In the 25 years since California voters banned all consideration of race in college admissions, the state has spent more than $500 million to help create diverse student bodies across the University of California system - with some success.
used race-conscious admissions to boost enrollment of minority students will look to California, one of nine states that already prohibits such considerations at its public colleges.
Berkeley, the system's most elite school based on high school GPA, offers the starkest example of the struggle to boost their numbers, particularly for Black students. In the fall 2022 freshman class, just 228 out of nearly 7,000 students - about 3% - identified as Black. The dearth of Black students has itself complicated recruitment efforts to expand their ranks, despite its distinction as the top public university in U.S. News and World Report's list of Best Global Universities, and the campus' reputation for progressive politics. Many Black families worry their students will feel isolated and opt to send them elsewhere, administrators and college counselors said.
The impact was greatest for the system's two most selective schools, UCLA and Berkeley, where enrollment of Black and Hispanic freshmen was cut in half, the university system said in an amicus brief filed on behalf of the universities in the Supreme Court case in 2022. Outreach programs were set up to help prepare public school students for college and guide them toward applying, with particular focus on schools with high numbers of pupils of color.
Black student enrollment across the system - which hovered at 3 or 4% for decades after the affirmative action ban - last year rose to 5%. While more than 500 California public schools are 40% Hispanic, fewer than 30 are 40% Black, he said. Social mobility, gentrification and immigration waves have changed the demographics of neighborhoods that once had larger Black populations, he added.
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