Black Student Enrollment Shrinks at Selective Institutions

Two years after the Supreme Court ruled to end affirmative action in college admissions, Black student enrollment at highly selective institutions is backsliding. This fall, some colleges reported shrinking Black populations, which in some cases now comprise less than 2 percent of the student body, the Associated Press reported. 

The AP analyzed enrollment data from 20 selective colleges and universities, including Columbia, Cornell, Emory, Harvard, Princeton, Tulane and Yale Universities. Of the 20, only one, Smith College, enrolled a larger percentage of Black first-years this fall (6.8 percent) than it did in 2023 (4.6 percent). At Harvard, the percentage of Black freshmen fell from 18 percent in 2023 to 11.5 percent this fall, and at Princeton, the share dropped from 9 percent in 2024 to 5 percent this fall.

“If this trend continues, in three years this campus will be as Black as it was in the civil rights era,” Christopher Quire, a member of Princeton’s Black Student Union, told the AP. “It feels like tying our feet together and telling us to restart.”

Columbia and Amherst College also saw sharp drops, with the percentage of Black freshmen falling from 20 percent and 11 percent in 2023 to 13 percent and 6 percent, respectively. At the California Institute of Technology, Black students made up only 1.6 percent of this fall’s first-year class, down from 5 percent in 2023. By comparison, Black students account for 14 percent of American high school graduates.