Will Race-Based Scholarships Survive?

An Inside Higher Ed article examines the uncertain future of race-based scholarships as colleges navigate legal challenges and increased scrutiny following the 2023 Supreme Court decision on race-conscious admissions. Professor Julie J. Park provides insight into the broader implications of these changes.

She shares that these scholarships “will still be supporting students who have some sort of need” in cases where universities seek to replace race-based criteria with socioeconomic criteria.” But “the con is the erasure of the reason why these scholarships … existed in the first place. It’s part of a piece-by-piece dismantling of our recognition that race matters on campus,” that race has been and still can be the basis for “exclusion,” and “that you really need to be specific around race in certain contexts in order to expand opportunity in higher education.”