Covering the business of education and training

UCLA's lack of enrollment by black students created a stir this year. Just 96 of the 5,000 freshman at UCLA are black - 1.9%.

But, LA is not the only UC school that is having trouble attacting or signing up black students.

UC Irvine has only 122 new black students or 2.3% of the freshman class.

UC San Diego has only 52 new black students - 1.1% of their class - worse than UCLA.

Several reasons are offered up for this low enrollment.

1. California has inequitable outcomes for students of different races -

   a. Only 6.5% of Latino public high-school grads are eligible for UC
 
   b. Only 6.2% of African-American grads are eligble.

   c. However, 16.2% of white grads qualify

   d. Tops are Asians with 31.4% qualifying.

But, why do these different ethnic groups have these different outcomes? They all go to public schools?

2. California has a shortage of high school counselors.

   a. "Well, no one told me I could go to a UC school." When I was getting ready to graduate many many moons ago, no one told me what I could or couldn't do, either. Why does this make a difference?

I don't know. The last time I checked, if a student had a good study environment and studied hard enough nothing was off limits to them. 31% of Asian high school grads in CA would agree.

What do you think?