsibility, albeit a moral obligation, to move beyond symbolic gestures and dismantle the exclusionary practices that make true belonging impossible for the students they claim to serve.

To my colleagues in university administration and fellow board members: The students we claim to serve deserve better. It's time to audit our admissions practices, eliminate legacy preferences that reserve seats for the wealthy, and publish transparency reports showing how many seats go to connected applicants versus merit-based admissions. Schools and organizations nationwide are preparing exceptional first-generation college students, yet they face institutional barriers that have nothing to do with merit. The question is: Will your institution dismantle these barriers or continually perpetuate them?

Robert T. Stephens is a doctoral candidate in Higher Education Management at the Graduate School of Education. His research focuses on equity and diversity in higher education institutions.

References:

Golden, D. (2006). The price of admission: How America's ruling class buys its way into elite colleges—and who gets left outside the gates. New York: Crown Publishers.

Hurtado, S., Milem, J. F., Clayton-Pedersen, A. R., & Allen, W. R. (2002). Enhancing campus climates for racial/ethnic diversity: Educational policy and practice. The Review of Higher Education, 21(3), 279–302.