The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education (Summer 1995) reports that of the top 25 universities it investigated, Emory experienced the greatest increase in African American student enrollment from 1980 to 1993. Like other institutions in the South, Emory's African American student enrollment in 1980 -- 3 percent -- lagged behind the nation's top universities. But by 1993, Emory's African American student enrollment increased to nearly 10 percent, a number significantly higher than other top-ranked universities.
According to the JBHE, 14 of the 25 universities experienced an increase in African American student enrollment since 1980. The remaining 11, however, experienced significant declines, some by as much as 25 percent. Many of the institutions experiencing a rise in African American student enrollment are in the South, where processes of integration since the 1960s were slower than in schools in western and northeastern regions. Vanderbilt, Duke, the University of Virginia, Rice and Washington University had rising African American student enrollment, as did the University of Michigan, University of California-Berkeley, Johns Hopkins, Harvard, Notre Dame, Georgetown, Yale and the University of Pennsylvania.
The top-ranked schools showing the greatest decrease in African American student enrollment are those specializing in science and engineering. At MIT, the California Institute for Technology and Carnegie Mellon, African American student enrollment decreased by more than 35 percent.
Among Ivy League schools, Yale and Harvard experienced an increase in African American student enrollment, but Dartmouth, Princeton and Cornell universities experienced a decrease of more than 25 percent. Other top universities with declining African American student enrollment are Northwestern, Cornell, Stanford, Brown, the University of Chicago and Columbia University.
The Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP) and the Chronicle of Higher Education provide a picture of the number of African American students at a wider range of national universities. CIRP reports that in 1994, African Americans made up 18 percent of students at the public universities it surveyed and 14 percent of students at private universities.
The CHE Almanac (September 1995) looked at enrollment figures for African American students between the years of 1984 and 1993 and found that the number of African American undergraduates increased nearly 30 percent over the last decade. The number of African American students in graduate schools increased by 52 percent, and the number in professional schools increased by 53 percent.
In 1994, 12 percent of the student body at Emory were African American women, and roughly 6 percent were African American men. Overall, the number of men and women of all racial backgrounds are nearly even at Emory in 1995. According to CIRP, more African American women than men were enrolled in both private and public universities. Thirteen percent of public university students are African American men, while around 23 percent are women. The gap between African American men and women is slightly less for private universities, where nearly 12 percent are men and 17 percent are women. According to the Almanac published by the Chronicle of Higher Education (September 1995), the number of female African American students in higher education has been roughly 60 percent of the overall African American student population over the last decade.
Jody Cressman is a Ph.D. candidate in the English department and an editorial assistant in the Office of Institutional Planning and Research.