That's not really the Harvard way. The Harvard way is:

* Take about 2/5 of students from the elites

* Take about 3/5 of students who are brilliant

Students of the elites look smart by association. Students who are brilliant are brought into powerful, moneyed social networks. It works well for everyone involved.

The focus on alumni donations is a little bit overblown. Harvard has way more money than it needs. What Harvard looks for is a lot richer than that. The alumni base is part of the national -- and increasingly international -- power structure. A president of some country, a high court justice, or similar sorts of power positions can be at least as important as a billionaire. Likewise, branding is important. The current push on DEI is to make sure that (1) the brand doesn't suffer (2) DEI-focused positions are filled by elite school alumni, and not focused on actual change to power structures.

Not necessarily, some of the 0.1% may have poor opinion of the other, may have specific expectations about the environment for their offspring and not every group is equally influential. For example, since we're talking about Harvard - it definitely wasn't purely about money when in 1920s Harvard implemented Lowell's quota to reduce the number of Jewish students.

I wonder if they believe that this time they're on the right side of history in their quest to reduce the proportion of Asian students.

Just like Robinhood always says: "take from the rich and give back to the rich."