One Florida Plan Fails to Keep Its Promise of Promoting Diversity in College Enrollments

In 2000, Gov. Jeb Bush’s One Florida plan was enacted. One of the stipulations was that state universities could not consider race in admissions decisions. But high school students who finished in the top 20 percent of their graduating class would gain admission to the state university system.

But under the One Florida plan the percentage of blacks and other minorities in the freshman class at state universities in Florida has declined. In 1999 blacks made up 20 percent of the high school graduates in the state of Florida. That year blacks were 17.5 percent of the entering students at Florida’s state universities.

In 2008 blacks were 19.5 percent of the high school graduates in the state. But African Americans were only 14.9 percent of the entering freshmen at publicly operated universities in Florida.

In 2008 non-Hispanic whites were 54 percent of the high school graduates and 58 percent of the college freshmen.

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