The Whitest State University in California

A report by faculty members at Sonoma State University in California shows that the university is both the whitest and has the wealthiest students of any publicly operated university in the state. The university, located in the wine country north of San Francisco, made a conscious effort in the early 1990s to market itself as a so-called Public Ivy, where students could get an Ivy League quality education at a fraction of the cost.

The report says that the university administration set up admissions screening rules that required higher SAT scores and grade point averages for admission than other universities in the state system. Recruitment efforts were concentrated at predominantly white, upper-income high schools. The report states that students from families with incomes of more than $150,000 have increased by 59 percent from 1994. Students from families with incomes below $50,000 have decreased by 21 percent in the same time period.

Department of Education data shows that 67 percent of the student body is white compared to a California State University average of 44 percent. Only 2 percent of the student body at Sonoma State University is black.

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