Alarms sounded at the University of Maryland when the Class of 2022 arrived at College Park. Seven percent of freshmen in fall 2018 were Black, down from 10 percent the year before and 13 percent in 2014.
It marked a nadir for a metric crucial to the flagship university’s commitment to diversity in a state where about a third of public high school graduates each year are Black.
The university’s admissions team resolved to reverse the trend, with urgent outreach to high school seniors who had started applications but not finished them.
“We got on the phone and we called hundreds, hundreds of students,” said Shannon Gundy, executive director of undergraduate admissions. The interventions continued even after admission decisions. Gundy’s team called admitted students to remind them about a campus visit day, to confirm their intent to enroll, and to push them to register for orientation.
It helped. The Black share of freshmen rebounded the next fall to 10 percent.
Yet the episode underscored the enduring disconnect between the racial demographics of many flagship universities, including U-Md., and the population of states they serve.
Fifteen state flagships had at least a 10-point gap between the percentageof Black public high school graduates in their states in 2019 and the Black share of freshmen they enrolled that fall, according to federal data analyzed by The Hechinger Report and The Washington Post.
For U-Md., the gap was 24 points — the sixth-largest in the country. Critics say College Park has a dismal record of recruiting and enrolling a student body that resembles Maryland.
“It’s really just the age-old conversation about waiting for a seat at the table,” said Saba Tshibaka, a senior and organizer with the student group Black Terps Matter. “I want U-Md. to really understand the impact of denying these native Black students from Maryland, but I don’t think that they do.”
College Park, like many flagships, also struggles to recruit Latino students. About 7 percent of its freshmen in 2019 were Latino, compared with nearly 14 percent of Maryland’s public high school graduates.
Flagship universities are among the most prestigious public universities in the country, financed in part by tax dollars, and their missions include providing affordable and high-quality education to residents of their states.
Focused on research and teaching, the schools are typically more selective than other public universities. They recruit heavily in their home states but also around the nation and the world. Getting into them can provide a huge academic and career boost. They tend to have higher graduation rates, and their alumni networks provide powerful economic and political connections.
“Many of the flagships and highly selective public colleges are behaving basically like an Ivy League institution when it comes to admissions,” said Tomás Monarrez, a research associate at The Urban Institute who has analyzed racial representation in higher education. “The issue is not that there aren’t enough qualified Black and Latino students. It’s about who they’re choosing to accept.”
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Black students have long been underrepresented at flagships across the country.
In 2019, federal data show, the Black share of public high school graduates was 17 percent in Michigan, 37 percent in South Carolina and 49 percent in Mississippi. But the Black share of freshmen enrollment that fall was 4percent at the University of Michigan, 6 percent at the University of South Carolina and 10 percent at the University of Mississippi.
The 39-point gap in Mississippi was the largest in the country on this measure of flagship demographics.
“[W]e have progress to make,” University of Mississippi spokesman Rod Guajardo acknowledged in a statement. He said the school is intensifying efforts to recruit and retain African-American students from within the state. He cited a financial aid initiative and a program that invites rising high school seniors to a summer conference on the campus in Oxford, Miss.
https://tuitiontracker.org/interactives/flagships-21/The drive at many flagships to recruit more from out of state also shapes demographics. Those students, who pay higher tuition, often come from white and affluent families. At Mississippi, slightly more than half of incoming freshmen are from out of state. Guajardo noted that the Black share of in-state students is 20 percent. That’s twice as large as the Black share of the total entering class in 2019.
The universities of Michigan and South Carolina also have scholarship and college-readiness initiatives to bolster Black enrollment. Rick Fitzgerald, a spokesman for the University of Michigan, said the percentages of Black and Latino students at the flagship in Ann Arbor had declined after a 2006 state law barred the consideration of race in public university admissions.
Fifteen state flagships had at least a 10-point gap between the percentage of Black public high school graduates in their states in 2019 and the Black share of freshmen they enrolled that fall,
Perennially controversial, policies on affirmative action in admissions vary from state to state. At U-Md., race and ethnicity are two among 26 factors weighed in what officials describe as a “holistic” review of applications.
University leaders say they are committed to advancing equity in admissions.
“I think the state of Maryland’s citizens, who come from all parts of the state and every ZIP code, should have the opportunity to attend the flagship institution,” said the university’s president, Darryll J. Pines, who took office in 2020.
Recruitment and enrollment
College Park has competition for Black high school students in its home state. Some opt for one of the state’s four historically Black universities, Gundy said, or for Howard University in the District of Columbia. Many go to community colleges or to prominent schools out of state.
The 2018 drop in Black enrollment fueled a major push for improvement. Wallace D. Loh, then the university’s president, created a task force to beef up outreach, and the admissions office created new positions focused on diversity.
The university also set a $100 million fundraising target for an endowment to provide need-based scholarships for underserved students from Maryland and the District of Columbia.
“That was the year that it got our attention and made us think, ‘OK, we need to do something to change this. This can’t be the start of a trend,’” Gundy said.
U-Md. officials said that last fall the Black share of freshmen was 11 percent. Like some of its peers, the university also enrolls hundreds of Black students every year through transfer programs.
Among major public universities, U-Md. has one of the highest six-year graduation rates for Black students: 81 percent in 2019. That’s just behind the University of Michigan — 84 percent — and ahead of the University of Florida’s 77 percent. Black graduation rates for the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Wisconsin were 76 percent.
The University of Virginia had the highest Black graduation rate among flagships in 2019, 90 percent. But federal data also show Black students are significantly underrepresented at U-Va. They made up 7 percent of the entering freshman class that fall.
Graduation data show that College Park has a strong record in educating African Americans, said Freeman A. Hrabowski III, the longtime president of the University of Maryland Baltimore County, a separate school within the University System of Maryland.
U-Md. is “doing a good job in recruiting students who can succeed there,” Hrabowski said, adding that it is “simplistic” to focus only on racial diversity in the entering classes of public universities when there are often significant challenges in school systems that leave many high school graduates unprepared for rigorous college work.
“Flagship universities are not accepting a lot of students — including Black and Latino students —who probably could succeed there. They’re exacerbating racial inequities instead of combating them.”
David Hawkins, executive director for educational content and policy at the National Association for College Admission Counseling
At UMBC, about 18 percent of freshmen in 2019 were Black, up from 12 percent in 2014.
But Hrabowski said: “I’m less interested in the numbers going in, than I am in the numbers we are producing.” To him, it’s all about the degrees.
In 2019, federal data show, U-Md. awarded 880 bachelor’s degrees to Black students. That was the highest total for any flagship in the country, partly a function of its size and high graduation rate. The benchmark suggests that the issue for U-Md. is how to open those opportunities to a wider group of potential students.
Skeptics question whether the flagships focus too much on a narrow band of students who they know will graduate with minimal support.
“Flagship universities are not accepting a lot of students — including Black and Latino students — who probably could succeed if they went there,” said David Hawkins, executive director for educational content and policy at the National Association for College Admission Counseling. “They’re exacerbating racial inequities instead of combating them.”
U-Md. officials said they are trying to help high school students who may not have access to challenging coursework or expert college counseling.
Gundy cited a program begun several years ago called Maryland Ascent, which matches prospective first-generation college students from Baltimore City and Baltimore County with admissions staff who help them navigate applying to college.
She also said recruiters each year visit almost all of the state’s high schools. But several educators in Baltimore and in Prince George’s County — two places with the largest numbers of Black students in Maryland — said the university often bypasses some high schools. U-Md. did not provide a list of the high schools its recruiters visit.
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Tshibaka, the Black Terps Matter organizer, said the quality of conversations matters as much as the quantity of visits.
She has accompanied admissions officers on high school visits. Sometimes, Tshibaka said, recruiters fail to talk up multicultural organizations, academic programs, clubs and other aspects of campus life that might entice Black students.
“That’s a systemic issue,” she said.
Messaging is a big part of recruiting, said Monica Goldson, chief executive of Prince George’s County schools. She said it is important for students to know that the flagship, located in their home county, is an option.
“Sometimes I think our students automatically don’t apply because they feel like maybe they don’t have what it takes in order to get in,” Goldson said.
U-Md. draws more than half of its in-state undergraduate students from Montgomery County, the largest school district in the state, and Howard County, in central Maryland. About 11 percent of in-state undergraduates are from Prince George’s.
“It’s really just the age-old conversation about waiting for a seat at the table. I want U-Md. to really understand the impact of denying these native Black students from Maryland, but I don’t think that they do.”
Saba Tshibaka, U-Md. senior and member of the student organization Black Terps Matter
Goldson said she is working with U-Md. to raise those numbers. Last fall, about 30 students started taking a free calculus class at the university in a dual enrollment program. And local education leaders are working to create a pipeline from Prince George’s Community College, which would grant graduates automatic entry into U-Md. or nearby Bowie State University.
“Our ability to be able to foster a seamless connection from the high school experience to the community college experience, and then being able to provide supports to them beyond is critical in helping to improve and increase the number of children of color that have access to four-year universities,” Goldson said.
Issues around campus climate loom
In recent years another question has shadowed the university: Is it perceived as an inviting space for students of color?
In May 2017, a white U-Md. student murdered Army Lt. Richard Collins III, a Black student from Bowie State University who was visiting the College Park campus. The killing drew widespread attention and prompted lawmakers to revise the state’s hate-crime statute.
Alysa Conway, a senior studying public policy, government and politics, entered the university as a freshman the following fall.
“I’m coming into the university with the thought that a Black man was killed on campus,” Conway, who is Black, remembers thinking. “I had to mentally come into that upon entry.”
Then, in June 2018, 19-year-old Black football player Jordan McNair died after suffering from exertional heatstroke during a team workout. Not long after his death, the university acknowledged that its medical staff failed to properly diagnose and treat McNair.
“Now, it’s not just one death,” Conway said, adding that McNair’s death exposed a pattern. “It definitely challenged their narrative that they give, [of] being a campus that is diverse in nature and respectful of all diverse people.”
Gundy acknowledged such incidents could have hurt Black enrollment.
“There had been troubling events on our campus, there were troubling events in the state and in the nation,” she said. “There were lots of African-American students whose families were deciding, you know, maybe going to a predominantly White institution is not the thing for our family right now.”
The university is working to repair its relationships with Black communities. State officials in January approved a $3.5 million settlement between the school and the football player’s family. U-Md. also announced it had partnered with the Jordan McNair Foundation on initiatives around student-athlete health and safety, including education. And the university has plans for a memorial that will honor Collins, Pines said.
After the police killing of George Floyd in 2020, students set forth a list of demands to improve the Black experience at U-Md. — hire more counselors of color, create a hotline for students to report racist incidents, enforce mandatory racial bias training for students and employees.
“Many of the flagships and highly selective public colleges are behaving basically like an Ivy League institution when it comes to admissions.”
Tomás Monarrez, research associate, The Urban Institute
On his first day in office, Pines pledged to place diversity, equity and inclusion among his priorities. He said he’s had several meetings with Black student leaders about their demands, and recently shared plans to name two new residence halls after former students who helped diversify the campus in the 19th and 20th centuries.
For many students, optimism is mixed with skepticism. “There’s a level of distrust between the Black student body and administration,” Conway said.
Pines this year moved the university to the Common Application, a platform hundreds of colleges use to help students apply. He recently unveiled measures designed to increase access to the university — including the extension of a test-optional admissions practice through spring and fall of 2022 and 2023.
For Pines, the issue is personal. The president, a former dean of engineering, got his start at a flagship university — UC-Berkeley.
“The quality of the education that I got, a kid from an impoverished environment, is the reason I’m sitting in front of you today,” said Pines. “And that, I believe, is what we owe the citizens of the state of Maryland.”
This story about flagship universities was produced jointly by The Washington Post and The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for our higher education newsletter.
As a parent whose children have graduated college and both were high performing students, I found the process of admission to the most competitive schools to be stacked against them. The article uses the standard of graduating in 6 years. Both my children graduated in 4 years and had the equivalent of 5 years of college.
The admission process looks for balance geographically, economically , by ethnicity and by gender. The standardized exams have a higher weighting for English than for Science and Math. The Math portion of the SAT does not distinguish from the truly gifted and the very strong. 52 out of 270 in my children’s graduating class scored 800 on the Math portion of the SAT. The admissions don’t look at US Math Olympiad scores, AP and IB scores in many cases because the results come in after decisions on admittance is made. Their are special math competitions for women because they don’t fare as well relative to men in the open competitions. MIT accepts roughly 3x women applicants as men.
One of my children scored a 35 on the ACT. Scored 5 on every AP exam he took, took courses beyond the AP curriculum such as data structures and multi-variable calculus. He was not accepted at any Ivy league programs. His grades were very strong and he graduated from one of the top public HS in the country, Bergen County Academies, where 15% of the class are National Merit Semi-finalists.
The universities want students to enroll in liberal arts programs where they have greater capacity of professors to teach than in STEM and Finance programs.
I am in favor of providing support for minorities. The problem is there is insufficient capacity in the CS/EE and finance programs. In many cases the minority students don’t have the foundation to be successful and end up changing majors into areas where they can succeed.
The universities could do a number of things to increase enrollment for students such as my children and help underprivileged students. First they could provide the ability to obtain credit for a course not covered by the AP-IB programs by offering an exam equivalent to the final exam in that course. They could charge an administration fee and require a score in the top 20-25% of those who took the course to get credit. This would open up room in these programs. They could require as a condition of admittance, students, such as my children provide tutoring and mentoring to help underprivileged children succeed in areas where their foundation is weak.
It is fundamentally unfair, in my opinion for students who would thrive at the best universities to not receive acceptance to accept those who can’t graduate in the programs I described and are pushed into areas which don’t lead to high paying employment upon graduation, not to mention the extra two years of school necessary to graduate.