MIT blames Supreme Court decision for less-diverse incoming class

MIT's incoming freshman class will be far less racially diverse compared to past years, a change the university attributes to last year's U.S. Supreme Court decision banning the use of race in college admissions.

The class of 2028 will be comprised of 16% Black, Hispanic, Native American or Pacific Islander students, compared with 25% enrollment among those groups in the years 2024 to 2027, based on new admissions data the university released on Wednesday.

In a corresponding Q&A with university publication MIT News, dean of admissions Stu Schmill said the drop could be traced to last year's Students for Fair Admissions decision banning race-based affirmative action in higher ed.

"We expected that this would result in fewer students from historically underrepresented racial and ethnic groups enrolling at MIT. That’s what has happened," he said in the interview.

The steepest drop was reflected in Black student enrollment: 5% of this year's incoming class will be Black, compared with 13% from 2024 to 2027. Hispanic student enrollment went down from 15% in recent years to 11% this year.

The percent of white students shifted only slightly, from 38% in recent years to 37% this year. Asian American student enrollment climbed to 47% this year compared with 41% in previous years (this figure doesn't include international students).

MIT did not collect applicant race or ethnicity information this admissions cycle, Schmill told MIT News, so the diversity of the applicant pool isn't known.

“But I have no doubt that we left out many well-qualified, well-matched applicants from historically under-represented backgrounds who in the past we would have admitted — and who would have excelled,” he said.

MIT is one of the highly selective universities around the country that used race-conscious admissions to find applicants from historically marginalized groups and build a diverse class of students. Many observers expected the Supreme Court's 6-3 decision would have an immediate effect on this year's incoming class.

“Following the SFFA decision, we are unable to use race in the same way, and that change is reflected in the outcome for the Class of 2028,” Schmill said. In a Wednesday interview with WBUR, the dean elaborated on other barriers that prevent a more diverse student body.

"Black and Hispanic students are less likely to attend high schools where calculus is taught, where physics is taught, where computer science is taught. So this inequality is most pronounced in STEM fields," he told WBUR. "And so there are fewer of those students in our applicant pool, and we're now no longer able to see them when we do our admission."

MIT is one of the first highly selective schools to release incoming student demographic data ahead of the new academic year. Out of a total applicant pool of 28,232, it admitted just 1,284 students, or 4.5% of applicants, this year.

In a separate statement Wednesday, MIT President Sally Kornbluth said the school should be “prepared to think big and long term” on efforts to expand its racial diversity amid the new legal restrictions. Among the approaches she cited were tuition affordability for prospective students; outreach initiatives; expanded access to K-12 STEM education; and mentorship of prospective students.

WBUR's Dan Guzman, the executive producer of All Things Considered, contributed to this report.