Underrepresentation of African-American Students at USC and UCLA
Alone in the Crowd
By:Katia Jordan
"An African-American student walking through campus is almost as equivalent to the character, "Big Foot" walking on campus. It's a rare sighting," said USC grad student Lashawnae' Smith."
The underrepresentation of African-American college students at USC and UCLA, has caused some students to feel uncomfortable and unwelcome at their respective university.
UCLA alumni andUSC PhD student Lawshawnae' Smith. (click to enlargen)
Smith is currently one of the 2,000 African-American students student enrolled at USC. She attended UCLA for undergrad, where she earned a bachelor's degree in African-American studies in 2014 and then she enrolled in USC’s Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters and Arts and Sciences. Smith obtained her master’s degree in political science in 2017 and is currently a Ph.D student in the law program major.
The African-American population for both USC and UCLA is a combined 10 percent. Both institutions have less than 2,000 African-American students enrolled and are the least represented demographic on campus, with the exception of the .5 percent American Indian and Alaskan demographic, that only UCLA includes in their student demographic report.
“USC is a school that is predominantly Asian and White. There aren’t nearly as many Black people. It is often intimidating and unnerving to be on a campus where you are surrounded by a mass of people who are nothing like you,” said by Smith."
It is often intimidating and unnerving to be on a campus where you are surrounded by a mass of people who are nothing like you”
The population of African-American students have been relatively low compared to other student ethnicities. USC's Black Alumni Director, Michele Turner attributes the school's "lackluster" African-American student population to African-American students opting to attend a insitution that offered them a better financial aid package.
“One of the reasons that you don't see as many black students here [USC] is because this demographic is still very price sensitive. Even though the student obtained admission here, if the packaging is not right for these families, it doesn't make price sense for a family to sacrifice and go into a lot of loan debt to be here.”
The tuition alone at USC is $52,000 and if you include housing, a meal plan, books, and fees, the cost of attendance is $67,000. Since UCLA is not a private school, the tuition is significantly lower with it being $11,000 and the total cost of attendance is estimated to be $33,000.
Picture of UCLA students walking to class.
UCLA Director of Community Engagement of Diversity Programs, David Morgan, believes if UCLA was a private institution and had full control of allocating financial aid, the population of African-Americans on-campus would definitely increase.
He said, "Since UCLA is a public school that is under strict guideline that's implemented by the state of California, we can't provide the amount of funding, we as the Black Alumni Asssociation think is necessary to attract more African-American students to attend UCLA."
"The Black Alumni Asociation has no control over allocating funding; that is strictly admissions. But what we are able to do is raise money and provide our own scholarships through our UCLA Black Alumni Association."
I reached out to both USC and UCLA admission departments and inquired if I could interview them about the underrepresentation of African-American's on their campus. I also asked, what is their process for recruiting African-American students. I was uanble to get a statement from neither UCLA admissions or USC Admissions. UCLA's admission's office said with the 2018-2019 application deadline approaching, they were unavailable to comment. USC's admission representative was away and unable to comment as well.
Allyson Hill, Associate Dean of Admissions for USC's Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, explained that recruitment for African-American studies varies for the undergraduate and graduate programs at USC.
She said, "There isn't really anything that Annenberg does directly to recruit African-American undergraduate students because that is not our charge. That's the Admisssion's office charge and we participate with them in alot of programming, so we still have the opportunity to engage and interact with undergraduate African-American students."
On the graduate school level, USC's journalism and communication school has full control on how they recruit African-American students. Hill said, "It's actually the Annenberg School that has the responsibility of running its own recruitment and admission selecting process for our graduate program. So for recruiting African-American students, we always include historically black colleges in our recruitment travel in the fall."
Hill explained that USC's journalism school has traveled to various career fairs, including the highly attended, National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) annual convention. Hill also said that when recruiting a diversed class, she and her team, don't just base it off of race. "USC has always used an expansive view of what diversity means. So it's ethnic, but it's also economics, geographic diversity, difference of political view and gender"
Hill said, in order for the population of African-American students to increase at predominantly White institutions, universities need to stop being content with having just five to six percent for the African-American student average population.
She said, "Clearly someone has decided that six percent, is a legitimate number that will diversify a campus. It's just very weird to me, that alot of schools have that same percentage."
USC African-American students mingling at a tailgate party, sponsored by the USC Black Grad Association .
USC African-American Students Perspective
USC Students explain their experiences of being an African-American Student at a predominantly White institution.
UCLA students walking through campus
UCLA African-American Students Perspective
UCLA students explain how they feel attending to a predominantly white institution.
(Picture of students from left to right.)
Chelsey Broady, senior majoring in African-American Studies
Kither Bilal, senior majoring in film
Kaila McGee, masters student majoring in Education
Damonte Jones, junior majoring in anthropology
p
UCLA students cheering in the student section at a basketball game.
Feeling Excluded From the Trojan and Bruin Family
Once a student is accepted into USC or UCLA, the school explains to the students that they immediately become a part of an extended family. This family is typically referred to as the USC Trojan family or the UCLA Bruin family. This network of extended family, typically consists of alumni, current students, professors and employees.
African-American students explained that this family that admissions and school officials promised, often went invisible throughout the four years of their college career. Smith, said that " I have received opportunities from both USC and UCLA at times, but I have not been able to quite capture the family vibe that ultimately persuaded me to attend these institutions."
Some African-American students that I spoke to explained how they are often shocked when they have more than two or three African-American students in their class.
“When I go to class, I am typically the only black person in my class and sometimes that can be extremely frustrating. There have been numerous times where people will avoid sitting next to me and I know it’s because I am black.” Said by senior biochemistry major, Margella Elad.
Smith explained that she has been a part of numerous class discussions where students of other ethnicities will say very ignorant comments like, “There is no racism in the world because we had a black president,” or “ Your family is probably at risk of getting stopped by a cop because they are black right?”
Smith says that she hears comments like this far too often and it makes her feel lost because she feels as if nobody on campus understands who she is as an African-American woman.
UCLA senior, film student, Kither Bilal said, "It is annoying to hear people who are suppose to be so intelligent, make really dumb and offenisve comments. But you know at the end of the day, I knew what I was getting myself into and if I didnt want to put up with this, then I should have just went to an HBCU, but I came to UCLA with a goal, and that was to take advantage of all of their resources they can provide for my major in film."
UCLA student athletes on the football team explained that there is definitely a lack of diversity on campus, specifically with African-American's but athletes are typically able to feel more socially comfortable because the majority of their teammates are African-American."
Senior, student-athlete, Elijah Gates, said, "The majority of the Black people here seem to be athletes, so coming from an athlete standpoint, I am fine because I am always around Black people, because I am with them the majority of the day. We share the same classes together, we have practice, and are even forced to do studyhall toegther; so it's almost like we dont get a break from each other."
UCLA football student-athletes discuss how they feel about UCLA's lack of African-American students on campus.
Gates'teammate Brandon Stephens, explained that he wishes that he could interact with more African-American students who aren't athletes, but it is sometimes hard to find the time to be around them. " It's kind of sad, but it's not our fault. You would think we would be able to interact with other Black students in classes, but all I see is my teammates or other athletes."
Having tough skin and becoming heavily involved in Black student organizations are the key essentials for staying sane according to Smith. She said, "If it wasn't for these organizations and having a sense of community, I would have considered dropping out of college. Bottom line is students won't feel accepted on campus, unless more African American students are enrolled at these institutions.
There are currently over 50 African-American organizations at both USC and UCLA. Students say without these clubs they would be very lost and isolated. " I am currently a member of four African-American clubs and some of my very best friends were made just because of those clubs." USC student, Ariana Seymour, said, she would have transferred her sophomore year if it wasn't for USC's Black Student Assembly (BSA) or Black Alumni Association. "African-American run clubs are truly the absolute only reason for me feeling comfortable at USC."
UCLA and USC have clubs such as the African-American Cinema Society Club, Black Campus Ministries, African-American's in Health, Brother's Breaking B.R.E.A.D and many more.
USC Black Alumni director, Michele Turner, says, "The main way we are going to solve this problem is by successfully recruiting high school African-Americans to attend USC. Right now, it seems as if they are very hesistant to come here."
LAUSD Teaacher, Mario Penados outside of classroomat LA USC Performing Arts Magnet School
Rising seniors and juniors in high school are often being deterred from even applying to schools like USC and UCLA, according to LAUSD high school teacher, Mario Penados. He says that most of students are under the assumption, that USC and UCLA are only for Caucasian students to attend.
Penados said, "Until students are able to see with their own two eyes that enrollment rates of African American are increasing, high school students are not going to want to go there. It is up to USC and UCLA to decide whether they want thoroughly work to change this major problem."
