The US Supreme Court overturned affirmative action in 20231; however, higher-education institutions continue to make admissions decisions that affect the racial diversity of their student cohorts2–4. Therefore, it is important to know whether racial diversity in an educational cohort is associated with higher or lower student cohort salaries at graduation. Learning theory argues that racial diversity promotes student learning, which should increase salaries5–9. However, well-documented racial wage discrimination indicates that higher racial diversity should decrease salaries10–14. As highlighted in the recent Supreme Court decision, there is no empirical evidence on racial diversity’s association with student cohort salaries. Here, to address this gap, we compile two unique and comprehensive datasets: 2,964 Master of Business Administration cohorts across 141 business schools over 29 years and 3,386 Juris Doctor cohorts across 200 law schools over 21 years. In both datasets, we find that higher cohort racial diversity is associated with higher cohort median salaries at graduation across numerous model specifications and after controlling for student quality, universities and years. The key implication is that policies to increase or leverage racial diversity (for example, affirmative action and diversity, equity and inclusion programmes) enhance human capital and benefit society.
