In two June 2023 Supreme Court cases — Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard and Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina — the Court ruled against race-based affirmative action programs in college admissions. In doing so, it decided that colleges and universities could not use race as a factor in admitting students. Ever since, many have wondered how the change would ultimately impact racial diversity at America’s higher education institutions, including Swarthmore. In a statement last year immediately following the decision, President Val Smith said, “While we will comply with the law, let me be clear: We will not allow today’s decision to erode our steadfast commitment to diversity and inclusion.”
Because of complexities in the ruling (including that colleges could still consider “how race affected the applicant’s life”), and because the college classes arriving the fall after the ruling had almost entirely already been admitted, the effects remained somewhat unknown until recently, when information about demographics of many colleges’ classes of 2028 came out. While a handful of schools like Princeton University, Yale University, and Duke University have notably not reported a large decrease in Black students, many schools have, such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (15% to 5%), Amherst College (11% to 3%), and Tufts University (7.3% to 4.7%). A tracker of 50 top colleges and universities shows the percentage of Black students is down at nearly 75% of them.
Locally, Haverford College reported a 1.1% drop in the share of Black students, and a 1.3% drop in the share of Hispanic students from last year to this year, from 8.3% to 7.2%, and 11.5% to 10.2%, respectively. Similarly, the University of Pennsylvania reported a drop from 25% to 23% for incoming students coming from underrepresented groups, which encompasses students who are Black, Latino, and American Indian and Pacific Islander.
Many schools, including Swarthmore, have yet to release the racial-demographic breakdown of their class of 2028. According to Vice President and Dean of Admissions Jim Bock ’90, Swarthmore is not able to release this data until it is confirmed and reviewed with the Office of Institutional Effectiveness, Research, and Assessment, a college office in charge of examining the campus community in the context of its goals, and then shared with college faculty. Bock informed The Phoenix that the records for student body enrollment officially close on Oct. 1, and data on the racial breakdown of the class of 2028 could come shortly after that. Bock emphasized the preliminary nature of any data shared before then, and that this represents standard Swarthmore practice.
So what do we know about the 427 new first-year students that are buzzing around campus as the college begins its 156th year of instruction? Speaking on this admission cycle, Bock commented, “Between FAFSA [Free Application for Federal Student Aid] delays and the Supreme Court’s decision on race-conscious admissions, our team — alongside the Financial Aid Office — came up against new and often difficult challenges. I’m so grateful for the dedication, collaboration, and ingenuity of my colleagues to bring us to this point.”
In a release, Swarthmore shared some information about the group that can help observers learn more about the College’s response to the Supreme Court ruling.
While the college did see a drop in the percentage of the incoming class that are domestic students of color from 56% to 52%, this number is ambiguous about the impacts of the Court’s ruling because it includes racial groups that data from other schools indicate will drop in share (Black, Hispanic), but also from racial groups that will likely increase in share (Asian).
Notable information about the class of 2028 includes an increase in the percentage of students who are the first in their families to attend college, which rose from 25% to 27%. Furthermore, 28% of incoming students are affiliated with a community-based organization as compared to 21% of last year’s class. This trend might explain perhaps the most significant change: an increase from 17% to 30% of incoming Swarthmore students receiving Pell Grants, the federal government subsidy provided to low-income students to pay for college.
Discussing the change in Pell Grant recipients, Bock cited the increase in community-based organization affiliation as a potential factor: “We remain committed to increasing access to a Swarthmore education and intentionally seek to connect with low-income students and related community-based organizations such as Questbridge and Coalition for Change. The increase in Pell Grant recipients is directly correlated to that commitment.”
Bock also discussed the relationship between the 2028 class and the massive problems after the Department of Education’s revamp of the FAFSA. The FAFSA was released three months late, with mistakes that could have prevented billions of dollars in student aid from reaching students as well as a glitch that resulted in non-citizens or their children not being able to complete it.
“This year, many students’ college choice decisions across the country were affected by the FAFSA delay,” Bock said.
However, Bock mentioned that the rise in Pell Grant recipients could be related to the fact that these FAFSA issues did not impact Swarthmore applicants as much. Swarthmore relies heavily on the College Scholarship Service to independently determine need and provide offers on time regardless of FAFSA. He suggested this could mean students depending on aid would pick Swarthmore if they had that information sooner, while aid packages from other schools came too late for students who needed to make a decision.
“We are not able to assume this is a direct correlation, but we do imagine students were under very difficult timelines since some [other] schools with different enrollment deadlines were unable to provide aid decisions without FAFSA applications,” Bock said.
All of these data points shed more light onto the class of 2028, as well as onto the question of how the college is adapting to the first admissions environment in many decades without racial affirmative action. But, the direct impacts of the Supreme Court ruling against affirmative action onto the class of 2028 won’t be known until the college releases the demographic breakdown after internal review.
The wave of colleges releasing their class of 2028 racial breakdowns comes during a time of chaos and shifts in the higher education world. At Swarthmore, these numbers, when released, will no doubt be factored into discussions already taking place about racial diversity on campus, the college’s accessibility to students with different socioeconomic backgrounds, and the question of legacy admissions at Swarthmore.