The changing face of college admissions

How changing college admissions could affect the US workforce New decisions around affirmative action and legacy admissions stand to change who attends university – and could also affect the composition of the future workforce. Following the affirmative action ruling, legacy admissions has become increasingly contentious: on 25 July, the US Education Department opened a civil-rights investigation into the Ivy League school’s legacy policy. As black and Latino students who would have benefited from affirmative action enrol at less competitive schools, they stand to be left out of narrow corporate recruiting pools And beyond the potential changing composition of graduates entering the workforce, Meyer adds the affirmative action decision may have an “indirect chilling effect”, in which individual companies dial back recruiting and corporate diversity initiatives they think could potenitally violate the Supreme Court ruling – which can further erode diversity among student bodies, and the graduates who enter the workforce. Getty Images In July, students at Harvard University protested the Supreme Court's ruling against affirmative action ‘It’s going to get even harder’ For the workforce to be more diverse overall, says Wingfield, “companies would need to commit to policies that have documented success rates in increasing diversity in hiring”, such as prioritising recruiting from institutions such as Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Hispanic-Serving Institutions.