Last week this time as I was casually scrolling my Twitter feed, I saw many people were discussing the low enrollment of African-Americans at UNC, particularly the enrollment numbers for males of color.
As black college students, we all know that attending a predominantly white institution means one thing — you are in the minority. However, until last Wednesday, I did not realize to what extent we are the minority.
On Sept. 17, the UNC Office of Institutional Research and Assessment published a chart that catalogs all UNC students by class year, race/ethnicity and sex.
Amid all the numbers, there was one statistic that stood out to me personally: There are only 98 black males enrolled in the UNC class of 2017. In comparison, there are 1,054 white males enrolled.
That statistic does not just stop with black males. There are only 12 males of American Indian or Alaska Native descent and only 94 Hispanic males in the first-year class.
As I look back on my high school graduating class, I can safely assume that there were almost as many black males in that class of 400 as there are in UNC’s 2017 class of roughly 4,000.
The smallest dorm on campus, Old East Residence Hall, can hold a population of 67 students. It is ridiculous that a good majority of the black male students in this class could fit into Old East.
According to a study published in 2010, UNC’s four-year graduation rate is just 49.2 percent for black males, which is a stark contrast to the 70.8 percent graduation rate for white males.
If this trend continues, then only 48 of 98 black males in the class of 2017 will graduate on time.
This cannot happen.
As the flagship University of the state and one of the top public institutions of higher education in the world, the enrollment number of minority males is completely unacceptable.
