Black enrollment plummets at elite colleges as affirmative action ban reverses decades of progress

After decades of gradual growth, the number of Black students enrolling at many elite colleges has dropped in the two years since the Supreme Court banned affirmative action in admissions, leaving some campuses with Black populations as small as 2% of their freshman class.

New enrollment figures from 20 selective colleges provide mounting evidence of a backslide in Black enrollment. On almost all of the campuses, Black students account for a smaller share of new students this fall than in 2023. At Princeton and some others, the number of new Black students has fallen by nearly half in that span.

Princeton sophomore Christopher Quire said he was stunned when a recent welcome event for Black freshmen filled just half the room. Last year, it filled up so quickly that they needed to find ext