Lawyer and author Richard Kahlenberg argued in favor of a class-based approach to college admissions in a Wednesday book talk at UCLA.

The event, held at the UCLA School of Law, was hosted by UCLA’s chapters of Heterodox Academy and BridgeUSA, two nonprofit academic organizations that seek to bring more viewpoint diversity to colleges. Kahlenberg discussed his new book, “Class Matters: The Fight to Get Beyond Race Preferences, Reduce Inequality, and Build Real Diversity at America’s Colleges,” at the event.

Kahlenberg said he believes race-based admissions have significant shortcomings and that diversity on college campuses can be achieved instead through socioeconomic affirmative action.

Kahlenberg first recognized a lack of economic diversity under race-based affirmative action when he was in college, he said.

“I looked around as an undergraduate at Harvard and saw that there was a wonderful amount of racial diversity. I benefited from that. I think it’s good to have,” Kahlenberg said. “But almost everyone was well-off.”

Kahlenberg said race-based admissions policies have allowed colleges to admit wealthy students of different races, which financially benefited the schools by minimizing the amount of students who need financial aid.

“There’s a massive financial interest that universities have in saying that racial preferences are the only way to get racial diversity, because it’s so much cheaper to bring together rich kids of all colors than it is to provide financial aid to working-class students,” Kahlenberg said.

With the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision to ban the consideration of race in college admissions, there is an opportunity for class-based affirmative action to replace the former race-based admissions processes, he argues in his book.

[Related: Supreme Court overturns affirmative action in 6-3 decision]

Kahlenberg said the Texas Top 10% Plan – which initially guaranteed admission to all public Texas universities for students in the top 10% of their graduating high school class – provided opportunities for working-class students while maintaining racial diversity.

Kahlenberg said in an interview with the Daily Bruin that due to America’s history of racial discrimination, Black and Hispanic people are disproportionately low income and economically disadvantaged and, therefore, would benefit from class-based affirmative action initiatives.

Kahlenberg added that socioeconomic factors such as the student’s neighborhood and upbringing should be considered in class-based admissions.

“You should look at the neighborhood a student grew up in,” Kahlenberg said. “Are they a two-parent home or a one-parent home? Because all of those things matter to a student’s life prospects – and the students who have overcome odds are super impressive, and universities ought to be making room for them, in my view.”

However, the class-based approach would require colleges to provide more financial aid to working-class students, Kahlenberg added.

Elise Whitlinger, a second-year environmental science student, said her support for class-based college admissions increased during the event. Tamanna Tikoo, a second-year psychology student, said she was curious about how class-based admissions would unfold if implemented.

“I would like to see how it comes into execution – just in terms of whether there are any caveats that we can’t see right now that emerge out of this, where it is not able to maintain or sustain racial diversity in the long run,” Tikoo said. “On paper, it looks like a good proposition.”

UCLA currently admits students based on a holistic application process, meaning applications are considered within the context of an applicant’s personal and academic circumstances, according to the UCLA admissions website.

However, affirmative action based on race, sex or ethnicity, has been banned in California since 1996, when voters passed Proposition 209. UCLA is currently under federal investigation for allegedly considering race in its admissions process in violation of that ban.

[Related: Department of Justice investigates UCLA for alleged use of affirmative action]

According to UCLA’s self-reported Facts and Figures, 28% of its undergraduate student body receives Pell Grants – federal aid awarded to students with financial need who have not yet earned a bachelor’s degree. UCLA reports that 29% of the undergraduate student body are first-generation college students.

Mathias Goeb, a third-year philosophy student who attended the event, said he also was unsure about the application of class-based admissions. He added that education access is a systemic issue. From his personal experience, people with low incomes tend to prioritize work over education, Goeb added.

“A lot of people who are low income will not even have the opportunity to have good education and be able to perform well on SAT scores because they are placed in neighborhoods that don’t habitually advocate for good education,” he said.