The number of Asian American students at Ivy League colleges flatlined for years before recently rising again, even as the demographic saw substantial population growth, according to a new report.
The analysis, released Thursday by Robert VerBruggen of the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, details how Asian American enrollment at the eight Ivy League colleges remained flat for over a decade, despite the demographic enjoying substantial population growth alongside higher standardized test scores and grade point averages.
The findings come as the United States Supreme Court is slated to hear a case in the 2022-2023 term challenging the admissions process at Harvard University for allegedly discriminating against Asian Americans.
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The enrollment of Asian American students at Ivy League schools currently hovers around 20% of all students, according to the report. But at several elite non-Ivy League universities, the percentage soars to as high as 30%, more in line with expected trends.
“[W]hen the overall population share of a small minority group rises, its representation should generally rise even faster in settings where it is overrepresented,” the report says. “And this, in turn, means a small but growing group can cause great worry for those who want to see racial proportionality in all areas of life.”
Asian American enrollment at Ivy League colleges stopped increasing in the 1990s, the report says, and eventually stagnated at 15% of each college’s student body before rising to the current 20% throughout the 2010s. This happened despite the fact that from 2000 to 2019, the number of Asian Americans doubled from over 11 million to over 22 million, according to a 2021 Pew Research study, an increase that was reflected in non-Ivy League schools.
“While the Asian share of the college-age population grew steadily, and was clearly reflected in the percent of Asians at many types of colleges, not to mention several measures of academic achievement, that percent at the most elite colleges stalled for years — and then, around 10 to 15 years ago, started growing again,” VerBruggen wrote in the report.
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The primary indicator that the Ivy League colleges may have been restricting Asian enrollment, according to the report, is that despite accounting for just 7% of the U.S. population, the demographic accounts for nearly 20% of the nation’s top SAT scores and almost 30% of the nation’s top performers in math.
But VerBruggen was quick to note that his report “does not prove discrimination at any particular school” and wrote, “University admissions are an opaque process, making it hard to tell why some students were admitted and others were not, unless one has access to a specific school’s records.”
