Whites Enrolling In Black Colleges -- Recruitment, Price Entice, But Percentages Still Low

JACKSON, Miss. - There were the usual freshman jitters: the unsettling feeling of being away from home, the fear of not fitting in, the anxiety about a tough class schedule.

But Jeffry Edelman had a different introduction to college life. He was a white student on the campus of a historically black college.

"I pretty much wasn't sure of what to expect," said Edelman, 32, a biology and premedical student at Jackson State University. "Everybody kind of looked at me funny the first day. Then someone introduced themselves to me and it was all downhill from there."

Only a small percentage of the nation's 14.3 million college students are in similar situations. White enrollment at the nation's historically black colleges and universities remains low, and little research has been done to look at the life of white students on mostly black campuses.

According to a 1996 study by the National Center for Educational Statistics, about 36,000 of the 280,000 students attending historically black colleges - some 13 percent - were white. The figures were for 1994, the latest year for which numbers are available. In 1976, that number was 9.5 percent.

Black students made up 11 percent of the total student population nationwide in 1997, according to the Department of Education.

Education officials say affordability, location and improved quality in programs have helped increase white enrollments at schools that once catered only to black students. In several cases, colleges that were historically black are no longer mostly black.

"A lot of the increase deals with economics," said Charlene Hoffman, a program analyst for the Department of Education. "Students are going to school nearby."

Hoffman said most historically black public colleges and universities are competitive academically and financially with other schools. "And people have gotten over some of their prejudices," she said.

As they seek to boost enrollments, these historically black colleges and universities, or HBCUs, have borrowed techniques that predominantly white schools use to recruit black students.

"We have academic-diversity scholarship programs for financial support for white students based on academic guidelines," said Abby Sharpe, a minority recruiter at Jackson State University, where 3 percent of the 6,500-person student body in 1996-97 was white.

Sharpe, a white Jackson State graduate, said some potential white students have preconceived notions about life on a historically black campus.

"There is occasionally a student who may have those stereotypical notions, and I have to spend more time taking them around campus," she said. "I have to hold their hands and make them feel comfortable. After that, they usually say their fears are unfounded."

Around the nation, there are 103 colleges and universities that are considered historically black. The largest, the University of the District of Columbia, with an enrollment of more than 10,500, is less than 3 percent white, according to the study. Others, like Lincoln College in Missouri and Bluefield State in West Virginia, today have white-majority student bodies.

Eddie Jackson, assistant vice president of public affairs at Florida A&M University in Tallahassee, said white students are attracted to his school's strong academic programs. He said white enrollment at Florida A&M, about 7 percent of the 10,084 students, has risen steadily in recent years.

Though administrators say that, for the most part, white students at predominantly black schools make the transition with ease, problems do exist.

Administrators at HBCUs say they have trouble recruiting whites who are first-time college students, especially those right out of high school. White students attending HBCUs tend to be older than the norm. They often come from community colleges or are trying to change careers.

Like Edelman, Jason Boehner, a 27-year-old architecture major at Florida A&M, said his first day on campus was a unique experience.

"I thought I was in a different world," he said. "I thought, `Wow! This is totally different.' It was scary at first. I felt alone until I started to open my mouth and talk to other people."

Edelman and Boehner said they are happy with their experiences.

"I have really been able to let go of things from my parents' and grandparents' generation. If I had the choice to do it over again, I would go without any hesitation," Boehner said.