“I AM SIMPLY thrilled about all the folks you were able to admit,” David Ellwood, the then dean of Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, wrote to the then admissions dean, William Fitzsimmons, in a 2013 email entitled “My hero”. “All big wins. [Name redacted] has already committed to a building.”

“对于你们能招收到的学生，我激动不已，”时任哈佛大学肯尼迪政府学院院长的大卫·埃尔伍德曾于2013年在给时任招生办主任威廉·费兹蒙斯的一封以“我的英雄” 为主题电子邮件中如此写道：“所有的大人物都得到想要的。 已获准用[姓名删除]命名一幢楼。”

Charges brought against rich and famous people who are accused of illegally buying university places for their children has focused attention on an oddity in American higher education: that while it was illegal for these people to buy places, others can do so quite legally. This issue is normally hidden behind the veil of the “holistic” admissions policy which selective universities run. But a case in the Supreme Court in which Asian-American plaintiffs allege that Harvard’s admissions system is racially biased has thrown a light on preference given to different groups, including “legacies”—the children of alumni. Their parents do not have to fork out for them to be favoured, but since alumni are universities’ principal source of donations after foundations, institutions that practice legacy preference defend it as essential.

一些富人和名流被被指控为孩子非法花钱购买大学名额并获得指控一事引发了人们关注美国高等教育存在的一个怪异之处：这些人购买地方是非法的，可其他人这么做却是合法地。这个问题通常隐藏在一些选择性大学运用的“整体性”招生政策的背后。但是，美国高等法院的一个案例——亚裔美国人原告称哈佛大学的录取制度有种族偏见，揭开了对不同群体的倾向性——包括“遗产”,即校友的子女——的面纱。这些孩子的父母并不需要费劲地让他们得到青睐，不过，校友是各大学在除基金会之外的主要捐赠来源，因此，实行对校友子女优先政策的教育机构认为这个政策是其根本。

A survey by the Harvard Crimson, the student newspaper, found that 29% of the class of 2021 had a close relation who had been at the university; 18% had at least one parent there. Nor is the practice confined to the top institutions. A survey of 499 admissions directors by Inside Higher Ed found that 42% of those at private universities used legacy preference.

哈佛学生报纸《哈佛深红》（Harvard Crimson）的一项调查发现，2021年班级中有29％的人与该大学有密切关系; 18％的学生至少有一位父母是校友。这种做法也不局限于顶级教育机构。Inside Higher Ed对499名招生主管人员进行的一项调查发现，42％的私立大学使用校友子女优先的政策。

Legacy preference is, as Richard Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation and editor of “Affirmative Action for the Rich”, points out, both entirely un-American and uniquely American. It flies in the face of the ideals on which America was founded—the rejection, as Thomas Jefferson put it, of the “artificial aristocracy” based on birth, which had corrupted Britain, in favour of a “natural aristocracy” based on “virtue and talents”. No other serious university system permits it. Universities in Britain, the only other country represented in the Times Higher Education league of the world’s top ten universities, use test scores supplemented, in some institutions, with an interview.

世纪基金会的高级研究员兼“富人肯定行动”总编辑理查德•卡伦伯格指出，校友子女优先政策即是完然非美国式的，同时也是的美国独有的。它是美国建国理想的体现——按托马斯·杰斐逊所的话来说，是根据以出身论并让英国坠落的“人造阶层”的拒绝，而是亲睐根据“美德和才能”建立的“自然阶层”。没有其他严肃的大学制度允许它的存在。在世界十大大学泰晤士报高等教育联盟中唯一代表其它国家的英国，大学除了用面试，还会辅之以考试分数来做参考。

In the 1920s, Ivy League college administrators feared that relying too much on exams to screen applicants would yield a high number of Jewish students. They set up admissions systems which embedded legacy preference. In the egalitarianism of the post-war era, universities tried to get rid of legacies, but were defeated by passionate opposition from their alumni.

在20世纪20年代，常春藤联盟的管理人员担忧过多依赖考试来筛选申请人的方式，因为这会招到大量的犹太学生。他们建立了以校友子弟优先的招生系统。在战后时期的平均主义影响下，各大学试图废除校友子弟政策，但因遭校友们的激烈反对而失败。

高额的小费

No combination of money and alumni clout, however powerful, will get a thick kid a place at a good university. University administrators point out that legacy applicants’ SAT scores tend to be higher than average—not surprising, since they tend to be richer and therefore better-prepared. In an interview with the Crimson, Mr Fitzsimmons referred to legacy as a “tip” which, other things being substantially equal, could win an applicant a place. But recent data suggest it is more than that. Michael Hurwitz, then at Harvard, calculated that, controlling for all relevant characteristics, being related to an alumnus of one of America’s top 30 universities increased an applicant’s chance threefold. Thomas Espenshade at Princeton found that it was the equivalent of 160 points on a SAT score where the maximum is 1,600.

金钱与校友影响力的组合——无论多么强大——从来不会让一个傻子在一所好大学里有一席之地。大学行政人员指出，校友子女申请人的SAT成绩往往高于平均成绩——这并不奇怪，因为他们往往家庭更殷实，准备得更充分。在接受《哈佛深红》采访时，费兹蒙斯称,校友子女是一种“小费”，在同等条件下，能让申请人入选。不过，最近的一些数据表明，这个身份的便利不止于此。彼时仍在哈佛大学任教的迈克尔·霍维茨曾测算，在所有相关特征不变的情况下，与美国排名前30所大学的校友有关系的话，申请人的入学机会会增加三倍。普林斯顿大学的托马斯·埃斯彭谢德发现这相当于160分SAT分数，而SAT的最高分为1600分。

The trial has forced Harvard to publicise its own numbers (see chart). The biggest advantage goes to athletes, but they are sometimes the same people as legacies—as some of the sports which ease students in (lacrosse, rowing, golf) suggest. “The best donors”, says an insider, “are sports scholars who went on to Harvard Business School. They ‘bleed crimson’.”

这次案件判理迫使哈佛公布其自己招生数字（见图表）优势最大的是运动员，但他们有时与校友子女的待遇一样 ——因为一些运动（如曲棍球，划船，高尔夫）能让普通人有表现。一位知情人士说，“最顶级的捐赠者是后来进入哈佛商学院的体育学者。他们‘流着深红色的血液'。”

Universities that favour legacy applicants say doing so helps pay for need-blind admissions, under which universities pay the bills of poorer students. But as Richard Reeves of the Brookings Institution points out, “they admit so few poor people that this is pocket change for them.” According to Harvard’s Raj Chetty, the university has 14 times as many students from the top than the bottom economic quintile. Legacies take places that might go to poorer people: Mimi Doe of Top Tier Admissions points out that half of places at top universities are fenced off by racial, athletic and legacy preferences. “For students who don’t have any interesting ‘hooks’ on their cvs, acceptance rates of 10% of applicants come down to more like 5%.”

一些亲睐校友子女申请者的大学表示，这样做有利于要求盲选的招生行为，因为这些大学承担较贫困学生的各类费用。不过，如布鲁金斯学会的理查德·里夫斯所指出的那样：“他们承认贫困学生的数量极少，这对他们来说就是零花钱。”根据哈佛大学的Raj Chetty的说法，哈佛大里出自收入最高的家庭的学生数量是出身于收入最低家庭学生的14倍。校友子弟政策可能会出现在穷人身上：Top Tier Admissions的Mimi Doe指出，顶尖大学的一半名额受种族、运动和校友子女等占据。“对于那些在他们的简历上没有任何引人感兴趣的‘钩子’的学生，10％的录取率会降至5％左右。”

MIT, which does not favour legacies, has need-blind admissions. A study of 100 universities found that “the presence of legacy preference policies does not result in significantly higher alumni giving”; those with legacy preference got more money from alumni, but that was because they had richer alumni. Abandoning the practice might be in the universities’ interest. A study into the “child-cycle of alumni giving” found that donations increased when alumni’s children reached their early teens, and then dropped to below their original level when the child was turned down. Hell hath no fury like an alumnus whose child has been scorned.

麻省理工学院不支持校友子女优先政策，执行的是盲选招生。一项针对100所大学的研究发现，“校友子女优先政策不会导致校友捐赠数量显着增加”；那些校友子女优先的学校会得到校友更多的捐赠，但仅仅是因为校友更为富裕。放弃执行这种政策可能符合大学的利益。对“校友捐赠的儿童周期”的研究发现，当校友的孩子在青少年时，捐款会增加，然后在孩子遭拒后降到到最初的水平以下。地狱并没有像校友在孩子遭嘲笑时愤怒。

Some institutions, including the University of California, Berkeley, the University of California, Los Angeles and Texas A&M, have abandoned the practice. More than two-thirds of Americans are against it. Mr Kahlenberg notes that universities are increasingly unpopular among Americans. “Some of this has to do with the idea that these are liberal bastions where students are being indoctrinated. But it is also about the fact that these are seen as gated communities where the privileged protect their positions in society.” A majority of the admissions directors surveyed by Inside Higher Ed opposed it, including 11% of those who practised it. The Crimson wants it ended. “It would make it a happier place,” says a Harvard insider. “So many of the students have impostor syndrome.”

一些机构，包括加州大学伯克利分校、加州大学、洛杉矶分校和德克萨斯A＆M机构都不再被告这种政策。有超过三分之二的美国人反对这个政策。卡伦伯格指出，大学在美国人中越来越不受欢迎。“其中一些与这些是学生被灌输的自由堡垒想法有关。但也有一个事实是，这些被视为封闭社区，特权能保护他们在社会中的地位。“Inside Higher Ed调查的大多数招生主任都反对这个说法，有11％的人所在有学校实施校友子女优先政策。《哈佛深红》希望哈佛终止这个政策。“这将使哈佛成为一个更有幸福感的地方，”一位哈佛内部人士说。“这么多学生患上了冒充综合症。”

Ron Wyden, a Democratic senator, plans to help legacy preference on its way by introducing a bill to limit tax breaks on donations before or while a child is enrolled. It is a condition of tax exemption that a donor should get no direct benefit from a donation; and although universities are very careful to make it clear that there is no quid pro quo, their defence of legacy preference—that it raises money—implicitly admits the connection.

民主党参议员罗恩•怀登（Ron Wyden）计划通过一项儿童入学前或入学时限制捐款减税的法案来终结校友子女优先政策。捐赠者不应直接从捐赠行为中获益，这是免税的条件;尽管各家大学非常谨慎地表明没有交换条件，但他们对校友子女优先的辩护 - 它能募集到资金 - 隐含地承认了这种联系。

But the likeliest impetus for change is the affirmative-action trial. “At present the universities can say they take into account lots of factors, including legacies,” says Mr Kahlenberg. “If you no longer have the minorities then it becomes harder to justify.” That, indeed, is what happened at the University of California and at Texas A&M: when racial preferences were ended, legacy preferences looked even more egregiously unfair, and were binned.

不过，最有可能推动变革的是扶持行动判决。“目前，这些大学会说考虑了许多因素，包括校友子女政策，”卡伦伯格说。“如果你不再拥有少数族裔，那么就更难以证明其合理性。”事实上，这正是加利福尼亚大学和得克萨斯州A＆M所发生的事情：当种族优先政策结止时，校友子女优先看起来更加的不公平，要扔到垃圾堆里。

编译：杨健

编译：翻吧君

来源：The Economist (March 21, 2019)

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