Colorado First In Eliminating Legacy College Admissions

DENVER, CO — Gov. Jared Polis signed two bills into law on Tuesday designed to make higher education in Colorado more accessible to everyone, regardless of background.

HB21-1173 bans the governing board at state schools from considering legacy and familial relationships in the admissions process. Colorado became the first state to implement such a ban.

Meanwhile, HB21-1067 allows state schools to determine if they want to consider scores on national assessment tests, such as the SAT or ACT, as a factor in their admissions process.

Both laws are aimed at leveling the playing field for college admissions.

Legacy admissions is the practice by which students get a boost in the admissions process if a parent or grandparent attended the university. While this practice has long been a target for reform, a 2018 survey of admissions directors by Inside Higher Ed, revealed that 42 percent of private institutions and 6 percent of public institutions said they considered legacy status as a factor in admissions.

Polis said that legacy admissions can disproportionately harm Colorado residents who are first-generation college students, people of color or those who living in the United States illegally.

"In a Colorado for all, this bill will help us move in a direction where our higher education institutions are moving toward being meritocracies, meaning you have to earn admissions because of who you are, what you can do and what your potential is, and not who your parents and grandparents were," Polis said a bill signing ceremony.

When it comes to standardized tests, a recent study titled "Defining Access: How Test-Optional Works" found that scores on those tests have little value in predicting students' performance in college.

According to NPR, well over 1,000 colleges and universities don't require SAT or ACT scores in deciding whom to admit. Those "test optional" schools, the "Defining Access" study suggests, have a higher proportion of low-income and first-generation students and students from more diverse backgrounds.

"Across the country, what we are finding in institutions of higher education is that it's better to have a holistic approach to admissions, not just based on a test score," Polis said. "We need to make sure admissions practices are equitable and that we find the students who are the most promising, and that we don't just look at one particular test."

Polis added: "(This bill) makes sure Colorado public universities can determine whether or not to use national assessment scores as a factor in the admissions process. It makes sure we can look at the impact tests have on students of different backgrounds."