The next report is a part of collaboration between NBCNews.com and The Hechinger Report targeted on analyzing Black and Latino enrollment in flagship universities.
ATHENS, Ga. — Uchenna Ihekwereme walked to the entrance row of the 150-person auditorium for a political science class on the College of Georgia. She sat down, as she all the time did, along with her again to the ocean of white faces. She had change into accustomed to being the one Black scholar in her courses, but it surely may nonetheless be unsettling.
Her hand went up throughout a dialogue when a scholar in contrast the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol with the Black Lives Matter motion. She was the one one to argue that an effort to violently overturn a sound election was completely different from protesting towards police brutality and racism.
“I didn’t need a false narrative to be pushed concerning the Black neighborhood,” Ihekwereme mentioned.
A junior, she has been the one Black scholar in near three-quarters of the programs she has taken and certainly one of a handful in all however one. “It was a complete tradition shock” after attending a racially various highschool, she mentioned. “I don’t really feel like I’m at risk, however I don’t essentially really feel secure.”
For no less than a decade, the College of Georgia has did not enroll Black college students at a charge proportionate to the variety of Black highschool graduates within the state. In 2020, simply 6 % of freshmen who enrolled on the college had been Black, in contrast with 36 % of the state’s public highschool graduates.
Amongst state flagship universities, UGA has one of many nation’s largest disparities between its proportion of Black college students and that of Black highschool graduates from the state — second solely to the College of Mississippi.
Such racial disparities could also be concentrated within the South, however they’re pervasive all through the nation. There are 13 flagship universities the place the hole between the proportion of Black college students who graduated from public excessive colleges in that state in 2020 and Black freshman enrollment is 10 proportion factors or extra. And at 30 of those universities, the hole has stayed the identical or grown within the final 5 years.
State flagship universities are funded primarily by tax {dollars}, and their missions embrace offering an accessible and high-quality training to academically succesful residents of their states. They typically boast the best commencement charges amongst public schools; present the top-level educational assets that permit college students to succeed; and include status and alumni connections that may launch careers.
Associated: Flagship universities fail to enroll Black and Latino highschool graduates from their state
“They need to be ashamed of themselves,” mentioned Wil Del Pilar, who’s the vp of upper training at The Training Belief, a suppose tank targeted on fairness. “Public establishments — they need to seem like the taxpayers within the state. There’s no manner you’ll be able to say these are consultant establishments.”
UGA, like all flagship universities, advantages significantly from residents’ tax {dollars}. It receives extra in state appropriations this 12 months — $483 million — than another public greater training establishment within the state.
Its undergraduate inhabitants of 32,800 is the third largest within the state, behind Kennesaw State and Georgia State; when each undergraduate and graduate college students are counted, it ranks behind Kennesaw State and Georgia Tech.
UGA officers mentioned the college is actively working to extend Black illustration on campus.
“Black college students admitted to UGA — they’ve lots of choices,” mentioned Alton Standifer, deputy chief of workers to the college president, referring to the competitors amongst schools to enroll Georgia’s Black college students. “What we’re doing is attempting to speak to them that it is a place the place we would like them to enroll. We wish them right here, we would like them to change into part of the neighborhood.”
Final 12 months, the college permitted a five-year program geared toward rising the enrollment of underrepresented college students and need-based monetary help, and making a extra inclusive studying atmosphere. UGA additionally dedicated to elevating $1 million in non-public cash to help this system.
However this system has not but had an influence on the variety of Black college students who’ve accepted a proposal from UGA. In 2021, among the many 5,815 college students who accepted a seat, 432 had been Black, down from 488 out of 5,743 in 2018, in line with information supplied by the college.
Some advocates for Black college students say the college doesn’t spend sufficient time recruiting at majority-Black excessive colleges. UGA officers mentioned they ship present UGA college students to excessive colleges across the state to encourage college students who’re underrepresented to use to and attend the college. However they mentioned they don’t maintain a file of which excessive colleges they go to.
For Black college students who do go to UGA, there are plain rewards. Among the many state’s 62 four-year schools, solely the non-public, elite Emory College has the next commencement charge for Black college students than UGA, elevating the query of what number of extra Black Georgians may earn school levels if UGA had been to open its doorways extra broadly.
Flush with assets, UGA spent extra per scholar in 2021 on instruction than another public school within the state besides the Georgia Institute of Know-how (Georgia Tech) and Augusta College, which suggests college students get robust educational help and a greater probability to graduate. At $1.36 billion, its endowment ranks second amongst all public universities within the state, after Georgia Tech; so does the median annual wage of practically $60,000 earned by its college students 10 years after enrolling. And its huge alumni community stretches globally throughout lots of of corporations, giving graduates a possible leg up of their careers.
Nonetheless, many Black college students in Georgia select to attend extra various establishments or go for a traditionally Black school or college.
Associated: Advocates hope pandemic shift away from requiring SAT and ACT will assist variety
Ayesha Youssouf, who was accepted to the extremely selective Georgia Tech in addition to Georgia State College, didn’t even apply to UGA. She mentioned her sister had transferred from there to Georgia State as a result of she hadn’t felt comfy on the flagship campus.
“It made me suppose possibly UGA will not be for me,” mentioned Youssouf, who’s in her second 12 months at Georgia State, the place, in 2020, 41 % of scholars had been Black. She turned down Georgia Tech due to the price and since it, too, has a small minority of Black college students (7 %).
However for each Black scholar who’s admitted and chooses to not go, school counselors say, many extra who may succeed are rejected.
Erica Clark is knowledgeable faculty counselor at Booker T. Washington Excessive Faculty in Atlanta, the place 97 % of the 870 college students are Black. Clark mentioned UGA has made some efforts to recruit a extra various group of scholars; nevertheless, she mentioned, yearly she has college students who’re rejected although she believes they may succeed on the College of Georgia.
“We nonetheless have well-rounded college students at Booker T. Washington Excessive Faculty and all through Atlanta Public Faculties who would thrive at UGA, if prolonged the chance,” mentioned Clark, who has been a public faculty educator for 28 years.
A number of directors at public colleges in Atlanta and the encircling space mentioned they consider the college focuses an excessive amount of on standardized take a look at scores, with out sufficient consideration of grades and extracurricular achievement, besides in athletics. Common SAT scores for admitted college students rose to 1,347 in fall 2019, from 1,252 4 years earlier — a rise of virtually 100 factors. A reliance on SAT scores can drawback Black college students, whose common SAT rating in 2019 was 933, greater than 180 factors under that of white college students.
Like all Georgia’s public schools, and plenty of others nationally, UGA didn’t require SAT or ACT scores in 2021, due to the pandemic, and the variety of Black college students accepted that 12 months jumped to 1,052, a 34 % enhance from the 12 months earlier than. However for 2022, the College System of Georgia Board of Regents determined that UGA was certainly one of three public schools in Georgia that needed to require SAT or ACT take a look at scores.
Associated: Report finds a drop in Black enrollment at most prime public schools and universities
Standifer mentioned the college doesn’t rely totally on take a look at scores and has used a holistic strategy to admissions for years. He mentioned Black scholar admissions elevated in 2021 as a result of UGA started utilizing the Frequent Utility, which permits college students to make use of the identical on-line kind to use to many schools without delay. College students can extra shortly apply to a number of schools, since they don’t must navigate completely different utility techniques and may add required paperwork to 1 web site. Selective public universities like UGA that used the Frequent App have seen a rise in candidates, together with historically underrepresented college students, resembling Black college students.
Ken Dozier is a type of college students whose excessive GPA was overshadowed by common take a look at scores. He didn’t get into UGA, regardless that he graduated within the prime 10 of his class, he mentioned, at LaGrange Excessive Faculty, about 70 miles southwest of Atlanta. As a substitute, Dozier, who’s Black, enrolled on the College of West Georgia.
“I did need to go to UGA, however I didn’t rating excessive sufficient on the SAT,” he mentioned, taking a break from taking pictures hoops on a basketball court docket on the College of West Georgia’s campus.
“I’m glad I’m right here, although. Once I toured UGA, I used to be wanting round and was like, would I be comfy right here?”
The share of Black college students enrolled on the College of West Georgia, which is about an hour west of Atlanta, grew to 38 % from 27 % from 2010 to 2020. Throughout that very same interval, the proportion of Black college students at UGA didn’t budge.
West Georgia directors say the change was not unintended. Their focus has been on making a “tradition of belongingness and connectedness.” They are saying offering high-quality educational applications that may appeal to college students is as essential as recruiting college students at various excessive colleges.
“When you have a look at the proportion of Black college students 10 years in the past, we didn’t match the inhabitants of this area or the state of Georgia; then you definately’re underserving the state,” mentioned Brendan Kelly, president of the College of West Georgia. “Our mission is to make sure that we are able to present a world-class training to the numerous, not the few.”
UGA’s admissions coverage will not be the one issue holding the proportion of Black college students at UGA low. College students say the expense and whether or not they really feel the college will help them play important roles.
UGA created a need-based scholarship program in 2017 that helps greater than 650 college students from low-income backgrounds. Nonetheless, households who make $48,000 to $75,000 a 12 months pay, on common, greater than $15,000 every year — which means college students must provide you with greater than $60,000 out of pocket or take out loans to complete school.
Cameron Bell graduated final spring from Westlake Excessive Faculty in Atlanta and was accepted to UGA. However she determined to attend Tuskegee College in Alabama, an HBCU that gave her a full trip, permitting her to graduate with out debt. She was additionally impressed by its program in laptop science, her meant main, with a minor in enterprise administration.
“My mother and father each went there, they usually’re profitable,” she mentioned.
Bell, together with lots of her classmates, rejects the concept that her particular person decisions are guilty for the shortage of variety on the state flagship.
Sitting in a Westlake classroom in March with a number of different high-achieving seniors, none of whom are going to UGA, she mentioned, “When you’re going to take a seat again and say, ‘They’re doing the selecting, how is it our fault?’ that implies that you’re not making your self related.”
