At a time when higher education in the United States is under political and cultural siege, Black or African-American students are continuing to apply to college at rates faster than anyone else.

Indeed, the number of students who identified as Black or African American who applied to college in the United States in fall 2025 grew by 11% compared to the year before. That makes them the fastest-growing group of first-year applicants this admissions cycle, according to a new report from the Common Application. It’s a hopeful surge in the wake of the Supreme Court ending affirmative action, and college tuition and fees rising.

Students who identified as two or more races were the second-fastest growing group of college applicants, with applications rising 8% year over year. Applications from Asian and Latino students also rose, each by 5%, according to the report.

Altogether, the Common App’s findings are consistent with trends from previous admissions cycles, which show that the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 decision to end affirmative action isn’t stopping students of color from applying to college. In fact, the share of applicants of color continues to outpace nonapplicants of color by 7%.  

James Murphy, a senior fellow at Class Action, a higher education advocacy organization, says the trend “confounds or at least complicates, the expectation that we would see this chilling effect.”

“Students thinking that they wouldn’t have as strong a chance of getting in and just decide not to apply to these, especially to more selective institutions, it doesn’t look like we saw that.” 

Bryan Crook, the director of higher education policy at the Urban Institute, says the Supreme Court’s ruling on affirmative action wasn’t really going to affect whether Black students apply to college but where they would apply.

“Roughly 80 percent of four-year institutions admit more than half of their applicants and are therefore less likely to have relied on race-conscious admissions practices in the first place,” Crook wrote in an email to Word In Black. “Given the continued economic value of a bachelor’s degree, it is not surprising that college applications among Black students have continued to rise.” 

It’s estimated that a Black person with a college degree will earn about $1 million more over their lifetime than one with just a high school diploma, according to a study from Texas A&M University.

Applicant growth was fastest in the Southwest. The region grew at twice the rate of the next fastest region, the Mid-Atlantic, according to the report. Texas and Oklahoma both contributed to the large application gains in this region, with 9% and 14%, respectively. Mississippi was the state with the fastest-growing number of applications. Compared to last year, it saw a 31% jump. 

But just as applications have increased in certain areas, they have also decreased in others, and the Trump administration’s foreign policies and immigration crackdown may be a factor. Specifically, international student applications fell 7%. There were significant declines in applications from Asia and Africa, by 9% and 14%, respectively. 

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