Michael Bastedo speaks with the New York Times about the impact Trump’s deals with top colleges may have on admissions

In recent deals with the Trump administration, Columbia University and Brown University have agreed to publicly share anonymized data about all applicants, including their standardized test scores, grade point averages, and race, reports the New York Times. Education Secretary Linda McMahon claims that this will ensure that “aspiring students will be judged solely on their merits, not their race or sex.”

Such a focus will prioritize wealthy families who are able to spend more on their children’s education from an early age, therefore increasing the likelihood of higher test scores and grade point averages.

Education Professor Michael Bastedo tells the Times that the administration’s mandate will create less diverse classes of students by many metrics, including race. “Focusing more on high test scores and grades could also lead to decreased admissions for other groups of applicants, like rural students or the children of parents who did not go to college.”