Racial and Ethnic Preferences in College Admissions

College admissions committees, not markets, ration access to many of the most selective U.S. colleges. As the labor market payoff to a college education has risen and competition for admission to elite universities has become more keen, racial preference in college admissions has become increasingly controversial, particularly at public institutions. In the spring of 1996 the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals dramatically narrowed the latitude to use race in determining admissions to colleges within its jurisdiction, and the Supreme Court subsequently refused to review this decision. The following fall, voters in California approved a proposal to end the use of racial and ethnic preferences in admissions to state institutions. A number of other states are also reconsidering the role of race and ethnicity in admissions and financial aid. Some will wait for the Supreme Court to clarify the legal issues at stake, but some may not.1 Because colleges shroud their admissions procedures in mystery, the public knows little about the extent to which racial preference is practiced. Even less is known about the impact of such preferences on the later careers of black and white youth. This Article explores these questions using data collected from the high school class of 1982. Part I uses the High School and Beyond (HSB) survey to analyze the importance of race to college admission decisions in the early 1980s. It shows that racial preference is confined to "elite" colleges and universities, namely, the most academically selective fifth of all four-year institutions, where scores