Black First-Year Enrollments Are Down at Both Princeton and Harvard

Two of the leading Ivy League colleges have announced preliminary data on black students for the Class of 2011 which will matriculate this fall.

Princeton University reports that 8 percent of its incoming class will be African American. This is down from a year ago when blacks were 9.1 percent of the incoming class.

At Harvard, black students are 8.7 percent of the incoming class. This is down from 9.3 percent last year.

Later on this year, JBHE will have information on whether this downward trend in black matriculations is occurring at other highly selective colleges and universities. The omens are not good.

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