Enrollment at IU Bloomington is at an all-time high with a record number of 48,424 students enrolled this fall, according to a news release Sept. 6. This is an increase of 897 students from the 47,527 enrolled in 2023.
Across Indiana University’s campuses this fall, student enrollment is up by 2%.
9,600 freshmen began class at IU Bloomington this August. This is the second largest incoming class in history at IU. Along with record high numbers of students enrolled, the number of applications submitted for the Bloomington campus was up 25% from 2023, according to the release.
Of the students enrolled at IU this semester, 51% are out of state or international students and 49% are Indiana residents, a consistent number for three years now. Illinois, New Jersey, California and New York are the second, third, fourth and fifth most common states for students to be from.
Forty-nine countries are represented by international students at IU. 85% of students are from the United States. India, China, South Korea, Vietnam and Canada are the next most represented countries at IU this fall.
The youngest beginner student this semester is 16, and the oldest is 49. There are 48 pairs of twins, and two sets of triplets.
In 2023, the US Supreme Court ended affirmative action, the power of colleges and universities to use race as a factor in the admissions process, which has been around since the early 1960s.
According to The Washington Post, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion: universities “may never use race as a stereotype or negative, and — at some point — (race-based admissions) must end.”
This decision came from the case Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College. The Supreme Court ruled Harvard College’s admissions system “does not comply with the principles of the equal protection clause embodied in Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.”
Boston University’s president said the ruling against affirmative action was “deeply concerning.” Although, according to The New York Times, “the lawsuit against Harvard focused on Asian American students, arguing that the university had penalized them by holding them to a higher standard in an effort at racial balancing.”
The argument in favor of the decision is largely based on the premise that admissions must be based on the ability of the student. Edward Blum, an anti-affirmative action activist, as quoted in The Washington Post, sees the ruling as a way of ending the “unfair" precedent that let colleges and universities factor race and ethnicity into their decision to accept or reject them.
Many schools have already seen the effects of the decision, according to The New York Times. At Amherst College in Massachusetts, the percentage of incoming Black students in 2024 dropped from 11 to 3 percent from the previous year.
Even though the Supreme Court ruling ended “race-conscious admission programs,” according to NPR, Roberts made the clarification that “nothing in this opinion should be construed as prohibiting universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life.”
The university records the number of “underrepresented students of color” enrolled each year. For this data, underrepresented students are defined as students of color, excluding international students and Asian Americans.
According to IU’s Deputy Director for Media Relations, Teresa Mackin, in an email, in fall 2023, the number of underrepresented students of color at IU Bloomington was 8,062. In fall 2024, that number rose to 8,532, a 5.8% increase. Among beginner students, there was a 4.4% increase in underrepresented students of color.
As opposed to Amherst, the population of Black students at IU increased this year by 7.6% from 2023.
At IU, 61.6% of students are white, 10.3% are international students, 27.4% of students are students of color and 0.7% are unknown.
In response to the ruling, IU released a statement in 2023 stating it has realigned its policies in accordance with the decision.
“Specifically, IU will not consider race as a factor among factors for admission to undergraduate, graduate or professional degree programs,” the statement read. “IU remains committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive environment that prepares students for a globally interconnected world.”
Additionally, IU clarified that following the Supreme Court decision, it has not made any changes to its pathway or scholarship programs.
In the last five years, the number of all students of color at IU, including Hispanic, African American, Asian and American Indian student populations, increased by 43.2%. Over the last 10 years, it increased by 95.8%.
As stated previously, in 2024, students of color make up 27.4% of the student population at IU. Five years ago, they made up 21.39%, and 10 years ago, they made up 16.1% of the student population.
For undergraduate students of color only, IU hit another record this year, with their numbers raising over 7% from 2023.
The number of domestic students from all racial backgrounds has increased from the 2023 to 2024 fall semesters. The only decrease was the number of international students, which fell from 5,246 to 4,984.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this article incorrectly calculated certain enrollment figures.
CORRECTION: The data visualization has been updated to include enrollment data for all students.
