Preliminary data released by the University of Miami revealed Black student enrollment fell from 9% to 5% for the Class of 2028. This is the first class impacted by the 2023 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that overturned affirmative action, preventing a race-conscious admission process.
The demographic composition of UM now reflects a more prominent Hispanic population, which climbed from 24% to to 28%. Asian student enrollment continued to decline to 6%, down 9 percentage points from the freshman class enrolled in 2017.
Over the last decade, Black student enrollment peaked in 2019 and 2020 at 11% and has been hovering between 9-10% in the years since.
White students also fell moderately, from 55% to 52%. This falls in line with data from the past decade where white enrollment fluctuated between 50% and 56%.
Students identifying as two or more races or Native Hawaiian/Other Pacific Islander remained fixed at 5% and less than 1% respectively. An additional 4% of students chose not to identify their race.
Across the board, UM diversity numbers have remained on par with previous years, with 44% of the freshman class being students of color and 52% white non-Hispanics.
UM attributes at least part of these changes to the Supreme Court ruling that found affirmative action violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
“The University of Miami had expected some variation in the composition of our student body following the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in the summer of 2023, which banned colleges and universities from considering race in the admissions process,” UM said in a statement to The Hurricane.
UM’s enrollment demographics follow a wave of similar data released by several other U.S. universities. In the past month, Harvard University announced its Black enrollment decreased by 4 percentage points, Brown University fell by 6 percentage points and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology fell by 10 percentage points.
But impacts of the new admission process have not been consistent. Yale University’s Black enrollment remained the same, and Duke University’s increased. Brown and MIT saw decreases in Hispanic enrollment, whereas Harvard’s Hispanic population increased, similar to UM.
Varying methodologies for calculating percentages and the regrouping of race categories has also warped the validity of data being released by colleges. For example, caused confusion after recalculating its Class of 2027 data and failing to include international students in their total calculations.
Anticipating the influence on the admission process, UM amended its supplemental admission essay for the Class of 2028 cycle. The goal was to provide students with a place to showcase their diversity and counteract the omission of race data from the process.
The new essay describes the importance of diversity to the city of Miami and the University before asking applicants to, “Describe how your unique experiences, challenges overcome, or skills acquired would contribute to our distinctive University community.”
In a student leader dinner held on Sept. 5, students raised their concerns regarding a decline in Black enrollment to Acting President and CEO Joe Echevarria and Vice President of Student Affairs and Alumni Engagement Patricia Whitely. The two acknowledged the decrease in Black students and assured the audience they would work with admissions to adjust to the new rules of college admissions.
“The University is proud to be a diverse and inclusive community, and building an institution based on these values continues to be a top priority,” UM continued in its statement to TMH.
The data stated above will be officially confirmed following the admission census which be held on Sept. 19.
The story was originally published by , the student newspaper of the University of Miami in Coral Gables, as part of an editorial content partnership with the WLRN newsroom.
