08-27-2024
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) is the first elite institution to share enrollment data on its incoming class of 2028. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2023 that a university's consideration of race in any way during the admissions process violated the U.S. Constitution. As a result, M.I.T. did not ask new applicants to indicate their race or ethnicity.
M.I.T.'s dean of admission said he expected a drop in diverse students, and "that is what happened." Sixteen percent of the institution's new students identify as black, Hispanic, Native American, and/or Pacific Islander. That number is a 10% overall drop in just one year. Honing in on the specific numbers, the percentage of Black students dropped from 15 percent to 5 percent, and Hispanic and Latino students dropped from 16 percent to 11 percent. Last year, M.I.T. accepted its largest proportion of under-represented minority students. The dean noted he knew they left out "many well-qualified, well-matched applicants…who would have excelled." White students comprise 37% of the class, and Asian Americans went up to 47% of the class from 40% last year.
Following the court's decision, M.I.T. expanded its recruitment efforts and financial aid offers to prioritize low-income students from all backgrounds. The school looks for diversity in fields of study, research areas, extracurricular activities, and economic, geographic, and educational backgrounds. The man behind the lawsuit challenging Harvard's admission policies considers these numbers a victory, claiming the admitted students will know that they were accepted based on their "outstanding academic and extracurricular achievements, not the color of their skin."