As widely predicted, black and Latino student enrollment is fall in the country’s elite institutions following the 2023 Supreme Court ruling restricting race-conscious admissions. Demographic changes are most evident at top-ranked private universities, but key changes are also taking place across the system, with serious impacts on Black and Latino students.
Researchers call these changes a “cascade” effect. It works like this: First, underrepresented minority students who are not admitted to highly selective institutions instead attend state flagship or less selective institutions. Then, Black and Latino students who otherwise would have attended the state’s flagship programs are moved to regional, community, or for-profit colleges. These institutions tend to have fewer resources to support students, leading to outcomes such as lower graduation rates and high student debt.
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The first wave of the cascade effect is already apparent. Enrollment of underrepresented minorities increased by 4 out of 5 state flagship universities. One columnist claimed that the trend shows that the decision is “no disaster” for Black and Latino students. After all, students can still receive a good education at a flagship institution in the state.
However, the disastrous secondary wave of the cascade effect is still there; it’s just easy to miss. Within public universities, this wave manifests itself in two ways.
First, many public universities are experiencing both waves of the cascading effect simultaneously, making it difficult to see that Black and Latino students are being turned away. These universities attract minority students from the elite sector, but they also lose other black and Latino students because racially motivated admissions are now restricted at the state’s flagship universities. In these contexts, the percentages of minority students are relatively stable only because the gains are balanced by the losses: addition with subtraction.
While 83 percent of the state’s flagship programs overall have enrolled underrepresented racial minority students, the increase in black enrollment is not dramatic at many public institutions. More than half of state flagship programs saw gains of fewer than 10 black students or even losses. For example, the University of Maryland at College Park lost 52 Black students when comparing average enrollment for 2022-2023 with 2024 data.
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At another group of public institutions, the secondary wave is particularly difficult to observe because it has already occurred before 2023. These state flagships lost minority students to regional, community, or for-profit colleges when they stopped using race-conscious admissions due to bans, litigation, or state choice. Some students have probably dropped out of higher education altogether.
After 2023, the first wave of the cascading effect occurred nationwide, with some minority students being turned away from elite schools and redirected to state flagships. Some schools that already lost admissions for racial reasons before 2023 are now seeing larger gains in Black and Latino enrollment. They’ve already lost black and Latino students every time they stopped using race-conscious admissions, so now they’re gaining mostly elite sector students: addition without subtraction. Reflecting this dynamic, 11 of 14 public schools With minority student gains largest in fall 2024, race-conscious admissions have already been abandoned before 2023.
Without looking deeper, these enrollment gains seem like a “win.” However, the gains are greater only because these institutions already lost minority students well before the Supreme Court’s decision.
We must challenge the narrative that state universities “win” by reducing admissions for racial reasons. Even gains like greater diversity in public institutions are somewhat illusory.
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Is there a big difference between attending the University of Maryland and Johns Hopkins? Graduates of either will still receive a good education. The main loss is prestige and access to alumni networks, which are still substantial.
However, another significant harm of the cascade effect is that secondary wave students are left behind when they cannot attend the state’s flagship or other selective institution. For-profit institutions have low graduation ratesoften leaving students debt-mounted with no diploma. Disturbingly, in 2024, black student enrollment at for-profit institutions nationwide increased by 15,000 students. Similar trends occurred in states that banned affirmative action before 2023.
Regional and community colleges provide essential support to students, but transfer rates are low and selective institutions tend to have more students. resources for students.
Princeton economist Zachary Bleemer compared students who barely made it to a selective University of California institution with peers from similar backgrounds who attended less selective colleges. UC students had better grades, better graduation rates, and higher post-college earnings. Attending a more selective school made a difference.
So yes, the Supreme Court decision East a disaster for higher education at all levels, as I explain in my new book on admissions. More and more Black and Latino students will end up in schools where they are more likely to experience negative outcomes, and that is a real problem.
This news should be a wake-up call for highly selective institutions, which control the upper wave of the cascade effect. Institutions must redouble their efforts to expand access and opportunities for Black and Latino applicants, or all institutions and students will suffer.
Julie J.Park is a professor of education at the University of Maryland, College Park. She is the author of the new book Race, Class, and Affirmative Action: College Admissions in a New Era (Harvard Education Press).
Contact the opinion editor at opinion@hechingerreport.org.
This story about race-conscious admissions was produced by The Hechinger reportan independent, nonprofit news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Register with Hechinger weekly newsletter.
The article OPINION: There’s a ‘cascading effect’ from the Supreme Court’s ban on affirmative action, and it’s harming Black and Latino students; it appears first in the Hechinger report.
