After Affirmative Action, Some MBA Programs Boost Diversity — Others Fall Behind

When the Supreme Court banned the use of race in college admissions in 2023, many feared it would mark a turning point for the worse for diversity efforts at U.S. business schools. Two admissions cycles later, the Class of 2026 is in place — and the data tells a more complex story.

While some business schools have defied expectations and enrolled significantly more students from underrepresented minority backgrounds — Black, Hispanic, Native American, and Pacific Islander — others have seen their numbers fall sharply, raising questions about access, strategy, and the future of inclusive leadership pipelines in a higher education landscape thrown into turmoil by an antagonistic executive branch in Washington, D.C.

A more comprehensive portrait of the state of minority enrollment in graduate business education will be possible after the publication April 8 of the U.S. News & World Report B-school ranking and its accompanying data.

BIG WINS: WHO GAINED THE MOST?

Among the biggest 2024 success stories were UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, both of which saw dramatic rebounds in URM enrollment after years of decline according to a report by Bloomberg Businessweek. Haas nearly tripled its URM student count to 42, while Ross more than doubled its number to 59. At both schools, these groups now make up roughly 15% of the incoming class.

Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business now has the highest URM share among Bloomberg’s top-ranked schools, with 22% of the class identifying as part of these groups. Meanwhile, NYU Stern, UVA Darden, and Dartmouth Tuck also posted gains, especially in Hispanic enrollment.

Even smaller programs saw outsized results last year. At the University of Washington’s Foster School of Business, the number of URM students grew by two-thirds, Bloomberg reports, increasing their share of the class to 17%.

URM REPRESENTATION AT LEADING U.S. B-SCHOOLS, 2023-2024

P&Q Rank	School	Minorities Class of 2023	Minorities Class of 2024	Change
10	Duke (Fuqua)	14.0%	22.2%	+8.2
17	UC Berkeley (Haas)	6.1%	14.3%	+8.2
29	Michigan (Ross)	7.4%	14.9%	+7.5
11	New York (Stern)	9.8%	14.5%	+4.7
5	Virginia (Darden)	5.9%	9.6%	+3.7
6	Dartmouth (Tuck)	7.4%	9.1%	+1.7
3	Chicago (Booth)	12.6%	13.6%	+1.0
14	UCLA (Anderson)	14.5%	15.4%	+0.9
8	Yale SOM	9.1%	9.8%	+0.7
7	Columbia	9.6%	9.0%	-0.6
4	Harvard	12.9%	11.6%	-1.3
12	Wharton	16.0%	14.0%	-2

Source: Bloomberg Businessweek

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MIXED SIGNALS — AND SHARP DROPS

But not all schools saw gains. In fact, five of the most prestigious MBA programs reported declines in URM enrollment, both in absolute numbers and as a share of U.S. students:

• Northwestern Kellogg School of Management saw a dramatic fall in Black student enrollment — from 20 to just 5 — and a near halving of Hispanic representation. In all, Kellogg’s URM population dropped from 19% of the Class of 2025 to just 7% of the Class of 2026.
• Stanford Graduate School of Business enrolled 45% fewer Hispanic students.
• MIT Sloan School of Management, Harvard Business School, and the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania also reported notable declines.

WHY THE NUMBERS VARY

A deeper look suggests that much of the recent growth in diversity came from increases in Hispanic enrollment, while Black enrollment stayed flat or fell. Native American and Pacific Islander students remain a very small part of the MBA population — just 14 students across 15 schools — with half enrolled at just two institutions.

John Rice, CEO of Management Leadership for Tomorrow, which supports top minority candidates through the MBA process, told Bloomberg in November that the declines at the most selective schools are particularly telling. “Some of the strongest candidates really struggled,” he said. The acceptance rate for MLT fellows with GMAT scores of 700 or above at top-tier schools fell from 87% to 76% in 2024.

Rice argues that this points to a broader misconception.

“Affirmative action never meant choosing unqualified applicants,” he said. “It meant choosing from an abundance of qualified applicants to build diverse, high-impact classes.”

At Haas, the shift was strategic: larger class sizes, increased domestic representation, and deep, sustained engagement with candidates throughout the process. “Our overall yield went through the roof,” Eric Askins, Berkeley’s admissions director, told Bloomberg, citing stronger connections between the admissions office and applicants.

Other schools, like Foster, were explicit in setting targets to boost domestic representation and ramped up recruiting through organizations like the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management. The payoff was clear — even if the school is relatively small.

“This might really just be a matter of a small number of people moving the needle dramatically,” Foster’s MBA admissions director Brent Nagamine told Bloomberg last fall.

THE YIELD PROBLEM

At schools where URM enrollment declined, yield — the percentage of admitted students who choose to enroll — was a common culprit. At Kellogg, Associate Dean Greg Hanifee confirmed that fewer Black and Hispanic students accepted their offers, despite the school maintaining consistent admission rates. “Yield was definitely harder this time,” he told Bloomberg.

That may reflect broader challenges: rising international applications, strong job markets making prospective students reluctant to leave, and increased competition from peer institutions offering targeted financial and community incentives.

While some schools like Berkeley, Michigan, and Duke are finding new ways to attract and enroll diverse candidates, others are still adjusting to the new legal landscape. What’s clear is that diversity in business education will no longer happen by default — it will require strategy, investment, and creativity.

For now, schools will be watching each other — and their own outcomes — closely. More 2024 data is coming soon from U.S. News; schools will begin to reveal their MBA Class of 2027 profiles in August and September.

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