Application decline
Traditionally black colleges’ enrollment down nation-wide in past 30 years
By Mary Frances Czarsty, assistant news editor
Posted on October 5, 2006

When Brandon Borne decided to attend JMU as a freshman in fall 2004, he was ready to immerse himself in a different world.

“I went to a predominantly black high school in Northern Virginia,” he said. “I wanted to pull myself out of my norm and experience something new.”

Borne, now a junior, is part of a growing trend that is seeing many black students opt to attend a predominately white school like JMU, rather than one of the nation’s 103 historically black colleges.

According to the U.S. Education Department, the percentage of black college students who chose to enroll at a black school slipped from 18.4 percent in 1976 to 12.9 percent in 2001. Furthermore, 26 of 87 black schools profiled in a recent study saw a decline in enrollment between 1995 and 2004.

Borne said these numbers reflect a changing social and political climate in the United States.

“Back [in the 1970s], historically black colleges were black students’ only option,” he said. “Back then there wasn’t much opportunity to go anywhere else.”

Schools like Alabama’s Talladega College, who saw enrollment rates down 54 percent in 2004, are feeling the increased efforts by formerly predominantly white, and often elite, schools to increase minority recruitment and retention rates.

The Education Department further reported that even the most prestigious historically black colleges, like Fisk and Tuskegee, saw their numbers decline from 1995 to 2004.

This does not mean, however, that overall enrollment rates for black college students are down. In fact, the Department of Education reported the enrollment of black men and women between ages 18 to 24 increased from 15 percent in 1970 to 25 percent in 2003.

JMU is one of many schools attempting to raise its minority numbers through increased recruitment, open houses and scholarships like the Centennial Scholars Program, which aims to diversify the student population of JMU. The program aims to increase the number of under-represented students who enroll and graduate from JMU.

Tiffany Gary, who works for the admissions office, said JMU also recruits many students from the Richmond area. “Many students who choose JMU are from Richmond, so we have programs coordinated with the high schools and middle schools to encourage them to apply,” she said.

Borne cited financial issues as incentive to attend JMU.

“I looked at Howard University, but one of the reasons I chose JMU was because of financial issues,” he said. “It’s cheaper for me to go here as an in-state student.”

JMU’s numbers are slowly creeping upward, according to a fall 2005 student census published by the university’s Institutional Research Center.

The entering freshman class of 2005 had a little more than 150 black students enrolled, as opposed to more than 60 students in the fall of 2003. 

Despite the rising numbers over the past few years, overall black student enrollment is down at JMU. The overall number of black students in fall 2005 was 550, versus 1,000 in fall 1991.

Gary said the drop occurred during the 1990s, largely because of a cut in Federal funding.

“We used to have a program called Transitions that supplied scholarships to a lot of students,” she said. “But once the government cut that, we saw a drastic decline in numbers.”