Students Identified as Being of ‘Unknown’ Race Tend to Be White, Study Finds

Colleges may be mistakenly classifying white students as being racially “unknown,” according to a report released last week.

The report, “‘Unknown’ Students on College Campuses: An Exploratory Analysis,” was issued as part of the James Irvine Foundation’s Campus Diversity Initiative, an effort by the nonprofit group in San Francisco to help California’s underrepresented students succeed in college.

According to the report’s authors, their findings suggest that colleges are admitting fewer minority students than previously thought. By comparing demographic data submitted by students before they were admitted to college with data compiled after the students were accepted, the researchers found that many students who identified themselves as “unknown” for their racial or ethnic classification were either white or multiracial.

The study’s main conclusion is that colleges need to collect more-precise data on the racial and ethnic backgrounds of their students.

The report’s authors wrote: “Over the course of several decades . . . we have encountered many people who assume that most, if not all, students in the unknown category are multiracial. This study directly challenges that assumption and primes the field for further research in this area.”

A full copy of the report is available on the foundation’s Web site (http://www.irvine.org/publications/by_topic/education.shtml).

http://chronicle.com Section: Students Volume 52, Issue 19, Page A41