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The University of California, Los Angeles, enrolled record-high numbers of first-time underrepresented minority students this fall: a 5 percent increase in Black enrollment and a 4 percent bump in Latino students, according to university data released last Wednesday. White enrollment declined by about 9 percent.
The selective California public institution bucked national trends; many highly selective colleges reported drops in underrepresented minority enrollment in the first class admitted after the Supreme Court banned affirmative action.
They included other selective public flagships: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill reported a 4 percent drop in Black and Latino students, for instance, and the University of Virginia’s enrollment remained stagnant.
Affirmative action was banned in California nearly 30 years ago by referendum, a change that initially led to a steep decline in Black and Latino enrollment at UCLA. In 1998, the year the law took effect, Black enrollment at UCLA fell from 7 percent to 2 percent of the freshman class.
Over the next two decades, the university invested heavily in recruitment and financial aid to diversify its applicant pool. UCLA associate vice chancellor of enrollment management Gary Clark told the Los Angeles Times that those strategies played a large role in the diversity bump this fall.
