The proportion of Black students at several of New York’s most selective colleges plummeted in some of this year’s freshmen classes, the first enrolled after the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action in college admissions. New York University, Columbia University and Cornell University all reported drops in data released over the last several weeks, now that colleges are legally prohibited from considering race as a factor in the admissions process. Not all schools followed the trend. Fordham University touted the most diverse class of first-year students in its nearly two-century history. Early last summer, in a landmark ruling, a conservative majority of the court ruled 6-3 in favor of critics of admissions at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina, who claimed the process penalized Asian American applicants, while giving preference to members of other minority groups. In the wake of that decision, at NYU, 14% of its more than 5,700 first-year students at the Greenwich Village university were considered underrepresented minorities, compared to 23% last year, according to university data. Within that category, 4% were Black, down from 7% last fall, and 10% Hispanic, from 15% — trends that college officials described as “concerning” but “not unanticipated” after the end of affirmative action. Meanwhile, 27% of students were Asian and 23% were white, an increase from 22% and 21%, respectively. The proportion of students who did not share their race or ethnicity in college admissions also ticked upward, as did those eligible for Pell Grants, federal assistance to help pay for college. “NYU wants a student body that thrives on difference,” NYU President Linda Mills said in a statement, “We will — we must — continue to innovate on and expand educational opportunities for students of all backgrounds and experiences.” Experts cautioned against drawing sweeping conclusions about the impact of the Supreme Court’s decision from a single year of data, adding it does not show what other policies and practices changed or stayed the same at a given institution. At NYU, for example, college officials launched “The NYU Promise,” a free-tuition program for families earning under $100,000 beginning this school year, which may have tempered some effects of ending admissions where race was a factor. “One institution may see a big demographic shift, while another, similar selective institution may not see as big of a shift,” said Katharine Meyer, a fellow at the Brookings Institution think tank. “It might be that the institution that saw less of a shift engaged in other types of outreach activities, or changed their admissions processes in a way that was not race-neutral but also didn’t explicitly consider race. Or it could simply be that that institution wasn’t really considering race all that much in the past few years.” At Columbia University, Black enrollment fell to 12% of its 1,500-student freshmen class, down from one-fifth of students the year before. White students continued to make up about half of undergraduate students on the Morningside Heights campus, while the share of Asian students increased from 30% to 39%. Columbia, unlike NYU, did not include a category for students who identify as multiracial, making it difficult to compare the class profiles across the selective campuses. “Columbia will continue to adjust our recruitment strategies to do everything we can — within the limits of the law — to identify and recruit talent from far and wide and to build an undergraduate student population that represents the fullest possible diversity of voice and background,” university officials wrote in the release. At Cornell, students who identified as Black dropped from 12% to 8%, Hispanic from 17% to 11%, and white from 49% to 47%, university data show. The share of Asian students ticked upward by two percentage points to nearly 39%. There are nearly 3,600 students in Cornell’s first-year class. “We are looking at our data in different ways to try to understand where in the admissions process we saw the biggest changes,” Lisa Nishii, vice provost for undergraduate education and vice provost for enrollment, told Melanie Lefkowitz, senior director of news at Cornell University Relations, in a recent interview, “keeping in mind that we only have one year of data at this point.” “We believe we can do more to work with prospective students earlier in high school to provide guidance about the courses needed to be competitive for different paths of study at Cornell, access to preparatory coursework and admissions workshops, and application support for preparing stronger, more tailored applications.” Fordham University saw a different pattern across its 2,500-person class, with Black and Hispanic students accounting for 7% and 26% of those who enrolled, compared to 6% and 21% the year before. Unlike other selective New York colleges this application cycle, the share of Asian students dropped, from 17% to 12%. “This ruling has been unsettling for higher education generally, but Fordham has always pursued strategies that foster diversity at the University,” John Buckley, vice president for undergraduate enrollment at Fordham, said in a statement. “A key part of our strategy is recruiting from a wide range of high schools, public and private, to ensure that every entering class comprises the widest possible variety of exceptional students.” In looking at the preliminary data at some campuses, experts said the freshmen class profiles may also have been impacted by the federal government’s botched rollout of a new financial aid form, the FAFSA, which last school year put the average American family’s ability to make financially sound college decisions on hold. Other institutions may not have been considering race in admissions anyways. Apart from the Supreme Court’s ruling, nine states had banned affirmative action at public universities. Even more of the nation’s less selective colleges already accepted more students than they rejected, giving admissions officials little leeway to make race-conscious decisions about their applicants. Since the end of affirmative action, some education advocates have been pushing elite campuses to give up legacy admissions, which prioritize the children of alumni for enrollment and tend to stymie efforts to diversify classes. In New York, legislation that would have banned the practice stalled at the end of last session. Jacquelyn Martell, executive director or Education Reform Now New York, said this year’s freshmen class profiles are “underscoring a critical crisis in our education system.” “New York must take urgent action to ensure equity in college admissions, starting with an end to legacy admissions. We are partnering with the NAACP New York, the NYCLU, and Cornell’s student assembly to urge state lawmakers to act, especially after California’s recent ban on legacy admissions,” Martell said.