Minority admissions fall in California despite rise in applications
Long, Cynthia D
CONFIRMING FEARS THAT ENDING affirmative action in California would significantly reduce the number of minority students in the state’s public university system, the University of California reported steep drops in admissions of African American, Native American, and Hispanic applicants to the Berkeley and Los Angeles campuses for 1998-99.
At the University of California, Berkeley, African Americans, Native Americans, and Hispanics made up 10.4 percent of the admitted first-year students, down from 23.1 percent in 1997. At UCLA, the percentage of this group dropped from 19.8 in 1997 to 12.7 this year. Most of the smaller University of California campuses announced similar declines.
The drop followed reports of a slight increase in minority applications for the 1998-99 academic year, which had reversed a two-year decline. According to Carla Ferri, director of undergraduate admissions for the university system, the increase may have been the result of aggressive recruiting and a 5 percent rise in the number of college-age students in the state.
It is still unclear how many of the accepted minority students will enroll.
Copyright American Association of University Professors May/Jun 1998
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved
