UPDATE: Private University Legacy/Donor Admissions Preferences in California

08.20.2025

A major California private university has responded to the imminent ban on giving preference in admissions to candidates connected to donors or alumni by stating that it will continue to give such preferences and withdraw from the state financial aid programs which made the ban applicable to it.

In a bold move, Stanford University has announced that it will continue to consider applicants’ relations to donors or alumni in making admissions decisions. To accommodate this practice, Stanford intends to withdraw from California financial assistance programs, including Cal Grants, which Stanford will replace with its own scholarship funding so that student and applicant needs are met without interruption.

This allows Stanford to “comply with the statute while undertaking further review.” Stanford said that it will continue to study and analyze these “important issues on which there are many perspectives.”

The new statute is California Education Code section 66018.4, which was enacted by Assembly Bill (“AB”) 1780 last year. The statute bars the use of legacy or donor preferences in admissions decisions, including early admissions, as of September 1, 2025.

Section 66018.4 is applicable to private institutions that accept state financial aid, such as Cal Grants. Specifically, the statute defines an “independent institution of higher education” as one “… that receives, or benefits from, state-funded student financial assistance or that enrolls students who receive state-funded student financial assistance.”

By no longer accepting those funds, Stanford is also exempt from the reporting obligations imposed by the new statute. Beginning on June 30, 2026, all private higher education institutions must report to the state legislature and the California Department of Justice whether they recognized donor/legacy preferences in admissions and, if they did, provide certain information about the newly enrolled students and how the admissions rates for students with a legacy/donor advantage compare to those without this advantage. The Department of Justice will then post the names of non-compliant institutions on its website.

We followed AB 1780 as it made its way through the legislature last year, and we periodically reported. The final version of AB 1780 had been stripped of the severe financial penalties found in the original bill, which included a fine to recapture all of the prior year’s Cal Grant funding. Such a penalty could have been disastrous to many smaller institutions.

According to the Association of Independent California Colleges and Universities’ 2024 Annual Report on Admissions Practices, of the 71 qualifying institutions that responded to the survey, only five schools provided legacy or donor preferences to applicants for the 2023-2024 school year.

If your institution has further questions about this topic, please contact the author or your regular AALRR attorney for clarification and guidance.

Special thanks to our law clerk, Winny Sun, for her assistance with this article.