GoKawiilTwo comprehensive data sets concerning students who graduated from 141 business schools over 29 years and 200 law schools over 21 years show that higher racial diversity is associated with higher median salary at graduation. Policies that promote racial diversity seem likely to enhance education and benefit society overall.
Source research: Mitra, D., Golder, P. N. & Topchy, M. Racial diversity in higher education is associated with higher student salaries. Nature https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10425-7 (2026).
Messages for policy
• Graduates’ salary data indicate that having more racial diversity in higher-education institutions is associated with learning and economic benefits.
• Legislators and civil-society organizations could use these findings in their advocacy work to promote the benefits of affirmative action and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies.
• University administrators should continue to admit students from racially diverse backgrounds by considering how race has affected each applicant’s life, as permitted by the 2023 US Supreme Court decision.
The policy problem
Affirmative-action policies designed to promote opportunities for students from under-represented backgrounds or those from groups that have historically been discriminated against were in place for decades in the United States. However, a 2023 US Supreme Court decision1 ruled against the use of such policies, sparking a debate about the importance of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) guidelines in higher-education and other institutions. To begin to address the impact of policies that promote racial diversity, we focused on higher education by looking at graduating classes of students in business-school programmes (master of business administration, MBA) and law-school programmes (juris doctor, JD). We investigated whether having a higher racial diversity in these programmes was associated with lower or higher median salaries at graduation compared with starting salaries of graduates of less racially diverse programmes. The amount that employers are willing to pay graduating students should reflect the learning benefits from diversity in educational settings. If lower racial diversity is associated with lower starting salaries, policies that lead to less racial diversity will reduce learning benefits, too.
The findings
We found that MBA and JD students graduating from schools with higher racial diversity were paid higher median salaries than were graduates from less racially diverse institutions (Table 1). Conversely, lower racial diversity was associated with lower median salaries. Salary data measure the human-capital value of employees in labour markets: the contributions of graduates who are paid more are valued more highly than those of graduates who are paid less by their employers. Because graduates of racially diverse programmes are paid more than are those of less racially diverse programmes, policies that result in reduced racial diversity2 are likely to decrease learning, lower graduates’ human-capital value and reduce other benefits that can be attributed to diversity (such as cross-racial understanding, the breaking of stereotypes and the remediation of racial injustice).
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