Despite attempts to recruit minority students to MSU’s Graduate School, minorities are enrolling in graduate school at lower rates than last year, the Office of Affirmative Action Compliance and Monitoring reported this week.
The data included information about faculty and staff statistics, retention and undergraduate applications, admissions and enrollment.
MSU Provost Lou Anna Simon said there are many factors that contribute to the decrease in enrollment for minority students.
“Last year’s decline was after a significant increase in the previous years,” she said. “Graduate admissions decisions are made on the individual college and department level. The data are from decentralized decisions. What I am hoping - and I have asked the Graduate School to work with the departments - is the numbers will go back up.”
Karen Klomparens, dean of the Graduate School, said there are many factors involved in the decrease of enrollment for all minority groups.
“Part of total enrollment is that if you have a successful year with lots of students getting their degrees, your total numbers are slightly down,” she said. “Some of it is that they aren’t dropping out, but graduating. We are committed to all graduate students, and we are interested in helping graduate students of color getting their degrees.”
Klomparens said MSU advertises at different universities to draw minority students to East Lansing.
“The people you have to choose from for graduate school are people who have bachelor’s degrees,” she said. “As the pool of bachelor’s degrees increases, the pool for graduate students increases.
“Across the Big Ten, we are looking at an increase in the number of students applying to graduate school.”
Tony Nuñez, associate dean of the Graduate School, said he thinks the data represents a national trend - not something unique to MSU.
“It has to do in part with the fact the economy has been so good that potential graduate student applicants decided to join the job market and have delayed applying to graduate school,” he said. “We are likely to see a shift in the trend this year.”
James Liggins, president of the Wolverine Bar Association and the Black Law Students Association, said he thinks MSU’s graduate programs are becoming more diverse, but other schools might not be so fortunate.
“My first year of law school, I was the only black male in my school section of 230 people,” he said. “My understanding is, it’s not an uncommon occurrence. A lot of segments of society want to make it sound like graduate schools are very diverse now and there are no hindrances left for minorities within the educational system. But we are still fighting a system that was based on systematic exclusion of minorities into businesses and education.”
Liggins said he thinks there have been exaggerations made about the progress of minorities in graduate programs.
“It doesn’t surprise me at all to hear there is a decrease in enrollment of minorities in graduate programs because I believe there was never this increase,” he said. “There is so much more that these programs can do to find minority students. There is a lack of going to historically black colleges or those with minorities.”
