URM in SUNY Schools

Under-represented minorities (URM) have been a staple part of both the New York State population as well as the SUNY population.

URM usually take up almost half of the greater population of New York State, but when looking at the population of people being enrolled into universities over the past decade their numbers have been in the lower percentages.

“When I look around, I can definitely see that,” said Simone Rodriguez. “I especially remember that when I would go on college tours up farther north. There would be diversity in the student body, but you could definitely see who the majority was.”

Although there are several different races within this group, they are frequently combined into one. This group commonly consists of Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, American Indian or Alaskan Native, Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander, and Two or More Races.

According to the SUNY Annual Data Brief on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (June 2017), the overall size of the New York population has remained fairly stable over the past decade. It had grown slightly from 19,229,752 to 19,673,174 – a 2.3% increase in overall population between the 2006-2010 census and 2011-2015 census.

Over the same time period, there have been significant changes in each of the different demographic groups, even if they are not noticeable by percentage.

The Hispanic or Latino population had continued to increase (10.1%), now making up around 18.4 % of the state’s population. The Black or African American population had remained the same over the same period of time (14%), whereas the White population had decreased from 59.2% to 56.8%. Although the Asian population has remained around 7% of the overall state population, the select population has had a 12.8% increase.

Population of New York State by Race

Race                      06-10 pop Pop%    11-15 pop pop%
White ------------------------------ 11374937 59.2 11170518   56.8
Asian ------------------------------- 1381522 7.2 1558536      7.9

Latino/Hispanic --------- 3288880 17.1 3619658     18.4
Black -------------------------------- 2787224 14.5 2831813     14.4
Multiple --------------------------- 251304       1.3 340269    1.7
Other -------------------------------- 94554 0.5 101300       0.5
Indian/Alaskan ----------- 47386 0.2     46324 0.2
Hawaiian ------------------------ 3945 0.0 4756 0.0

Total ------------------------------------ 19229752 100.0 19673174 100.0

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

The general increase and/or stability of the numbers of the URM categories within the overall New York State population shows that there is a shift in the population overall. This shift in demographic proportions has introduced the potential for new experiences and a spread of knowledge in the new demographics.

With this shift in population, the number of people identifying as the different races within the SUNY system had shifted in mostly the same directions – apart from people identifying with the “other” category, which had shown inverse relationships between the amount in the New York State population and the SUNY population.

SUNY Student Body Ethnicity/Races

Race 06 pop% 15 pop%
White ------------------------------ 66.0 58.0
Asian ------------------------------- 4.5 5.6

Latino/Hispanic -------- 6.1 11.5
Black ------------------------------- 8.6 10.6
Multiple ------------------------- 0.0 2.2
Other ------------------------------ 10.5 6.4

Source: SUNY Student Data Warehouse

Student enrollment in SUNY schools has increased around 4.4% since 2006 in general. The enrollment in respect to URM undergrad students has increased by 76.9% and URM graduate students have increased by 37.2%.

This increase shows that over time, more students of varying ethnicities and races have started to both apply and be accepted into the SUNY schools.

“I know when my brother, who is about five years older than me, almost none of his friends were trying to go to real universities,” said Dave Roberts, a soon-to-be first-generation college graduate. “At most, they were applying to community colleges because their guidance counselors convinced them to. But even five years later when I was applying, all of my friends were applying to bigger schools so there must have been some kind of change.”

Percentage of URM in Top Five SUNY Universities by Enrollment

School 06 Enroll URM# URM% 15 Enroll URM# URM% 16 Enroll URM# URM%
Total ------- 417575 63166 15.1 442940 107242 24.2 436138 110399 25.3

UB ---------- 27823 2519 9.1 29808 3923 12.8 30184 4036 13.4

SB ----------- 22522 3432 15.2 25160 4197 16.7 25683 4421 17.2

UA ---------- 17434 2483 14.2 17178 4869 28. 17373 5227 30.1

BU ---------- 14373 1579 11.0 16913 2497 14.8 17292 2656 15.4

ES ----------- 12038 2305 19.1 11878 3364 28.3 11315 3319 29.3

According to the SUNY Annual Data Brief on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (June 2017), as a percentage of the SUNY total enrollment, the URM population had grown from 15.1% in 2006 to 25.3% in 2016. This shows an overall 10.3% increase in URM students in the SUNY system.

Specifically, all but those who had categorized themselves as “unknown” had increased in their percentages over the timespan. Other changes include:

Black or African American increased by 2.2 points
Hispanic or Latino increased by 6.2 points
Two or More Races went from 0% to 2%

Due to these increases and trends that have been shown throughout the past decade, it is a good guess that it is going to continue these trends into the future with a growing amount of people of varying ethnicities and races in the different schools.

“I think there have been changes since I started coming here,” Roberts said. “It hasn’t been long, I’ve been here for five years because I screwed around my first semester, but I don’t know if it’s just been my crowd or the school overall. There’s been a bit of a growth in my opinion at least.”

Source: SUNY Student Data Warehouse