Senate Questions Legacy Admits

The chairman of the Senate Finance Committee questioned yesterday whether elite universities like Harvard should be allowed breaks if they continue to offer admission advantages to children of alumni and donors.

“We need to think whether these reserved spaces at our top colleges is a public policy that should be subsidized by the tax code—as is currently the case—and also whether it is in keeping with the requirement that as charities, colleges and universities operate in the public interest,” the chairman, Senator Charles Grassley, said in his statement from the hearing.

In his last hearing as chairman, Grassley, a Republican from Iowa whose committee has been looking at the tax- exempt status of several non-profits including hospitals and universities, heard testimony from witnesses, which included the author of “The Price of Admission: How America’s Ruling Class Buys Its Way into Elite Colleges—and Who Gets Left Outside the Gates,” Daniel L. Golden ’78, and two Harvard professors.

But as yesterday’s meeting was the Senate Finance Committee’s last under Republican leadership, witnesses said they were skeptical that the hearing will bring about real change.

“I don’t think this was the beginning of anything,” said Associate Professor of Public Policy Susan M. Dynarski ’87, who testified at the hearing.

Golden, in his testimony, alluded to the research in his book on the advantages given to children of donors and alumni in the college admission process.

Golden said that schools like Harvard should live up to their social responsibility and become truly “wealth-blind.”

“I would encourage America’s elite universities to try that experiment—to eliminate the preferences of privilege and open their doors to the best applicants, regardless of wealth,” Golden said in his statement.Golden told The Crimson yesterday that his main goal in the hearing was “to reach an audience of legislators and policy makers with the message of my book.”

Though he said he was not sure the hearing would result in federal legislation or action, he proposed that the government consider imposing restrictions on legacy preferences.

Grassley also questioned Golden on the journalist’s claim that Harvard gives admission preference to children of members of the Committee of University Resources (COUR), which is composed of Harvard’s largest donors—both alumni and non-alumni.

Grassley asked whether those donors “should be allowed to take a charitable deduction if they did not appear to have a charitable intent, but instead was given for the purpose of a personal benefit, mainly to get their children accepted.”

In conclusion, Grassley said he would ask the IRS to review the issues to help senators “understand what actions have to be taken in this area.”

But Golden said any measures to change the current policy would be very hard to implement because lawmakers would have to determine “the value of having a child admitted to Harvard.”

The hearing also considered whether tax benefits and incentives are being implemented in the most efficient way for universities.

Dynarski suggested during her testimony at the hearing that the existing education tax incentives are not reaching low-income students.

“I’d like to see a simplified program that families can count on and understand,” Dynarski told The Crimson yesterday. “There are people who don’t go to college because they’re not sure they can afford it.”

—Staff writer Claire M. Guehenno can be reached at guehenno@fas.harvard.edu.