[ti:US Colleges Report Effects of Ban on Race-based Admissions]
[al:Education Report]
[ar:VOA]
[dt:2024-09-11]
[by:www.voase.cn]
[00:00.00]Some top universities in the United States are reporting drops in the number of Black students in their incoming classes. 
[00:11.18]At other colleges, including Princeton University and Yale University, the share of Black students changed little.
[00:21.24]This fall's class is the first admitted since a Supreme Court ruling barred affirmative action in higher education.
[00:31.38]Several schools have seen changes in numbers of Asian, Hispanic and Native American students, but trends are still unclear. 
[00:41.86]Experts and colleges say it will take years to measure the full effect of the ruling.
[00:49.27]The end of affirmative action is not the only possible reason for the changing numbers.
[00:56.67]Some colleges are changing requirements, making test results more important. 
[01:03.54]Earlier this year, there was a problem with the federal government's college financial aid process.
[01:10.76]On September 5, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) reported drops in enrollment among Black, Hispanic and Native American students in its incoming class.
[01:26.45]It was one of the colleges at the center of the Supreme Court case.
[01:31.87]The population of Black students dropped nearly 3 percentage points this fall, to 7.8 percent. 
[01:41.12]Hispanic student enrollment fell from 10.8 percent to 10.1 percent, while the incoming Native American population fell half a percentage point to 1.1 percent, according to the university.
[01:57.76]The incoming Asian student population rose 1 percentage point to 25.8 percent. 
[02:06.62]The share of white students, at 63.8 percent, hardly changed.
[02:13.15]Rachelle Feldman is UNC's vice provost for enrollment.
[02:18.36]She said the delay in the student aid process was another possible influence on the enrollment numbers.
[02:27.71]"We are committed to following the new law," Feldman said. 
[02:32.70]She also said the school administration is committed to making sure all North Carolina's students know that they are welcome at UNC and can succeed there.
[02:45.27]Other universities reported sharp drops in Black student enrollment. 
[02:51.00]The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) said the percentage of incoming Black students fell from 15 percent to 5 percent.
[03:03.16]Another Massachusetts school, Amherst College, reported the percentage fell from 11 percent to 3 percent.
[03:12.41]At Tufts University in Massachusetts, the drop in the share of Black students was smaller, from 7.3 percent to 4.7 percent.
[03:24.08]At Yale, the University of Virginia and Princeton, the change year-over-year was less than a percentage point.
[03:34.78]Changes in enrollment for other demographic groups were more mixed.
[03:40.65]At MIT, for example, the percentage of Asian students increased from 40 percent to 47 percent. 
[03:51.23]However, its Hispanic and Latino percentage dropped from 16 percent to 11 percent.
[03:59.78]And MIT's percentage of white students stayed about the same.
[04:05.99]But at Yale, the percentage of Asian students fell from 30 percent to 24 percent.
[04:13.93]White students at Yale went from 42 percent of the class to 46 percent. 
[04:20.23]Hispanic and Latino students saw an increased representation of 1 percentage point.
[04:29.25]Colleges have started looking for other ways to preserve the diversity they say is critical to university life.
[04:38.35]JT Duck is head of admissions at Tufts University in Massachusetts.
[04:44.18]He said the school would work with community organizations to reach underrepresented, low-income students and students whose parents did not graduate from college. 
[04:56.71]He suggested that people not worry too much about year-to-year changes in enrollment.
[05:04.22]At UNC, vice provost Feldman said the university wants to make sure "anyone from any background knows they can earn their way here."
[05:16.49]Katharine Meyer works at the Brookings Institution.
[05:20.10]She said it is hard to tell which policy change is having a greater effect.
[05:26.10]But so far, she said, the drops in underrepresented minority students are smaller than in previous cases. 
[05:34.94]California passed a ban on affirmative action in 1995 and Michigan did so in 2014.
[05:44.33]But since those bans, Meyer said, colleges have developed more effective, non-race-based ways of recruiting and enrolling a diverse class.
[05:56.41]I'm Jill Robbins.