alt Hacker NewsI have heard that it began to try to keep certain ethnic groups out of university and continued because sports bring in scholarship and (for D1 schools) sponsor money.
I have heard that it began to try to keep certain ethnic groups out of university and continued because sports bring in scholarship and (for D1 schools) sponsor money.
Not just ethnic groups. Schools mostly can't say "we only want rich people" but they definitely want to prefer students who will contribute to the donation revenue stream either themselves or through their parents. Signals like "doesn't have a job to take up their time in high school" and "parents can afford (and have the free time to enable) expensive, time-consuming activities" are really good proxies for that.