U. of South Carolina Wants Its Share of Black Students to Mirror Black Population in the State

The president of the University of South Carolina at Columbia, as part of a commitment to a recently approved strategic plan, pledged to increase the number of African American students enrolled at the flagship institution.

What’s the goal? For the share of Black students at the university to be “approaching” the share of Black residents in the state — about 27 percent — by 2025, said Robert L. Caslen, during a virtual town hall for students and families early this week. Black students make up 9.5 percent of undergraduate enrollment at South Carolina now.

Black students are “hugely underrepresented,” said Caslen during the town hall, where improving the institution’s low numbers of African American faculty was also discussed as part of diversity and inclusion efforts underway. “That has to be looked at, and that has to be addressed.”

The institution’s plans to help it recruit more Black students include developing and expanding pipeline programs that help elementary- and secondary-school students get on the path to attend the university, and increasing scholarship and fellowship money for underrepresented minorities, Caslen said. The intermediate goal is for Black students to make up 15 percent of the undergraduate student body by 2022.

Federal data shows that at most flagships, particularly in Southern states, the gap between the share of Black students and the share of Black people in the state is a wide one. The map below shows just how widespread — and extensive — that lack of parity is.