Black First-Year Enrollments Up Sharply at Three of Five State Universities in Kentucky

In 2005, the University of Kentucky experienced a huge 40 percent drop in first-year black enrollments. Last fall, blacks were only 4 percent of the incoming class at the state’s flagship institution. The poor performance in recruiting black students resulted in a great deal of bad publicity for the university and protests from state legislators that the university was not doing enough to increase racial diversity on campus.

It appears the administration at the University of Kentucky got the message. This fall, black first-year enrollments almost doubled. There are 296 black freshmen this fall compared to 156 a year ago.

Kentucky State University, the historically black educational institution in Frankfurt, also had a large increase in first-year enrollments. There are 493 black freshmen at Kentucky State this year, up 54 percent from a year ago. At Western Kentucky University, the number of black freshmen jumped 40 percent, from 324 in 2005 to 454 this year.

The University of Louisville had a slight drop in entering black students this year. Morehead State University saw its first-year black enrollments drop by 25 percent, from 80 in 2005 to 60 this year.