Quoting myself from a different thread as an attempt to answer the original question posed here. This quote refers to the benefits of diversity generally, which would be one of the goals in why a university would seek to have a diverse student body.
There are, however, a number of benefits of diversity, and by that I mean racially/ethnically as well as socioeconomically, geographically (not just states but urban/rural as well as international), religiously, politically, etc.
You (and others) get to see beyond stereotypes. You meet people from a rural area who love rap, or someone raised in a tenement building who loves opera. Hispanics who don’t speak Spanish or international students who write better English papers than most of the class. A Southern Baptist in an LGBTQ ally group or an atheist doing a thesis on religious buildings. It helps you to realize that stereotypes are just that, and that people are not stereotypes.
Not only do you get to see beyond stereotypes, but you really get to understand different perspectives. For example, you’re assigned a roommate and the two of you eat meals together, hang out, etc. You get to know the person as a person and later on when conversations arise about that person’s experiences (particularly on subjects you already have your own opinions on, be it about a politician, an environmental issue, a political issue, etc) and you’re better able to see the issue from a different side. Right now, our country has a lot of people with their blinders on or who only get their news/media from their own “bubble” which paints a lot of stereotypes about people on the “other” side. But because you’ve already gotten to know your roommate, you’re able to listen and hear that perspective more rationally. This also applies just to people in your classes. It’s a safe environment to hear other perspectives and WHY they think that way and for people to challenge your ideas based on things you’ve never thought about but that they have experienced.
Too often people’s friends and families share a very large percentage of similar beliefs, and so they never challenge each other because they all think alike. Those outside perspectives are key to helping you acknowledge assumptions you never even knew you were making, and make you reevaluate your own positions.
The above benefits, however, are only true if you seek out opportunities for discussions and to be around people that you haven’t generally been around before. Does it mean y’all have to become best friends for life? No. But attending a “diverse” university but only dealing with a homogeneous subset of that population doesn’t provide nearly as many of those benefits. Look for discussion classes, take classes in areas that you are likely to find many differing views or about populations with which you have very little familiarity, participate in clubs or university-sponsored events that are designed to encourage these types of interactions. That’s when you’ll truly be able to take advantage of a university’s diversity.
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