A big blow to kids who hoped their family connections would get them into a prestigious college could be coming as one of Assemblymember Phil Ting’s last bills on his way out of office would ban legacy admissions at universities statewide.

When the conservative-majority US Supreme Court shot down affirmative action at colleges and universities last June, one unexpected backlash to that decision was a push to ban legacy admissions at those universities as well. Legacy admissions are sort of the opposite of affirmative action, as they’re college admissions that give a leg up to students who have parents or grandparents who are alumni of that university. The obvious ploy for the university is that those parents and grandparents tend to be wealthy, and therefore more likely to make financial contributions to the school, while the students that benefit from legacy admissions tend to be white and wealthy.

Several universities nationwide have since banned legacy admissions, and the states Colorado and Virginia have also outlawed legacy admissions at public universities. Maryland has banned legacy admissions at both public and private colleges. And now the New York Times reports that our own state Assemblymember Phil Ting has a bill in the state legislature that would ban legacy admission at California’s private universities.

California’s public universities already do not allow legacy admissions.

“It makes complete sense to now ensure that we don’t look at someone’s wealth or lineage with the university to decide whether to admit them,” Ting told the Times. He said his bill “doesn’t ban admitting donors’ or alumni children,” but “it just ensures that there’s no preferential treatment.”

It will probably not come as a shocker to you that the two California private universities with the largest percentages of legacy admission students are Stanford and USC, both with 14% of their incoming student bodies being legacy admitted, according to the most recent year’s data. The University of Santa Clara was not far behind at 13%.

Ting’s bill AB 1780 has already passed the state Assembly 55-0, and is currently in state Senate committees. The measure would have to pass the state Senate by August 31, and be signed by Governor Newsom, to become law.

Phil Ting, of course, is in the final months of his state Assembly term. He’ll be termed out at the end of this year, and SF Supervisor Catherine Stefani is running to be his successor.

Related: Affirmative Action Decision at Supreme Court Will Likely Mean Less Diversity at California's Private Universities [SFist]

Image: Palo Alto, CA, USA - Sept. 17, 2015: Stanford University Hoover Tower. Completed in 1941, the 50th year of Stanford University's anniversary, the tower was inspired by the cathedral tower in Salamanca, Spain. (Getty Images)

On Friday, San Francisco Mayor London Breed announced a plan to begin offering summer classes through historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in the city, and the intention of luring at least one of those HBCUs to establish a satellite campus downtown.

Getting more students to replace the workers who no longer populate downtown San Francisco in as large numbers as they did five years ago has been a state goal of Mayor London Breed and others in City Hall. One way they've talked about doing that is bringing a new University of California satellite campus into downtown, something that UC is reportedly considering, as we heard a few weeks back.

But Breed also announced a program Friday called Black 2 San Francisco, shortened to B2SF, which the city's Human Rights Commission is spearheading. The program will begin with some select classes being offered at SF State this summer. But long-term, the city says, the goal is "to launch a satellite campus partnership with several HBCUs, including a physical location and a full suite of academic and professional programming."

"In San Francisco, we are working to build partnerships that strengthen our leadership as a center of education, innovation, and opportunity," Breed says in a statement. "By bringing HBCUs to our city, we can not only create a connection to empower our next generation of leaders, but we can also contribute to the revitalization of our city. I want to thank all of our private sector supporters, as well as USF, UCSF, and SFSU for their partnership in this work and continued commitment to San Francisco’s future."

(USF is going to be providing student housing for the summer program, and UCSF has signed on to partner with HBCUs to expand mental health mentoring, training and internships.)

"After many years of planning, and months of seeding and working to create meaningful partnerships, all the stakeholders are together to explore how we can connect San Francisco to the incredible talent that has historically been cultivated and supported by HBCUs," says Human Rights Commission Executive Director Dr. Sheryl Davis.

A small convention of stakeholders was convened Friday and is meeting as of this reporting at the War Memorial Veterans Building in SF.

No specific buildings or part of downtown or the Financial District have yet been discussed, but the mayor's office says that "Preliminary work has focused on cultivating a network of sponsors and collaborators" for the project.

And no specific HBCUs were mentioned in the announcement, but KTVU had a report that suggested that Clark Atlanta University, Morehouse College, and Spelman College in Atlanta could be involved, as well as others. Update: KTVU reports, via city reps, that the schools being talked to are Charles R. Drew University, Howard University, Morehouse College, Morgan State University, Morris Brown College, Tuskegee University, and the University of the District of Columbia.

Related: Wiener Proposes New Downtown Booze Zones Where You Can Walk Around With To-Go Drinks

Forbes annual list of Best Institutes for Higher Learning and Contact Making came out today. The coveted list, compiled by Forbes and Washington, D.C.'s Center for College Affordability and Productivity, focuses on data and issues "that matter the most to students" such as quality of teaching, career prospects, graduation rates, and levels of debt. The Bay Area's own Stanford ranked #3, just behind Williams and top-ranking Princeton. In more shocking news, UCLA (#45) pulled ahead of UC Berkeley (#50). Interesting. Or not.

Tony private University of San Francisco ranked #177, while the always festive and inarguably rad UC Santa Cruz came in at #199. (Any school with a banana slug for a mascot deserves nothing less than top-ten glory. Bah.)

Rounding out the bottom five? Columbia College Chicago (646), Morgan State University (647), South Carolina State University (648), Johnson & Wales University (649), and Texas Southern University (650).

Another alarming tidbit was cost. Four years at one of the esteemed private school, like University of Chicago (#4) or Williams (#2), costs more than a quarter of a million dollars. A degree from "more affordable" state schools, like the College of William & Mary (#40) or UC Berkeley (#50), still costs around $100,000, even for in-state students.

How did your school fare?

[Forbes]

The cash-strapped UC system has started shifting the balance of admitted students to better favor profitable out-of-state applicants, UC officials reported today. In addition to accepting a record high 80,289 freshman to the nine undergraduate UCs for the fall semester, 23% of the incoming class are non-Californians who pay roughly three times as much tuition as the California natives.

Last year's class was made up of 18% out-of-staters, which was already double the percentage of 2009's entering class. While we'd love to believe the influx of out-of-state and international students was due to a rumor that they wouldn't have to learn any American History, it seems the answer is just a matter of money.

As Kate Jeffery, interim director of undergrad admissions for the UC system, explained today, the UC schools "have the capacity to educate many more students at our campuses. What we don't have is the funding to admit more California students."

Factor in a slightly lower overall admission rate than last year and things are starting to look a lot less favorable for the next wave of Californian students seeking out an affordable in-state education.

[KTVU]

Oh is it a voting day or something? It totally sneaked up on us! It still feels like Monday today. Actually it also feels like October. Anyway, you should probably vote yes on A and no on H, because that's what everyone else is doing. Prop A will protect The Mt Soledad National War Memorial and do something to the air force? and will transform some colleges. Also, Aristotle endorsed it it.

Proposition H will make housing affordable and will help people complain more (always a good thing), and will ban achohol, and will also make Ron Paul president.

Ha ha ha, just kidding! Actually Prop A makes Muni work better, by a series of boring changes that have to do with the general fund and labor laws and environmental purchasing regulations, . But it's good, even though it's dull. Prop H is just bad news; they're trying to make it easier to park your car by building more spaces, but it'll be just like if you favorite neighborhood bar builds an addition: it'll just get more crowded. Boooooo!

Seriously, though, please do vote for Tameka Boen. You're in the Boen Zone!

We got in the car and headed over to our favorite, most reliable salon, where the instruments are clean, the prices can’t be beat, and there’s always some funny Asian soap opera playing on the tiny TV stationed at the back of the salon where the unoccupied estheticians hang out and gossip (we can only assume).

When we walked in, the doorbell chimed and we chimed in, “Manicure, pedicure.” We weren’t surprised that a man led us to a spa chair in the back. A gentleman has always played host at this salon. But we were surprised when he brought over the nail kit, sat down, and began filing.

Since we attended one of those God-awful hyper-liberal women’s colleges, we are, of course, full believers in equal opportunity employment. So, we figured, what the hell? Let’s just relax and see how it goes. And it was going fine until he started polishing our nails, and our fingers grazed the back of his hairy hand, almost smearing the polish. We began wondering if our Chanel Madness was going to waste.

In the end, it turned out to be a good manicure. (A lady did our pedicure.) We have to admit that even though we were a little skeeved out by the hand hair and lack of some salon niceties (e.g. the use of pillows to support raised appendages), he did a pretty nice job and was quite pleasant. Other than suggesting he wax or shave his hands, our only other feedback would be, and this is to all men, NEVER HANDLE OUR PURSES WITHOUT ASKING FIRST.

By Deborah