Holding more than a quarter of the Black student population at Ivy League universities, immigrant college students show their potential. The sad fact though, is that there is less Black American presence at many top universities. According to the American Journal of Education, the nation's most elite colleges and universities are bolstering their black student populations by enrolling large numbers of immigrants from Africa and the West Indies.
Many universities credit the large representation of Black immigrants now being enrolled to the restitution for decades of excluding Black Americans from campuses. But while these universities are busy embracing wider diversity, Black Americans are excluded from their focus. Many researchers of studies that have been carried out on the new found diversity in many of our most elite universities claim that university officials find African Americans difficult to deal with, and thus "solve their problem" by enrolling more immigrant Blacks.
Fact is, as more Blacks migrate to the United States, universities are bombarded with applications from college-aged Black students. These are students who did not experience the stigmas in the US because they are from countries where Blacks are in the majority. Many times these students can also afford the expenses associated with attending top universities; international students who are not citizens receive less or no financial aid.
Diversifying Black representation on campus and transforming the traditional view of the Ivy League Elite (formerly majority White) is definitely a move towards change. Hopefully other universities will follow, extending a hand to both Black immigrants and Americans.
