Toughening Academic Standards Erodes Racial Diversity Efforts at the University of Georgia

In a news release announcing the makeup of its entering class, the University of Georgia emphasized the academic qualifications of its new students. The mean grade point average of the students in the freshman class, as well as the mean SAT and ACT scores of the first-year students, is thought to be the highest in the university’s history.

But reading further one finds that the number of black students and the number of Hispanic students declined from a year ago. There will be 318 black freshmen at the University of Georgia. They will make up 7 percent of the entering class. In 2006, blacks were 7.5 percent of all first-year students.  It is important to note that blacks are about 30 percent of the college-age population in Georgia.

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