Supreme's affirmative action ban reduce blacks at Ivy's?
- snitzoid
- Sep 9, 2024
- 6 min read
Is the destruction of "affirmative action" new? No! In fact,this experiment (if you want to call it that) occurred back in 1996 in California. Back then the state passed Proposition 209 which outlawed affirmative action in the state's publically run college system.
So what happened? Black enrollment dropped over 50% at elite schools like UCLA & Berkley. Sounds terrible. Wait! Not so fast. It turns out that these students ended up attending California state schools one or two tiers down, where they entered at the middle of their academic class.
The results? The number of African-American and Hispanic students graduating from the UC system has increased, including a 55 percent increase in those graduating in four years with a GPA of 3.5 or higher. Not what you expected!
Placing students, of any color, in an elite college where they can't immediately keep up with their peers isn't helpful. This result has been found to be the case in numerous studies among almost all ethnic and non ethnic groups.
The Colleges Falling Behind on Black Student Enrollment
A year after a landmark Supreme Court decision, some schools held their share of minority students steady. Others lost ground.
Black students, including those who identify as multiracial, account for 5% of MIT’s first-year class this fall, off from 15%.
By Melissa Korn, WSJ
Sept. 9, 2024
Diversity is down at some of the nation’s most selective colleges this fall.
The share of Black students entering Amherst College fell to 3%, from 11% last school year. At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where students could identify themselves racially in more than one category, the percentage dropped to 7.8% from 10.5%. And at Brown University, the share of first-year domestic students who are Black fell to 9%, from 15%.
The Wall Street Journal examined first-year classes at more than 20 colleges to see how class makeup is starting to change after last summer’s Supreme Court ruling barring schools from explicitly considering race in their admissions decisions. While some schools reported steady numbers, several posted sharp declines among racial minorities, including Black students in particular.
Leaders of those institutions, a group that includes Washington University in St. Louis and some Ivy League schools, are now trying to figure out why their numbers shook out the way they did. They argue that diversity helps all students encounter new ideas and prepares them to succeed in a multicultural society. They also say previous growth didn’t come at the cost of academic talent.
Richard Oti, an 18-year-old Black student who moved to Northern Virginia from Ghana when he was 1, always knew he would be a minority at any highly selective college.
When he enrolled at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he clung to a statistic that showed 15% of last year’s MIT freshman class was Black, including students who identify as multiracial. This year, it is 5%.
“The only reason that was going to change was if students like me actually attend there,” said Oti, a first-year student who plans to study computer science, economics and data science with a focus on improving sustainable agriculture.
Oti is now one of 55 Black students in a class of more than 1,100, and described a sense of shock. He joined Chocolate City, a housing option for students who identify with Black and urban culture, but said he can’t come close to replicating that feeling of community in his classrooms.
His fear, one shared by admissions directors nationwide, is that current high-school seniors will see some of these numbers and shy away from applying, further sinking Black enrollment.
Not every college is experiencing drastic enrollment declines among Black students. Schools can report their figures in a number of ways, and might not be directly comparable to one another, but the Journal looked at direct year-over-year trends for each institution.
Last year’s Supreme Court ruling on affirmative action upended the way many of the nation’s most selective colleges admit students.
At some schools, including MIT, the share of first-year students who are Black or Hispanic fell, while the share who identified as Asian-American rose.
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill was at the center of the legal battle that led to the Supreme Court’s ruling. UNC reported a drop in Black students, while most other categories remained relatively steady.
At Yale University, meanwhile, Black and Hispanic enrollment stayed fairly stable while the share of students who identified as white rose and those who said they were Asian-American dropped.
Princeton’s numbers held fairly steady in most categories but had an uptick in the share of students who didn’t report their race.
Researchers and admissions directors warn against drawing too many conclusions from one year of results. Because of the way many schools reported their data so far, it is hard to see long-term trends.
However, some schools do have numbers providing direct comparisons, such as Amherst...
...Tulane...
...and the University of Virginia.
Yale University’s first-year class remained stable for African-American and Hispanic students, though Asian-American enrollment fell to 24% from 30%. (International students are counted in a separate category at most schools.)
At Bates College, 32% of the first-year class are U.S. students of color, after hovering between 27% and 29% for the past five years. The school reported an increase in the share of Black and Hispanic students specifically.
Figuring out why some schools fared better than others at maintaining minority enrollment is a challenge, say admissions officers and analysts.
Given the botched rollout of the new federal financial-aid application last winter, it is hard for schools to answer, “Is it just a fluke year, or is there something that’s fundamentally wrong with the way our process is working?” said Dominique Baker, an associate professor of education and public policy at the University of Delaware.
Baker and others who study college access expect schools to pore over the numbers, marketing material, college-fair attendance and how they describe diversity initiatives on campus. She said some might want to examine binding early-decision admission programs, as well as preferential treatment for legacy applicants—steps that many schools say they aren’t yet willing to take.
Several of the nation’s most selective public and private colleges haven’t yet reported the demographic breakdown of their incoming classes. And some are giving broader descriptions, such as what percentage of the class is nonwhite. Researchers and college leaders warn against drawing too many conclusions from a single year of results.
After the Supreme Court decision, many applicants said they were concerned about how welcome they would feel at certain schools and struggled with how much to reveal about themselves in essays or basic demographic questions.
Often they chose to say less. At Washington University in St. Louis, the share of first-year students whose race was unknown increased to 5% from 1%. And at Tufts University, the share of domestic students who didn’t disclose their race in applications more than doubled, to 6.7%.
Rising momentum
Admissions officers have been working for years to cast a wider net for prospective students. But data from the Common App—which is used by more than 1,000 schools, including nearly all of the nation’s most selective ones—shows the share of Latino and Black students with high grade-point averages or high standardized test scores applying to at least one very selective college has been declining in recent years.
Schools’ efforts to also beef up financial-aid packages didn’t necessarily equate to higher, or even steadier, Black enrollment last year.
The share of Black students entering Amherst College in Massachusetts fell to 3% this fall, from 11% last school year. Photo: M. Scott Brauer for WSJ
At Washington University in St. Louis, for example, the share of first-year students getting aid packages rose to 48% from 42% last year, with an average award of nearly $72,000. Still, enrollment among students who identified as Black fell to 8% from 12%, and most other populations remained within a percentage point of last year.
The school has already committed to adding admissions staff in Atlanta, as well as Texas and its own backyard of St. Louis, said Ronné Turner, vice provost for admissions and financial aid, aiming to target more schools and community-based organizations. It is also investing in additional outreach programs for rural students.
Meanwhile, Duke University expanded its outreach to high schools in the Carolinas, touting a more generous financial-aid program. It also hosted sessions where faculty and current students called newly admitted students, and held family dinners for first-generation and low-income students.
Duke students are allowed to check off more than one box for demographic classifications. The share of Black and Hispanic students edged up to 13% and 14%, respectively, while white students fell to 52% from 53%. Asian-American enrollment dropped to 29% from 35%.
Last fall, the California Institute of Technology roughly doubled the size of the program that flies prospective students who are underrepresented in science and math fields to campus for a three-day visit. The school has also expanded its partnership with QuestBridge, which matches high-achieving, low-income students with partner colleges.
Three weeks before classes start, the student makeup at Caltech looks roughly the same as it did last year, said Ashley Pallie, who runs undergraduate admissions at the school. Last fall, 10.5% of the class was Hispanic, 39.5% Asian-American, 21.1% white and 6.8% multiracial. Just over 4% identified as Black; in an entering class of 266, that is 11 students.
Black enrollment barely broke 2% of the first-year class until a few years ago.
Pallie said she appreciates the school’s modest progress, but “sustaining that over the next five to 10 years is a pretty significant undertaking.”
Write to Melissa Korn at Melissa.Korn@wsj.com
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