Diversity at Tulane

northwesty
Thu, 21 Mar 2013 22:01:05 +0000

First, I’d cut TU some slack too over Katrina. It is pretty amazing how the school has bounced back from that near death experience and gotten stronger. TU has become so much more well known, popular and admissions selective since Katrina.

Second, as noted above, TU’s enrollment for AAs is in line with its peers. Their “persons of color” numbers reflect lower numbers of Asians and Latinos. Not sure what factors into that. Although I do note that two of the peers cited were Rice and Miami, where location might aide in recrutiment of Latinos as compared to Nola.

Third, TU does attract kids from far away. As the front page of the Sunday NY Times just pointed out, high achieving/low income kids have a strong tendency to attend schools close to home. That might hurt TU somewhat.

Last, TU’s big use of merit aid probably factors in too. That’s a tried and true technique to improve admissions selectivity – a $25k merit scholarship gets you a smart kid whose parents can afford to pay the remaining $30k with no need-based aid. As TU moves up the pecking order, I’d expect them to dial back the merit aid in favor of more need-aid (which would increase diversity).