Harvard University campus in the United States. Photo courtesy of AP Yonhap News.

The proportion of Black and Hispanic students among this year's U.S. freshmen at Harvard University, America's top elite university, has decreased, while the proportion of Asian students has increased.

U.S. media outlets are analyzing this as a result of the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in June 2023 that deemed the "Affirmative Action" policy, which favors the admission of minority groups to expand educational diversity, unconstitutional.

According to reports from The New York Times (NYT) and Bloomberg News on the 22nd (local time), data released by Harvard University on the same day showed that the percentage of students identifying as Black or African American among this year's freshmen decreased to 11.5% from 14% last year.

The proportion of Hispanic or Latino freshmen also fell to 11% from 16% last year.

Conversely, the proportion of Asian American students increased from 37% to 41%. Harvard University did not disclose the proportion of white students.

Bloomberg News commented, "These figures reflect the second full admissions cycle (following last year) since the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in 2023 invalidating race-conscious admissions."

Harvard University, which was the defendant in the lawsuit at the time, denied accusations of discriminating against Asian American applicants, but was ultimately forced to overhaul its traditional affirmative action policies.

Notably, this year marked the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic that Harvard University required applicants to submit standardized test scores.

Harvard stated that the number of applicants decreased due to this requirement. However, the NYT pointed out that the number of applicants is still 10% higher than before the pandemic when the submission of standardized test scores was not mandatory.

Similarly, Princeton University, another elite Ivy League institution like Harvard, saw its proportion of Black freshmen drop to 5% this year, the lowest since 1968, from 8.9% last year, while the proportion of Asian students increased to 27.1% from 23.8% last year.

However, the data released by Harvard University on the same day is based on self-reporting by freshmen, so it is difficult to consider it an accurate representation of the racial breakdown of admitted students.

The NYT reported, "Many students do not report their race. This year, the percentage of those (who self-reported) at Harvard was 8%, the same as last year."

Meanwhile, this year's Harvard freshmen, who will graduate in 2029, number 1,675 and hail from all 50 U.S. states and 92 countries. The proportion of international students is 15%, similar to last year, according to the NYT analysis.

Of these, 21% are estimated to receive federal Pell Grants for low-income students. In March, Harvard University announced that it would expand the income threshold for tuition-free undergraduate education from the previous $85,000 (approximately 120 million won) per year to $200,000 (approximately 280 million won).

Yonhap News