That’s an excellent point, @GMTplus7 . I don’t think I have ever seen that breakdown made public, but one might (and I emphasize might) suspect that is one reason Tulane has embraced involvement with Posse so enthusiastically. The fact that Tulane has auto-admit for Louisiana students that meet very reasonable criteria (at least for a school the caliber of Tulane) and yet still doesn’t have more minorities does emphasize @lz57c4 's point regarding cost that is probably a significant factor, but also the traditionally poor public schools in Louisiana no doubt contributes even more. I meant to point out earlier that Tulane has a no-loans policy for families with income of <$75,000. Again, not as generous as the schools with huge endowments but pretty competitive. I am sure one issue is that even in Louisiana this is not as widely known as it should be.
Just to be fair, I think I said that from the start. I should also have pointed out that Tulane has made strong strides in 10 years on this issue. Which just shows how unfortunately behind it was, no denying that. But starting then the students got involved with the region in a big way, 5-6 years ago they started in with Posse, and 2 years ago they started recruiting more international students. So I think it is fair to say that the goals are in line, and recently amped up by Fitts as I mentioned.
Finally:
When you add in that students routinely jump into this diversity, often in a major way, it reinforces what I have been pointing out regarding different ways to address understanding others.
I recently looked at a list of schools that National Achievement finalists during the last year of the program attended (as an approximation of where the high stats Af-Am students were going), and not surprisingly, most were enrolling at the tippy top schools. With those options and sufficient financial aid, its understandable why excellent but not tippy top schools such as Tulane have trouble achieving the level of diversity they would like without diluting their admitted students stats.
It would be interesting for an economist to study this totally from the point of view of a scarce resource issue.
@GMTplus7 Yes, I mentioned the yield issue at the end of post #10, but your way of stating it puts it in additional light. The handful of schools with the highest yields can pretty much control the demographic makeup of the incoming class without risking quality or having an oversized class.
I’m sorry I brought up Penn and Princeton because I think it has derailed us. I only mentioned them to point out the variation in 100%-need-met schools. All ‘good FA schools’ are not equal.
I’m just giving some data to objectively support the subjective feeling of lack of diversity that people experience. Yield, endowment, applicant pool, race, merit, FA, etc - they are all factors. Tulane is not perfect, but it has a lot to offer and is moving in the right direction.
One other thing that I feel I need to point out based on what @fallenchemist said:
This is how they market it, but it is only applicable to tuition, not COA. Misleading at best, and misrepresentation at worst considering that Tulane packaged more loans than any other school d was admitted to.
I’m worried Tulane has a really homogenous student population. Being a lesbian, diversity, especially diversity of sexuality in the student population, is really important to me. Can anyone comment on Tulane’s diversity?
Also, this student won a full tuition scholarship to Tulane based in part on this submission https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=If9QoqTOMMY included with his application. It was tweeted out to all Tulane followers. Quoting myself from about 2 months ago:
Hopefully that tells you everything you need to know, but if not ask more!
I was a black applicant to Tulane, and was accepted. I think an inclusive environment (one that is accepting of people from all walks of life) is more important than a diverse one. Diversity becomes much less beneficial if everyone still keeps to themselves. In my mind, Tulane seemed pretty collaborative in that regard.
Stanford is amongst the most conservative institutions in the country, almost in league with the University of Chicago. The Hoover Institute is there too, come to think of it, which is a pretty good bellwether of the host institution, as many if not all of the scholars there are also Stanford faculty. Just because it sits in Northern California/Bay Area does not bespeak any measure of progressivism, sadly. It is perfectly consistent with Stanford’s culture not to have many Latinos (or Blacks for that matter) on campus, especially at the faculty ranks. Last I heard it had 1.5% Black faculty. There may be a higher Latino presence at the faculty level due to California demographics, but I would be surprised if it were higher than 2%. That is ridiculous, although many of its peer schools aren’t much different. Further, It is hard to imagine that the Board of Trustees is open to having more, as they are the ones who call the shots, not the human resource people. Look up who they are and the low numbers make sense. It might as well be the Koch Brothers all over again.
This idea that LGBTQ people introduce diversity to a community is the silliest and dumbest I have see in a while, and I think institutions utilize that delusional label as a way to boost their diversity numbers. I take this position because LGBTQ’s have always been around - since human beings have existed - in every community, racially segregated or not. The only difference today is contextual…LGBTQ’s will not necessarily get their asses beaten to a pulp if they make public their sexuality. That is not diversity. It is a change in behavior. Very different animals.
OP said: Given it’s profile, I guess I expected it to be diverse. It may be the whitest school I’ve visited.
I would say: what is diversity? do you think that Tulane needs to be: 60% black, 30% latino, 7% Asian and 3% white so that would satisfy Your diversity?.
what is diversity? do you mean it has to be 80% LGBT of Tulane population?
Remember if Tulane is not diverse then the school would have been cited by govt since Govt is very sensitive about this racism, diversity etc. Therefore school management always will monitor and comply with the statute and laws.
I am an Asian by definition and my son finished from Tulane May 2016 and has been given scholarship, REU, etc. He did not feel the racism, diversity problems, etc. My son mingled with everybody from every walks of life and any color of their skin or sexual preferences, etc. Anyway, if any kids have been accepted by Tulane and given some money (school funds) etc do not compare with other schools since every school is different. Also, if you have been denied admission by Tulane, it is bad to bad-mouth the school since Tulane is small school and does not have a dozen billion dollar in budget.