According to the 2020-2021 CDS, of the domestic students, this year 15.6% of the incoming class are URMs, and 70.5 are non-Hispanic White. On the other hand, last year (2019-2020 CDS), 18.7% of the incoming class were URMs, and 67.4% were non-Hispanic White.
On the other hand, this year, 7% were Asian, while last year 5.2% were Asian.
Slightly more Black students matriculated this year - 3.8% this year, versus 3.4% this year, and and a tiny number more indigenous Americans, Alaskans Pacific Islanders and Hawaiians (0.6% versus 0.5%), but fewer Hispanic students (11.1% versus 14.8%).
According to the article, 14.7% are eligible for Pell grants, which is also down from last year’s 18%.
In short, last year seems to have clearly been more diverse, and this year, diversity seems to have gone in the opposite direction.
Why are they comparing the numbers to 2014 and 2018, BTW. That seems to be sort of arbitrary. Why not 2011 or 2016?
One of the things I found most interesting in the story linked by @hpcsa is that admissions expects that the Class of 2025 will be about 19% legacy. (“Legacy,” per the Notre Dame definition of the term, is an applicant with at least 1 parent who graduated from ND.)
Shown below is the 5-year trend on ND legacy admissions:
Class of 2021 (entered Fall '17) = 23.5% of the enrolled class are legacy admits
Class of 2022 (entered Fall '18) = 23.0%
Class of 2023 (entered Fall '19) = 21.3%
Class of 2024 (entered Fall '20) = 21% (Observer story says “likely 21%” – exact % not provided)
Class of 2025 (entering Fall '21) = 19% (linked story says “About 19%” – exact % not provided)
It might not seem like much, but the numbers show that there were 482 legacy admits in the Class of 2021 (ie., 23.5% of 2,051 enrollees) vs. 393 legacy admits in the Class of 2025 (ie., 19% of 2,070 expected enrollees). That’s almost 20% fewer legacy admits per class… perhaps a sign that ND Admissions has become increasingly sensitive to the negative press surrounding legacy.