A new study in Nature links higher racial diversity in MBA and law school cohorts with higher starting salaries at graduation, and the findings extend to entire class outcomes rather than only underrepresented students. The paper, authored by Debanjan Mitra (University of Connecticut), Peter Golder (Dartmouth’s Tuck), and Mariya Topchy, tracked multiple cohorts across decades. Using cohort-level data from 141 business schools and 200 law schools, the researchers reported a consistent positive association after controlling for student quality and school-specific differences. The study’s headline effect described that adding one underrepresented minority student to a cohort is associated with a cumulative first-year salary gain for the full cohort, with lifetime earnings impacts estimated by the researchers. For admissions and academic leadership, the result adds a new economic metric to ongoing debates about diversity’s measurable labor-market effects.