Study: University of California minority enrollment among lowest in US

[alp227]

Dominique Stewart-Thomas, 18, builds robots for fun and plans to study electrical engineering next year in college. She makes near-perfect grades in high school.

She is also black and lives in a single-parent household in Oakland, just a few miles from the UC Berkeley campus she hopes to attend.

But a study released Wednesday of the nation's 50 flagship public universities - the best in each state - shows that minority students like Stewart-Thomas make up only a fraction of students at these schools. UC Berkeley has one of the lowest rates, 17 percent.

"It's kind of sad and disheartening," Stewart-Thomas said. "UC Berkeley is in the Bay Area, with many different minorities and cultures. And it's in Berkeley - one of the most liberal, diverse communities in the United States."

Researchers at the Education Trust, a Washington, D.C., think tank focusing on minority achievement, found that even though black, Latino and Native American students who entered college in 2007 were 29 percent of the nation's high school graduates, they were only 13 percent of entering freshmen at the flagship universities.

The report, "Opportunity Adrift," makes the case that leading public universities - from UC Berkeley to the acclaimed Penn State - are failing at their main mission: giving smart people of all backgrounds a chance at an excellent education.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/01/14/BANL1BHN99.DTL

[Hannah Bell]

1. The percents used to be higher. Like many things, Reagan was the watershed.

[Clovis Sangrail]

2. sort of misleading

If you've spent any time on UC campuses you'll know a *huge part of the student populace is asian.
Apparently they don't count as minorities for this study.

I've spent significant time (not as a student) at a few Ca universities (2 UCs 1 private) and now I'm at a major south east university.
Yes there are significantly more african american students but comparatively there are far less hispanic or asian students.

[dkf]

3. Not counting Asians is very convenient for this reporters agenda

In the end they do want a quota system. Otherwise they would add the Asians to the minority total.