November 2, 2007

Enrollment Numbers Show U. of Michigan Softened Impact of Proposal 2

The University of Michigan at Ann Arbor said today it had managed to avoid a steep decline in the number of black, Hispanic, and Native American students in this fall’s entering freshman class, the first to be admitted after Michiganders voted a year ago to amend their state’s Constitution to prohibit public higher-education institutions from considering applicants’ race or ethnicity.

Officials at the university cautioned, however, that much of this fall’s class was admitted before its admissions office began complying with the ban on affirmative-action preferences, known as Proposal 2, on January 10.

Theodore Spencer, the university’s associate vice provost and director of undergraduate admissions, said in a statement issued yesterday that “the full impact of Proposal 2 is not reflected in the current year’s enrollment numbers because it took effect midway through the admissions cycle.” The university will “have a more accurate indication of its potential impact in fall 2008,” he said.

The university said it had taken in 334 black freshmen, a 1.2-percent increase over last year; 267 Hispanic students, a 2.6-percent decline from last year; and 50 Native American students, a decline of two students, or nearly 4 percent. It took in 757 Asian-American freshmen, an increase of 135 students, or nearly 22 percent, and its white freshman enrollment rose by about 9.8 percent, to 3,741, or 65.2 percent of the entering class.

Because the overall enrollment of this year’s entering freshman class is 11 percent larger than last year’s, the share of such students who are either black, Hispanic, or Native American dropped from 12.7 percent to 11.4 percent.

Moreover, throughout the entire student body, including graduate and professional schools, the actual number of black students declined by 3.3 percent and the number of Native American students declined by 1.2 percent .

The university took several steps to try to keep minority enrollments from dropping more than they actually did. Those included speeding up its admissions cycle to process as many applicants as possible before Proposal 2 took effect, greatly expanding its efforts to reach out to minority communities, and using computer-software programs that helped its admission office recruit a diverse pool of applicants. —Peter Schmidt

Comments

1. As is always the case with numbers that institutions present, “what you see is not what you get.” As the article states, the precentage of Black Hispanic, and Native American students actually did go down. When that is considered along with the fact that many of the admissions decisions were made before Prop 2 was enacted, doesn’t that mean that Prop 2 actually did have the desired impact?

   — Thomas Landefeld    Nov 2, 04:17 PM    #

2. The pursuit of diversity has gotten us almost exclusively focused on admissions data. It would be most instructive to compare such data with graduation data, and data on passing of professional licensing exams, e.g. bar exams and CPA exams. The hidden issue is whether inadequately qualified students are being admitted to programs where they are confronted with a level of academic competition that condemns many to fail to achieve the desired goal. There is an academic tragedy hidden here, and hardly anyone seems ready to discuss it.

   — Abraham L. Gitlow    Nov 2, 05:38 PM    #

3. RE: Mr. Gitlow’s previous comment, Richard Sander (UCLA Law School) has shown precisely that in his 2005 Stanford Law Rev. study, namely that affirmative action places minority students (in this case Blacks) at institutions where they are more likely to fail, resulting in a smaller pool of minorities ready to enter the profession. This mismatch effect is lamentable, since enrollment at a “second choice” school would have resulted in a larger number of minorities entering the profession.

   — Serge Herzog    Nov 2, 06:13 PM    #

4. I don’t think its accurate or really fair to talk about
   a “ desired impact” in respect to Prop 2. The desire of the supporters of the law was that public entities in Michigan, especially U-M, stop giving preferential treatment to the so-called “underrepresented minorities.” That constantly trumpeted goal of “diversity,” trumps all the negatives and justifies what’s been done, you see.
   The impact of the law was predictable, if not desired….take away preferential treatment and minority enrollment is going to drop, which, of course, does nothing but prove the argument about the existence of unjustifiable preferences in the first place.
   Graduation data for U-M students has always been readily available. Predictably, black students have always lagged the white student graduation rate by 15-20 points over the years, though the black graduation rate is still high compared to most colleges and universities.

   — jon6707    Nov 2, 09:12 PM    #

5. As former Treasurer and Director of Media Relations for Proposal 2, I have to agree with the last commenter. We didn’t “desire” a particular impact – but one could be predicted. However, the dire predictions of total collapse in minority enrollment are also exaggerated. The real data to look at will be this spring, when the Fall 08 admittees are calculated.

   Regardless, it is not true that “graduation data for U-M students has always been readily available.” Prior to the lawsuits, you had to pry tooth and nail to get the stuff through FOIA. Gitlow is correct that the focus on admissions data, rather than graduation or K-12 achievement, is the tragedy. That’s my main reason for supporting Prop 2 – it changes the focus of universities.

   Chetly Zarko
   editor, www.Equalitytalk.com

   — Chetly Zarko    Nov 6, 07:24 AM    #

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