> When you prefer legacy students, you perpetuate the kind of discrimination in effect when their parents and grandparents were admitted.

Universities will likely claim that legacy and (especially) donor admits bring more money into the university, which in theory allows them to increase overall economic diversity (and likely social and demographic diversity as well) of the student body by admitting a larger number of qualified students under a need-blind admission policy.

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jfengel 6 days ago | parent [-]

Many of these universities have vast investment funds. Expanding would indeed allow them to provide more education, but that does not appear to be their goal.

	▲	musicale 6 days ago \| parent [-]
		Expanding need-blind isn't the same as overall expansion. Many universities have adopted need-blind admissions (not including donor admits), eliminated or reduced student loans, and/or expanded undergraduate admissions - all efforts that support economic diversity. Stanford (for example) implemented need-blind for domestic student admissions (but still not international), and largely eliminated (or at least reduced) undergraduate student loans. Undergraduate class size seems to have expanded from ~6500 (?) in 1983 to ~7500 today, and may continue to expand slightly: https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2025/04/president-levins-r... However, it's worth noting that Stanford acceptance was above 25% for the class of 1979 (vs. 3.6% for the class of 2029.) Application growth has drastically outpaced admissions and class growth. https://irds.stanford.edu/data-findings/undergraduate-admiss... Additionally, administrations have generally expanded much faster than the undergraduate student population.