Golden, Daniel. The Price of Admission: How American’s Ruling Class Buys Its Way into Elite Colleges–and Who Gets Left Outside the Gates. (New York: Crown Publishers, 2006).
Although this book was written over a decade ago, it seems very timely in the wake of the college admissions scandal of 2019. What the scandal brought to light was the lengths to which affluent parents will manipulate the college admission process to assure that their children attend elite universities. Less apparent from the media headlines and pictures of disgraced Hollywood celebrities is the long-established and endemic system of favoritism among the country’s most prestigious universities. Daniel Golden, an award-winning journalist, details the ways in which admissions and development offices work cooperatively to tip the admission scale in favor of children whose wealthy families make substantial contributions to fund campus buildings, endow chairs for professors and deans, and augment the university’s endowments. In addition to legacy applicants whose parents, grandparents, or even great grandparents attended the school, elite universities give preferential treatment to top notch athletes, celebrity children, children of politicians, and international students who can afford to pay full tuition. Through these unwritten policies, minority students, those in need of financial aid, and students with superior academic credentials may be denied the educational experience needed to lift their families out of poverty. As Golden puts it:
At…elite private universities, legacy preference provides affluent families with a form of insurance against a decline in educational status from one generation to the next, which might in turn lead to a decline in wealth and power. Just as English peers hold hereditary seats in the House of Lords, so the American nobility reserves slots at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and other august universities. Based on pedigree rather than merit, legacy preference strikes at the heart of American notions of equal opportunity and upward mobility. [p. 118]
Through the use of individual stories and profiles of select universities, Golden provides a compelling picture of inequities in the higher education system.