Freshman classes provide glimpse of affirmative action ruling’s impact on colleges

Some selective colleges are reporting a decline in the number of black students in their incoming classes, the first since a Supreme Court ruling rejects affirmative action in higher education. At other colleges, including Princeton University and Yale University, the proportion of black students changed little.

Several schools have also seen fluctuations in their numbers of Asian, Hispanic and Native American students, but the trends are still unclear. Experts and colleges say it will take years to full impact of last year’s ruling which prohibited the consideration of race in admissions.

The end of affirmative action isn’t the only factor affecting the composition of freshman classes. Some colleges are changing standardized testing requirementswhich increases their importance. And the failed rollout of a new financial aid form complicated decisions made by students across the country about where and whether you should go to university.

“It’s really hard to figure out which policy change is driving all of these enrollment shifts,” said Katharine Meyer, a fellow at the Brookings Institution think tank. “The unsatisfactory answer is that it’s hard to know which one is having the biggest impact.”

On Thursday, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill reported a drop in enrollment among black, Hispanic and Native American students in the incoming class. The admissions approach is closely monitored because it was one of two universities, along with Harvard University, at the center of the Supreme Court case.

The black student population fell nearly 3 percentage points, to 7.8 percent, compared with UNC’s previous class. Hispanic enrollment fell to 10.1 percent from 10.8 percent, while the incoming Native American population fell half a percentage point to 1.1 percent, the university said. The incoming Asian student population rose 1 percentage point, to 25.8 percent. The share of white students, at 63.8 percent, changed little.

It’s “too early to see trends” in affirmative action decisions, said Rachelle Feldman, UNC’s vice provost for enrollment. She cited delays in the Free Application for Federal Student Aid the application process as another possible influence on the composition of the incoming class.

“We are committed to following the new law. We are also committed to ensuring that students in all 100 counties from every demographic in our growing state feel encouraged to apply, feel confident in our affordability, and know that this is a place where they feel welcome and can succeed,” Feldman said.

Some colleges reported sharp declines in the percentages of black students in their incoming classes, including declines from 15% to 5% at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and from 11% to 3% at Amherst College. At Tufts University, the decline in the share of black students was more moderate, from 7.3% to 4.7%. At Yale, the University of Virginia and Princeton, the year-over-year change was less than a percentage point.

Many colleges did not disclose the demographics of applicants, making it impossible to know whether fewer students of color applied, or whether they were admitted but chose not to attend.

Changes in other demographic groups also didn’t follow a clear pattern. At MIT, for example, the percentage of Asian students rose from 40% to 47% and Hispanic and Latino students from 16% to 11%, while the percentage of white students remained relatively unchanged. But at Yale, the percentage of Asian students fell from 30% to 24%. White students at Yale went from 42% of the class to 46%, and Hispanic and Latino students saw a 1 percentage point increase.

Universities are pursue other strategies to maintain the diversity they believe is essential to campus life.

JT Duck, dean of admissions at Tufts, emphasized that the school would work to expand outreach and partnerships with community organizations to reach underrepresented, low-income, and first-generation students. He cautioned against reading too much into annual enrollment changes.

“The results show that we have more work to do to ensure that talented students from all backgrounds, including those historically the most underrepresented at selective universities, have access to a Tufts education. And we are committed to doing that work while adhering to the new legal restrictions,” he said in an email. “We have already done a lot of work toward these goals and look forward to doing even more.”

At UNC, Feldman said a priority is to provide substantial financial aid to low-income families, along with retaining students through investments in undergraduate advising and other initiatives. She said there are no plans for dramatic changes in light of the new enrollment data.

The university wants to ensure that “everyone, regardless of their background, knows that they can earn money here,” she said at a press conference.

A sharp decline in the number of students of color could affect how prospective students evaluate schools, prompting some to choose other colleges where they may experience a stronger sense of community, said Mitchell Chang, a professor of higher education at the University of California, Los Angeles.

“If we’re below a certain threshold, people who find they have a harder time developing a sense of belonging will go somewhere else,” he said. That’s especially true at selective colleges, where admitted students can choose between several top schools.

So far, the declines in underrepresented minority students have been smaller in magnitude than when states like Michigan and California enacted affirmative action bans decades earlier, Meyer said. But since those bans, colleges have developed more best practices for effective, nonracist ways to recruit and enroll a diverse class, Meyer said.

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