Study Finds White College Admissions Counselors Looking For The ‘Right Kind’ Of Black Student

Erik Sherman | Forbes

Education is one of the standard answers many have for income inequality. If only people would apply themselves and get a college degree, they’d make more.

It’s one of the great myths of the country because it allows many to blame the victim, when a student’s chance of getting into and graduating from a good university is much lower when they come from a lower-income family.

Except, low-income students have a hard time getting through because they don’t get the same preparation as more privileged kids. There is also the stress of trying to pay for something that continues to overshoot rising costs of living by so far that it might as well be in geosynchronous orbit, winking in the sky but out of reach for many.

That would seem enough of a barrier, but apparently it isn’t if you are black. For all the talk of addressing racial injustices you might hear from universities, a new study, We Want Black Students, Just Not You: How White Admissions Counselors Screen Black Prospective Students, from Ted Thornhill, an assistant professor of sociology at Florida Gulf Coast University, shows a twist on how racism filters through candidates.

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