What Happened to Enrollment at Top Colleges After Affirmative Action Ended

After the Supreme Court ended race-conscious college admissions in 2023, the 2024-25 academic year was seen as a kind of test: What effect would the decision have on freshman classes?

At the start of the school year, the Upshot asked selective colleges for the racial and ethnic composition of their incoming classes. We obtained this data for 66 colleges, allowing us to put together the most detailed look yet at how the makeup of these colleges changed after the end of affirmative action.

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1. Black and Hispanic enrollment declined on average

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Of the 66 colleges for which we have data, 59 reported it in a standard format that let us make comparisons with past public records. That format narrowly defines Black students as U.S. residents who are Black but not Hispanic or multiracial — which means it’s an undercount of all students who identify as Black, even as it allows for a straightforward comparison with past data.

By that definition, the average share of incoming Black students at those colleges dropped by about one percentage point — from about 7 percent to 6 percent.

The share of incoming Hispanic students at these colleges also fell by nearly one percentage point — from about 14 percent to 13 percent.

Together, these changes represent the largest annual drop in the average share of Black or Hispanic students across these colleges since 2010.

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{snip} In 2024, 17 of these 59 colleges experienced their largest drops in Black enrollment in 14 years, while only three had their largest gains. Similarly, 15 colleges had their largest drops in Hispanic enrollment in over a decade, while four had their largest gains.

2. The data didn’t show a comparable increase in Asian and white enrollment

Over the 14 years for which we have data, the share of white students has decreased at selective colleges — in part reflecting the changing demographics of America’s youth.

Asian students are overrepresented at selective colleges compared with the makeup of high school graduates. Their share of college enrollment has continued to rise in the past 14 years.

Critics of affirmative action argued that it suppressed the share of Asian and white students at top colleges. There was a broad expectation that banning race-conscious admissions would drive up Asian and white enrollment.

We didn’t see sizable changes.

Across the 59 selective colleges we could compare with historical data, the average share of Asian students was essentially unchanged.

And the average share of white students increased by under one percentage point.

There were outliers, of course: The share of incoming domestic Asian students at Johns Hopkins rose by 18 percentage points, and the share of incoming domestic white students at Middlebury rose by 10 percentage points.

The findings by race and ethnicity so far raise a question: College enrollment is zero sum, so if the Black and Hispanic share went down, why didn’t the white and Asian share rise similarly?

Our third finding helps explain this discrepancy.

3. Many more students did not disclose their race in 2024

In 2024, the share of students at these 59 colleges who did not disclose their race or ethnicity increased from about 2 percent to 4 percent. That share had been generally declining since 2010.

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Others have tried to answer this question. A 2020 study by the economist Zachary Bleemer found that after California banned affirmative action in public universities in 1998, more than twice as many applicants to the University of California system left out their race or ethnicity on their applications the following year.

By using their name, high school and neighborhood to infer their race, he estimated that the vast majority of the students who left out their race were white or Asian.

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