Do tell

A little more than a year ago, I wrote about the MERIT Act, which was introduced by Sens. Todd Young of Indiana and Tim Kaine of Virginia. Democrat Kaine and Republican Young proposed MERIT, which stands for Merit-Based Educational Reforms Institutional Transparency. The proposed bill would curtail legacy admissions in higher education. A “legacy” in this context refers to a high school student whose close relative (e.g., mother, grandfather, etc.) attended a college or university to which the student has applied — especially if it’s an “elite” institution. MERIT is designed to level the playing field vis-à-vis non-legacy high school students. According to a& report& from Education Reform Now, more than 100 colleges and universities have eradicated preferences for legacies since 2015. Still, there were nearly 800 institutions that employed the practice as of 2020. In part the bill reads, “To amend the Higher Education Act of 1965 to require the standards for accreditation of an institution of higher education to assess the institution’s adoption of admissions practices that refrain from preferential treatment in admissions based on an applicant’s relationship to alumni of, or donors to, the institution, to authorize a feasibility study on data collection, and for other purposes.”...