The percent of Black and Hispanic students in Harvard’s first-year class dropped this fall while that of Asian American students increased, according to figures released on Thursday. It was more evidence that a 2023 Supreme Court ban on affirmative action is having a significant effect on racial diversity at the nation’s elite schools.
Harvard College said that 11.5 percent of its first-year students identify as Black this fall, down from 14 percent last year and 18 percent in 2023, before the Supreme Court ban took effect. While the decline is not as sharp as some experts had predicted, it reverses a trend toward increased racial diversity that had begun in the 1960s.
The numbers, released by Harvard College, showed an even sharper drop this year for Hispanic students — to 11 percent of this year’s first-year class from 16 percent last year. The percentage of Hispanic students had seen an increase last year from 2023, however.
Harvard did not release figures for white students.
The racial breakdown of students at Harvard and other schools has been closely watched because of the role these schools play in providing access to power and influence in American society. In recent months, the Trump administration has also sought to force universities to report expanded admissions data that could be used to prove whether they are giving preferential treatment to applicants based on race.
The first year of data following the Supreme Court was confusing. Some institutions saw striking drops in Black students while at others, the number remained largely unchanged, defying predictions and prompting suggestions that some schools were ignoring the decision.
This year, however, the data is showing some clearer trend lines, according to James Murphy, director of postsecondary policy for Education Reform Now, a nonprofit group that supports expanding diversity and access to higher education.
“African American enrollment has dropped significantly at almost all the highly selective institutions reporting this year,” said Mr. Murphy, who has been analyzing the data that other institutions have released. “Hispanic enrollment has declined at many of the institutions, but not all.”
Justin Driver, a professor at Yale Law School who writes frequently on the fall of affirmative action, called the decline an example of how the Supreme Court’s “disastrous decision from 2023 continues to cause Black enrollment rates to decline at many of the nation’s premier universities.”
“I fear that Harvard’s plummeting trend lines over the last two years offers an unattractive preview of the future in American higher education,” he said.
Last year, Princeton, for example, saw little change in the demographics of its first-year class. This fall, however, the school reported that Black enrollment in its first-year class had declined to 5 percent, the lowest number since 1968.
Last year, 8.9 percent of Princeton’s first-year class was Black. Asian American first-year students climbed to 27.1 percent of the class this year from 23.8 percent last year.
Mr. Murphy said that trends are less clear across schools for Asian American and white students. At some schools, their numbers are increasing, while at others they’ve stayed about the same. At Harvard, Asian American enrollment increased to 41 percent of the first-year class from 37 percent last year, the same percentage as in 2023.
Students for Fair Admissions, the nonprofit organization that sued Harvard in the affirmative action case decided by the Supreme Court, had argued that the Ivy League college’s admissions policies discriminated against high-scoring Asian American students by giving “boosts” to students from racial minority groups who scored lower on admissions tests.
Significantly, this was the first year since the pandemic that Harvard had required applicants to submit standardized test scores. As a result, Harvard said, its applicant numbers declined. But applicants were still 10 percent higher than before the pandemic, when testing requirements were suspended.
The 1,675 students in Harvard’s class of 2029 represent all 50 U.S. states and 92 countries, with international students making up 15 percent of the class, about the same as last year. This year, the Trump administration tried to restrict Harvard’s ability to enroll international students, an effort that was blocked by a federal court in Massachusetts.
Twenty-one percent of the class of 2029 are low-income students eligible for federal Pell Grants, and 45 percent will attend Harvard tuition-free under an expanded financial aid policy that the college announced this year.
Hopi Hoekstra, dean of Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences, said in a written statement released by the college that “even amid shifting economic realities, our commitment to access and opportunity remains unwavering.” Harvard declined to comment further on the admissions numbers.
Colleges have been slow this year in releasing demographic information about their first-year classes. Some are wary of releasing the data because of increased pressure from the Trump administration, according to Mr. Murphy.
So far, fewer than 20 highly selective schools have released demographic data, according to a compilation by Mr. Murphy. Last year around this time, the figure was more than 30.
Some schools that experienced declines in underserved minority students last year beefed up their recruitment this year in hopes of reversing or stemming the drop. In some cases, they turned to data tools that aim to locate high-achieving students from low-income communities.
But the Trump administration said it would be on the lookout for the use of “hidden racial proxies” as it pushes a more expansive interpretation of the Supreme Court decision. One of the tools, called Landscape, which was sponsored by the College Board, was quietly shut down this year.
The data released so far helps clarify, but still does not complete, the picture of the Supreme Court decision’s impact. There are differences in how universities report the data, for example, making it hard to compare changes from campus to campus.
Princeton, for example, reported a separate category of multiracial students — 7.7 percent of the class — while Harvard said that applicants who identified as two or more races were “reflected in the percentages for each of their respective identified races.”
Many students do not report their race at all. At Harvard this year, that number was 8 percent, the same as last year.
Stephanie Saul reports on colleges and universities, with a recent focus on the dramatic changes in college admissions and the debate around diversity, equity and inclusion in higher education.
The post Harvard Records an Increase in Asian Students and a Drop in Black Students appeared first on New York Times.
