Asian Americans see mixed results in enrollment after end of affirmative action

Asian American enrollment at Columbia and Brown rose following the affirmative action ruling, while it decreased at Yale and Princeton. Harvard remained the same.

In the first college admissions process since the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action last year, Asian American enrollment at the most prestigious U.S. schools paints a mixed, uneven picture. 

Some Ivy League schools, including Columbia and Brown universities, showed an increase in Asian Americans for the class of 2028, while others, like Yale and Princeton, showed a decrease. Harvard, the most selective of the group, didn’t see a change at all, according to enrollment numbers released on Wednesday by the school.  

Experts said that it may take years to see the definitive impact of the decision, which restricted the consideration of race in college admissions. But it didn’t have the effect that many who opposed the policy had expected, they said. 

“The big takeaway is that folks who supported the lawsuit were saying, this would be such a big win for Asian Americans, that race-based admissions was some type of barrier to our upward mobility,” said OiYan Poon, faculty affiliate at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign office of community college research and leadership. “What we’re seeing is that that’s not really bearing out,” Poon added.

Columbia University — which, unlike the other Ivies, groups Pacific Islanders with Asian Americans — saw an increase of nine percentage points in its enrollment of Asian American applicants, while Brown saw an increase of four percentage points. At Yale, the racial group dropped by six points. And at Princeton, it decreased by 2.2 percentage points. It also decreased at Dartmouth by 1.5 percentage points. Asian Americans remained 37% of Harvard’s freshman class. 

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/affirmative-action-enrollment-asian-americans-rcna170716

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