Big Drop in Black Enrollments at the University of Virginia

According to JBHE’s annual survey of black first-year students at the nation’s highest-ranked universities, there was a large drop in black first-year enrollments at the University of Virginia. There are 260 black freshmen on the Charlottesville campus this fall, down from 319 a year ago. This is a decline of more than 18 percent. Blacks make up 8.4 percent of the first-year class.

A decade ago, in 1996, there were 351 black freshmen at the University of Virginia. They made up 12.3 percent of the entering class that year. Over the past decade, black first-year enrollments at the University of Virginia are down 26 percent.

The steep drop in entering black students at the University of Virginia is puzzling considering the fact that the university’s AccessUVA program provides students from families in the lowest income brackets a generous financial plan which is made up entirely of scholarship grants with no student loans.

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