The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has reported a “significant” demographic change in its incoming first-year class, the first cohort admitted after the U.S. Supreme Court banned the use of racial preferences in college admissions.
At the same time, the percentage of Asian American students in the class rose from 40 percent to 47 percent. The proportion of white students remains roughly the same, 37 percent, compared to 38 percent of undergraduates currently attending MIT.
Stu Schmill, MIT’s dean of admissions, attributed the changes to the Supreme Court’s landmark decision that effectively stripped the colleges and universities—public and private—of their ability to consider race as a factor in deciding which of the qualified applicants should be admitted.
According to Schmill, the incoming first-year class is just as academically competitive as previous cohorts, since every applicant must demonstrate “rock-solid academic readiness” for MIT’s rigorous environment.
“In all the ways we can quantitatively measure, there is no difference predicted in the academic outcomes between the Class of 2027, which had the highest proportion of students from historically under-represented racial and ethnic backgrounds in MIT history, and the Class of 2028, which has the lowest proportion of these students in decades,” Schmill said.
The Class of 2028 will begin its first day of classes on Sept 4, according to MIT. The early action deadline for the Class of 2029 is Nov. 1.
The Asian American Coalition for Education (AACE), a nonprofit organization dedicated to “fighting for Asian-American children’s equal education rights,” welcomed the changes as a positive development in the higher education landscape.
“We are very excited that merit-based admissions and equal opportunities have returned to the American university,” AACE President Yukong “Mike” Zhao told The Epoch Times, describing it as a win for both the Asian American community and the United States as a whole.
“We face a severe shortage of high-tech STEM talent, and Asian Americans happen to excel in this area. This is very encouraging news for strengthening America’s national power and high-tech competitiveness,” he said.
Zhao added that the decline in the percentage of black and Hispanic students highlights a serious need to enhance the quality of education in their communities.
“I hope American society will hold these failing politicians accountable and improve the quality of education for black and Hispanic children, so they can qualify for admission to MIT or other top universities,” Zhao said.
MIT is the first highly selective institution to release demographic data of the first class formed after the June 2023 ruling, in which the high court’s 6–2 majority declared “race-conscious” admissions policies—popularly known as affirmative action—as unconstitutional.
“The student must be treated based on his or her experiences as an individual—not on the basis of race,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority.
“Many universities have for too long ... concluded, wrongly, that the touchstone of an individual’s identity is not challenges bested, skills built, or lessons learned but the color of their skin. Our constitutional history does not tolerate that choice.”
Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson opposed the majority ruling, saying that it could widen the gap of racial inequality in higher education and undermine efforts since the Civil Rights era to close the gap.
“Deeming race irrelevant in law does not make it so in life,” Jackson wrote in her dissenting opinion.
