Carnegie Mellon reports decline in black and white enrollment after race admissions decision

The proportion of black students and other students of color fell in this fall’s freshman class at Carnegie Mellon University after the first recruiting cycle since the U.S. Supreme Court banned race from consideration in admissions.

The share of new students who are white also fell, but enrollment of Asian students increased, according to newly released 2024-25 data from the university.

“The decline is similar to what other highly selective institutions reported following the SCOTUS affirmative action decision in June 2023,” Carnegie Mellon said in a statement released Wednesday.

It said black and African American enrollment fell by 2.3 percentage points, Hispanic and Latino enrollment fell by 5.5 percentage points and white enrollment fell by 0.4 percentage points.

Meanwhile, the number of Asian Americans enrolled increased by 4.0 percentage points and the number of students who chose not to report race and ethnicity increased by 2.0 percentage points.

“It is noteworthy that approximately 15% of those who did not provide information about race and ethnicity chose to do so after enrollment,” the school said in its written statement. “This data follows trends reported by many other highly selective institutions.”

Kris Wong Davis, vice provost for enrollment management and dean of admissions, could not immediately be reached for comment.

Carnegie Mellon’s statement, which could not be attributed to a specific administrator, said: “Efforts are already underway to improve outreach and recruitment across all populations, with the goal of building a robust application pool that will meet future enrollment goals.” Classes supported by Carnegie Mellon.”

Immediately following the Supreme Court’s decision in June 2023, Carnegie Mellon and other area schools vowed to find ways to both comply with the changed law and keep their campuses diverse.

The statement did not specify whether there was a change in the proportion of incoming students who are children or family members of graduates. Carnegie Mellon once considered whether an applicant was related to alumni as an “important” or “considered” factor in admissions decisions.

However, last year TribLive was told that the family relationship of such “legacies” would no longer be taken into account in admissions decisions. A number of other schools have also abolished legacy admissions.

Elsewhere in the country, debate continues over whether these old programs, seen as discriminating against underrepresented groups, should be allowed to continue when race can no longer be legally taken into account.

Although a number of leading institutions reported declines in underrepresented groups this fall, this was not the case everywhere.

For example, Temple University reports that 29.6% of Temple’s Class of 2028 are Black students, for a total of 1,456, a 71% increase from last year. Hispanic students from Hispanic/Latinx/Latinx backgrounds also saw increases, as did Asian/Pacific Islander students.

“For the fifth consecutive year, Temple has admitted a record proportion of students of color, and this is also the third consecutive year that more than 50% of Temple’s first-graders are students of color,” the school said on its website.

Carnegie Mellon University has received nearly 34,000 student applications for fall 2024 admission. There was a new class of 1,807 full-time students, including students who had deferred their admission to previous semesters, officials said.

“Demand for a CMU degree remains high and the quality of academic experiences among our new students remains consistent,” the school’s statement said.

In 1978, the Supreme Court ruled in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke said affirmative action was permissible for universities. In the 45 years since, the use of race in admissions decisions has survived various Supreme Court challenges, even though schools’ discretion in using race has been limited.

The admissions race ended in 2014 with a lawsuit against two elite institutions: Harvard University and the University of North Carolina.

Harvard is the oldest private institution of higher education in the country and UNC is the oldest public institution in the country. The lawsuits against both were filed in 2014 by Students for Fair Admissions, an advocacy and legal group based in Arlington, Virginia, that aims to eliminate race and ethnicity from college admissions.