OCT 3, 2024 | NEWS | By Tessa Frantz
Colorado College enrolled nine Black students in its most recent admissions cycle which makes up just 1.9% of the incoming freshman class according to enrollment data obtained by The Catalyst.
On June 29, 2023, the Supreme Court banned affirmative action within the United States, sparking national conversations surrounding diversity on college campuses. Since the ban, schools of all sizes have seen a downward trend in diversity, however, diverse enrollment is something CC has struggled with for several years now.
“When you look at our overall percentage of students and you even begin to do it granularly by race, we look very similar to where we’ve been,” Dean of Admissions Karen Kristof said. “Nine African American students is not enough. That has been a very low percentage for us for a long time.”
Over the past four years, the percentage of Black students in each freshman class has remained below three percent.
Other liberal arts colleges similar in size to CC have reported low numbers of incoming students of color this year. Middlebury’s campus paper has reported that Black students made up just 4% of this year’s freshman class. Similarly, Williams college recorded that 7.3% of their incoming freshman class identified as Black.
Kristof contends that diversifying the classes at CC is a priority and is by no means where it needs to be.
“One of the challenges in our office is bringing up the students of color numbers. We’d like to be closer to 30% of the student body, so we’re very worried,” Kristof said.
Students of color made up 26.6% of this year’s freshman class. Demographics widely stayed the same within that population with the exception of Asian students who went from making up 26% of the freshman students of color to 18.8%.
The CC website provides multiple links to mission statements reaffirming their status as an anti-racist institution. Last year, surrounding discussions of the affirmative action policy, former president L. Song Richardson took a strong stand on the Supreme Court decision and reaffirmed the college’s commitment to maintaining diverse enrollment numbers.
“We will continue to consider how each student’s background, strengths and characteristics contribute to our intellectually stimulating, creative, and unique community,” she wrote last year in a statement to the CC campus.
Vice President for Enrollment Tony Cabasco emphasized taking a stance of optimism in light of the affirmative action ban, and of CC’s lack of diversity in general.
“We can go out and make sure that our staff is as diverse as it can be. We can certainly make sure that we visit schools and community based organizations,” Cabasco said. “We’re trying to pursue a lot of those race-neutral strategies to build an ideal [applicant] pool.”
Furthermore, CC has developed a new supplemental essay question for this years’ application cycle, focusing more on CC values and hopefully giving students a better space to discuss their identities.
“We’re asking students to think about three of the values that we hold dear as an institution and their experiences with these values,” Kristoff said. “We’ve picked three values that we think are really important to our current community which are antiracism, sustainability and wellness.”
Alongside their diversity struggles, CC also came up short on their total enrollment numbers.
There are roughly 476 members of this year’s freshman class, a stark contrast to the current sophomore class, which contains around 521 members. The admissions department asserts that this was an extremely turbulent year for college admissions, in general, which caused an unexpectedly low class enrollment for the class of 2028.
Kristof mentions the affirmative action ban as a source of chaos for applicants, as well as FAFSA delays and malfunctions, which may have deterred potential students from applying to or attending Colorado College.
The admissions department has no intention of making class sizes smaller, and hopes to cultivate future class sizes of around 520 members. In response to FAFSA malfunctions, they are also relying on the College Scholarship Service (CSS) Profile form, an application for non-federal aid, as a backup plan.