LSAC’s Knowledge Report: The Composition of the First-Year Law School Class and Enrollment 2021-2025 Trends

The 2024-25 admission cycle came during a time of rapid and significant political, economic, and social changes in the U.S. In this shifting landscape, more than 76,000 aspiring law students submitted applications to law school, the highest volume of applicants since 2011 and an 18% increase from the 2023-24 cycle. As a result of this highly competitive admission cycle, the incoming 2025 class was the largest since 2012, an 8% increase from 2024, and many law schools welcomed their largest first-year class in recent years.

The future of the legal profession and public trust in the legal system depend in part on who enrolls in law school and their development throughout their time there. Understanding trends in who is in the first-year class and where they enroll is critical, particularly amid ongoing changes to the landscape of higher education and legal education.

Building on LSAC’s multi-year research, this report examines the 2025 1L class[1] — the second full 1L class cycle to be admitted after the June 2023 United States Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. Harvard— to identify trends about who enrolled in law school between 2021 and 2025[2] and who will be the future of the legal profession. Specifically, this report highlights:

1. Who is enrolling in law school.
2. Where they enrolled.
3. How class sizes have changed at the law school level over the years.

The report provides details on the composition of the classes entering law school over the past five years and how individual class sizes have changed. Its key insights include:

• Women represent a majority of the class, and LGBTQ+ representation continues to grow.
  • Since 2015, women have comprised the majority of each first-year class, and representation of gender-diverse students[3] has steadily increased over the years. In 2021, 0.8% of the incoming 1L class identified as gender diverse; that number rose to 1.1% for the 2025 1L class.
  • Among the 2025 class, 14.4% of 1Ls identify as LGBTQ+,[4] up from 12% in 2021.
• The representation of first-generation college graduates decreased for two consecutive years.
  • Historically, slightly less than a quarter of incoming 1Ls in each year are first-generation college graduates.[5] While the percentage of first-generation college graduates rose slightly from 2021 to 2023, representation of first-generation college graduates decreased for two consecutive years. In 2023, 24.2% of the incoming 1L class were the first in their family to graduate with a bachelor’s degree; that number fell to 23.95% in the 2024 1L class, and 21.6% of the 2025 1L class.
  • Due to an expansion of LSAC’s Fee Waiver policy, the rate of 1L students across the country who received an LSAC Fee Waiver has more than doubled, from 5.4% in 2021 to 11.4% in 2025.[6]
  • While 11.4% of the 2025 1L class received an LSAC Fee Waiver, 26.4% of first-generation college graduates in the 2025 1L class are LSAC Fee Waiver recipients.
  • Consistently, approximately a quarter of 1L students are Pell Grant recipients.[7] In 2021, 25% of 1Ls reported receiving Pell Grants; in 2025, that number was up slightly, to 25.8%.
• The rising enrollment of racially and ethnically minoritized 1L students between 2021 and 2023 leveled off in 2024 and declined slightly in 2025.
  • Racial and ethnic diversity of the 1L class grew by three percentage points (38.5% to 41.8%) between 2021 and 2023, then remained stable in 2024 (41.8%), then decreased slightly for the 2025 cohort (to 41.4%).
  • Asian 1L representation decreased from 9.5% in 2024 to 9.1% in 2025. Notably, there has been a decrease in international student enrollment across higher education.[8] Many international law students are Asian, which may be a factor in this recent decline.
  • Black or African American 1L student representation continued to decline each year by an average of one-tenth of a percentage point, from 7.9% in 2021 to 7.4% in 2025.
  • The rate of 1L students choosing not to disclose their race or ethnicity has increased, from 5.8% in 2021 to 7.5% in 2025. Therefore, all results in this report that describe racial and ethnic enrollment trends must be interpreted with caution, given the rising number of students for whom racial or ethnic identity is unknown.
• Between 2021 and 2025, enrollment rates at various law schools differed across racially and ethnically minoritized communities.
  • Highly selective (top 25% in terms of selectivity) law schools continue to be less racially and ethnically diverse than other law schools.[9]
  • Enrollment rates of Asian 1Ls at highly selective law schools are higher than any other groups but decreased by 5 percentage points (or 10.8%) from 2024 to 2025.
  • Black, Hispanic or Latina/é/o/x, and first-generation college graduate 1L enrollment at highly selective law schools continue to decrease, and those groups’ enrollment in law schools in the fourth selectivity quartile (Q4) continue to increase, for a second year.
  • Hispanic or Latina/é/o/x[10] 1Ls and 1Ls who are first-generation college graduates continue to be the least represented at highly selective law schools.
• For most law schools, the 2025 1L class is the largest in the past five years.
  • In 2025, 80% of law schools increased the size of their entering 1L class compared with 2024.
  • While many law schools increased their first-year class size in 2025, only 29 saw a large (more than 20%) increase in their class size compared with 2024. In contrast, 85 law schools saw a class size increase of 10% or less.
  • Of the law schools with decreased class sizes in 2025, only one had a decrease in class size of more than 20%.

Implications

Financing law school is important for schools and students alike; however, the impact of the recent changes to federal loan caps may vary across schools and student populations.[11] For example, first-generation college graduates and students from racially and ethnically minoritized communities typically carry the largest law school debt loads.[12] Will these federal loan cap changes affect whether someone can afford law school and where they can enroll?

Subsequently, where students enroll affects employment outcomes, especially in terms of access to positions in big law, clerkships, and other sought-after placements. And employment placement is often tied to increased initial power or influence. Overall, these trends are critical for informing how law schools and legal stakeholders can work together to provide reliable and effective support to all aspiring law students.

During a time of uncertainty, LSAC will continue to provide the data on these trends and collaborate with law schools and other stakeholders to support all aspiring lawyers as they navigate their individual journeys to and through law school.

To learn more, download the report. If you have any questions related to this project or future work informed by the results, please contact LSAC Applied Research at StrategicResearch@LSAC.org.

[1] An in-depth 2025 1L profile report is forthcoming at the time of this report’s publication.

[2] The year refers to the year the academic calendar starts. For example, 2021 refers to the 2021-22 academic year.

[3] “Gender-diverse students” include anyone who identifies as nonbinary, transgender, and/or another gender identity other than cisgender man or woman.

[4] “LGBTQ+” refers to people who identify with any sexual orientation other than heterosexual and/or people with any gender identity other than cisgender man or woman.

[5] “First-generation college graduates” include individuals with parents or guardians with an associate degree, some college, high school completion, or less than high school completion.

[6] The growth in representation of LSAC Fee Waiver recipients between 2021 and 2024 should be considered in the context of the significant changes to the program LSAC made in 2021, which expanded income eligibility.

[7] Pell Grant recipient status is self-reported.

[8] See United States Hosts 1.2 Million International Students at Colleges and Universities, Totaling 6% of U.S. Higher Education | IIE and Fewer International Students Came to the U.S. This Fall .

[9] Each school is assigned a selectivity index score to create quartiles of law school selectivity. Selectivity is based on the admission rate, median LSAT of admitted students, and median UGPA of admitted students of a given year. The top 25%, considered highly selective law schools, are in the first quartile (Q1). Each quartile holds about 49 or 50 law schools.

[10] “Hispanic or Latina/é/o/x” includes those who identify as only Hispanic or Latina/é/o/x and/or Puerto Rican. This category is not Hispanic or Latina/é/o/x of any race. Ethnoracial Hispanic or Latina/é/o/x individuals are included in the “Multiracial or Ethnoracial (two or more)” category.

[11] Refer to LSAC’s Knowledge Report: 2024-2025 Test Takers to learn more about how test takers are viewing financing legal education as a barrier to enrollment.

[12] Refer to Funding the First Year: How 2024 1Ls Paid for Law School to learn more.