The Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) freshman class for this year has a significantly larger share of Asian American students than in previous years following a recent Supreme Court ruling, according to a first-year class profile released Wednesday.
The share of Asian-American students enrolled at MIT increased from 41% in the 2024-2027 classes to 47% for the class of 2028. The enrollment data is the first since the Supreme Court struck down race-based admissions in June 2023 due to lawsuits brought up by Students for Fair Admissions against Harvard and the University of North Carolina.
“By now, you will likely have learned from Stu Schmill about the composition of the incoming first-year class,” M.I.T. president Sally Kornbluth said in a video statement. “The class is, as always, outstanding across multiple dimensions and will…like last year’s class, and those before it…bring us an inspiring influx of new talents, interests and viewpoints.”
“But what it does not bring, as a consequence of last year’s Supreme Court decision, is the same degree of broad racial and ethnic diversity that the MIT community has worked together to achieve over the past several decades,” Kornbluth said in the statement.
In the 2024-2027 composite profile, the percentage of black/African American students was 13% compared to 5% for the class of 2028. The percentage of Hispanic/Latino students in the 2024-2027 classes was 15%, dropping to 11% for the class of 2028, according to the profile.
In the first-year class profile for the class of 2028, 50% of the students are men and 46% are women, whereas the other 6% either chose not to say their gender or claimed they had a different “gender identity.” Around 67% of the students in the class came from a public school, while 31% came from either an independent, religious or foreign school.
“Now that the Class of 2028 has enrolled, the impact is clear, and it is concerning,” Kornbluth said in a Wednesday statement.
MIT deferred the Daily Caller News Foundation to the announcements and a blog post surrounding the first-year class profile.
Featured Image Credit: User:Chensiyuan
