The New York Times (NYT) has drummed up a fresh protest against President Donald Trump’s education reforms.
The Trump administration is pushing universities to eliminate race (and proxies for race) from their admissions criteria. In their absence, universities would likely place a greater emphasis on standardized test scores and grade point averages. The NYT contends that “another factor strongly influences students’ chances of being admitted to an elite college: their parents’ income.” (RELATED: Trump Quashes Elite University’s Endless Summer Vacation)
The key word is “influences.” One might assert that higher admissions rates are correlated with greater parental income. To assert that income, as an independent variable, is responsible for increasing the likelihood of admission requires substantial evidence.
The NYT does not have substantial evidence. They do have a chart which contradicts their own hypothesis.
“Admissions rate at elite colleges among students with the same test scores,” the chart reads, drawing on 2023 data from Opportunity Insight. On the x-axis: parents’ income rank. On the y-axis: admissions rates ranging from “half as likely to be admitted” to “twice as likely to be admitted.”
Data visualization of admissions rates from The New York Times (NYT)(Screenshot/NYT)
The NYT claims that “rich parents generally spend more time and money on children’s education throughout their youth, so by the time they apply to college, they tend to have higher test scores and other qualifications elite colleges seek.” Based on this reasoning, one would expect a fairly linear correlation between wealth and admissions rate.
Instead, as the chart demonstrates, the average admissions rate is above average for applicants with poorer parents. The admissions rate then stoops below average until nearly the ninety-ninth percentile, when it spikes to 2.2 times likelier admission.
Note, too, that applicants with parents in the ninety-ninth percentile for income should be a very small number of applicants as compared to the rest of the applicant pool.
Even the study cited by the NYT observes, “students from the bottom 40% of the income distribution have slightly higher Ivy-Plus attendance rates than students from the middle class with the same test scores.”
The authors of that study conclude that “the high-income admissions advantage arises from admissions preferences given to children of alumni, to students from certain high schools that produce strong non-academic credentials, and to recruited athletes.”
These are three proxies (of varying strength) for wealth. None are objectionable. Each has value in and of itself. Recall that the number of applicants who fit this profile will be a very small number. Universities should retain legacy families for the purposes of fundraising and cultural preservation. Universities should recruit some high-performing athletes and students with strong non-academic credentials.
The authors of that study make several leaps of logic deserving of examination.
They assert, for instance, that “test scores differ sharply by parental income, with children from high-income families having much greater chances of scoring at the top of the distribution than those from lower-income families.” Later, they claim “large differences in test scores by parental income” are “presumably due to differences in childhood environments and schools.”
That’s an enormous presumption.
NEW: Brown University is the third Ivy League school to return to requiring standardized testing for admissions.
Like Dartmouth and Yale, Brown reports that “an applicant’s test scores are a strong predictor of a student’s performance once enrolled.” pic.twitter.com/MwE5GQxU3m
— Steve McGuire (@sfmcguire79) March 5, 2024
It’s not so much that rich kids have a better “chance” of getting top scores. It’s that they get those scores. One might offer “childhood environments and education” as the explanatory variable, as the authors do. Or one might offer that intelligence is heritable. And intelligent people are pretty good at making money, if they so choose.
Prosperity, as a catch-all for varying traits, is so heritable that people have written books on the subject. The same surnames tend towards the same class, generational dips and spikes notwithstanding.
It’s probably too much to ask of our academic betters to question their priors.
The NYT, for their part, makes the same presumption. After noting that parental income is strongly correlated with SAT scores, they conclude this “reflects, in part, how poor children receive vastly different educations, in school and out, than rich children.” But the author of this article appears to have had some difficulty working out the right reproach for standardized testing.
On the one hand, “test scores are strongly predictive of success in college and beyond.”
On the other hand, “potential for success is not reflected in SAT scores or grades alone.”
The NYT finally notices that, as part of their settlements with the Trump admin, Columbia and Brown will disclose all their admissions and race data to the government.
In other words, they will either have to stop discriminating in admissions, or get caught breaking the law. The… pic.twitter.com/7maEAuldu0
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) August 5, 2025
The author admits that “in one sense, focusing more on test scores, as the Trump administration seems to be pushing colleges to do, could produce a class that is more ready for elite higher education.” This would come at a high cost: “It could also produce a class that favors the children of the rich — and Asian and white students, who score highest on tests overall — even more than these colleges already do.”
Ah. That neatly sums up the objections to Trump’s reforms. Some congratulations is to be extended to the Asian community for being successful enough to achieve “white privilege.”
The author favors so-called “holistic review,” which considers, among other factors, race. (RELATED: Elite Universities Just Implemented DEI For Wimps)
“Holistic review can also indirectly increase racial diversity, because Black and Hispanic students — who are much less likely to earn high scores on standardized tests than Asian or, to a lesser extent, white students — are also more likely to grow up poor or attend schools with fewer resources than white or Asian students.”
Selecting for black and hispanic applicants doesn’t appear to be an indirect effect of such review, so much as a central purpose. But this is where I find common ground with our intrepid NYT journo.
Universities should implement holistic review. They should consider, in addition to his standardized testing score, an applicant’s charisma. His athletic prowess. His grasp of Latin and Greek. His proficiency in mathematics, history, and geography. His social standing and character. And sure, his familial wealth.
Follow Natalie Sandoval on X: @NatSandovalDC
