While I’m not surprised to see this, it’s still a little sad.
That’s entertainment.
Maybe SEC schools could use some of that sweet, sweet profit their athletic departments are generating to rectify that, but I’m guessing nah.
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“We remember the Sugar Bowl, I think it my junior year of high school, we let Alabama beat us twice,” Brinson said of a team that also lost to the Crimson Tide in the SEC Championship game. “We’re not letting Alabama beat us twice. In the Sugar Bowl in 2018, they… thought they should have been in the playoffs and lost to Texas.” -- AB-H, 12/27/23
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Get The Picture · Bloviation for the Dawgnation
Get The Picture 
Compare this list to any ranking of the state’s public education systems and you will likely see an inverse relationship. Apply socioeconomic factors too and it’s not a surprising outcome. As for what the universities could do about it, I don’t know. Apply admission standards equally to student-atheletes? Hahaha. Targeted recruitment? Sure. Also remember you are competing against several HBCs in Georgia too. Anyway, I don’t think it’s as much an indictment on the SEC as it is on the South’s public school systems.
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Totally agree with your last point. But SEC schools could make a greater effort to rectify that.
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Hmm. Well, you can’t/shouldn’t change admission standards for certain groups. Affirmative action in admissions is a no-no. People usually want to be surrounded by like people so it becomes a cycle with HBCs drawing large concentrations of quality minority students. Scholarships, grants, and programs to lower attendance costs and increase success of targeted groups do work to an extent and are usually non-controversial to all so that’s one area at least to which you could back up the money truck.
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I assume this is snark.
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I know there have been legal cases around the issue of whether or not universities can do this, but I don’t recall what the conclusions were. Regardless, I don’t think it should happen. I also don’t think there should be lower academic standards for athletes, but I’m probably in the minority there.
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There’s a reason college applications ask for race.
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“People usually want to be surrounded by like people”
If Kirby felt like this was hurting his recruiting of these athletes I am sure UGA would find a way to rectify this
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edit: states’
Oh and here’s a link.
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/education
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Can the universities do more to increase underrepresented minority enrollment? Could the SEC do more with its money to enable that? All of those answers are yes.
Intercollegiate athletics has helped improve the diversity of the college campus. I think that should be celebrated.
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I think that chart might be using a bad comparison. Hasn’t society’s goal for a long time been to have the same percent of black males in the student body as in the state population?
I realize that the point of the chart is to advocate for more black males in the student body, but has anybody ever compared the percentage of black male athletes to the state population? And yes, I’m thinking there is a much larger percentage of black male athletes than in the state population.
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I’m not sure what I’m looking at. Is the chart showing the percentage difference between athletes as compared to the student body as a whole?
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I think so. That’s what the tweet seems to say.
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The real answer to the question is minority enrollment as a percentage of the state’s population racial mix. Using current data form, Georgia is 31% black/African-American, but 8.6% of the undergrad population at UGA is reported in the demographic. That shows the gap that really needs to close.
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Sure, but I don’t know why it’s the university’s problem to solve. It seems to require a bottom-up solution rather than top-down, unless we want to completely overhaul the university mission and system to make it universally accessible.
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It’s not just the university’s problem to solve. The university does need to put more into in-state minority recruitment (it already does quite a bit). The Commit to Georgia campaign is all about making UGA a more affordable option for students with financial need. The state education system needs to continue to improve especially as UGA becomes more selective (that’s not just for minority students. If I’m reading the stats right, the only City of Atlanta high school in the top 96 for last year’s UGA freshman class was Grady with 22 students.
It’s a very complex problem to solve.
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As Thomas says, it is not “just” the University’s problem to solve. The General Assembly and local schools also have (significant) roles to play.
Another question Thomas also alludes to, but that no one really wants to ask (much less answer), is whether the University’s becoming more and more “selective” is really a good thing for the state as a whole – which it is supposed to represent – or not?
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I think it is good for the state as a whole for UGA to be selective. With 29,000 applications and 13,000 acceptances for roughly 5,700 spots in the freshman class, there’s no doubt the school has to be selective. To become less selective would require a ton of infrastructure and capital improvements as well as many more employees (not just in the classroom). The Common Application has made it so easy to apply now that the number of applications has gone through the roof.
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The question is HOW it should close. I see two ways: (1) lower admission standards for African-Americans, or (2) improve public education in primarily African-American communities. Option 1 is an insult to African-Americans and stamps all African-American students with a stigma. Ask me how I know.
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I think the problem your Option 2 acknowledges does more to insult and stigmatize African-Americans than your Option 1. And, no, I don’t need to ask you how you know.
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I have to disagree. Option 2 is being done to some level of success where we live. All the wealthy suburban schools (beach front or water front so really wealthy) are some of the highest performing in the state and very overcrowded. The city schools are below capacity and some of the worst in the state. The state has pumped a ton of money into the city schools by introducing specialized STEM programs or Language Immersion programs (my kid is in this even though we live in the burbs). It has attracted better teachers and improved facilities. I would expect this to improve public education in these schools and hopefully provide these kids with more opportunity. Dumbing down admissions standards does not help anyone.
How about an open thread to discuss the debates? The Wednesday funbag sucked this week.
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My wife is an administrator in a predominately African American school. Explain to me:
“I think the problem your Option 2 acknowledges does more to insult and stigmatize African-Americans than your Option 1.”
It is a complex problem that we are trying to breakdown into simple solutions. That just does not take into account all factors.
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Totally agree – improving education options for African-American communities is the answer. More scholarship money to make UGA a more attractive option is another.
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Thomas: your comparison is the one I was thinking of. Using the percentage of athletes isn’t useful or meaningful. Tis not mine to reason why, but it’s true that a much greater portion of athletes . . . etc.
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HS, I didn’t do the research on the guy who tweeted those stats. I have to assume he’s trying to make some lame point that black student-athletes are only on campus to entertain.
I bet there are a number of athletes regardless of race that don’t meet what were the middle 50% of the admitted class of 2023:
UGA calculated GPA: 4.00-4.27
AP/AB/Dual enrollment: 6-11 courses
SAT super-score: 1330-1460
ACT super-score composite: 29-33
Source: http://ugaadmissions.blogspot.com/2019/03/2019-freshmen-final-admits.html?m=1
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@ee: Why does that gap need to close? The requirements for admission to UGA are pretty stringent. Why does race have to figure in?
First come first serve that qualify, black white or green with purple spots.
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I didn’t say race has to figure in. Improve the education system so that kid from South Atlanta can get admission to UGA just like the kid from south Forsyth County. If you think they both have the same opportunity, you are kidding yourself.
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Could it also be said that white males are underrepresented? Overall this is a decision based on athletic ability & character at a minimum academic requirement. Same as employment. Hire the most productive with decent character.
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I imagine if the schools did away with the reduced academic requirements for football and basketball athletes to be admitted, the numbers would fall into line almost immediately.
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Could we see those numbers for the basketball teams.
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I’m curious to know what conclusions most people would draw from this data. Is there some stigma around the SEC schools that prevents black male (non-athlete) students from wanting to go there? Or is it that the only way a black male student can afford to attend these schools is with the financial support of an athletic scholarship? Or is the issue rooted in academics as others here have suggested?
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The (way overly broad) general answer is “yes, yes and yes”. Those are all rather significant factors on their own, and even more so when they are combined or overlap as they do in many cases, IMO.
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Not too over simplify a complex problem, but check the numbers on single-parent households.
This gets back to root causes not just symptoms.
There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root. Henry David Thoreau
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Strong comment.
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I think he’s advocating for decreasing African American participation in D1 sports.
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Having been born and raised in Mississippi, I really hate seeing Miss State and Ole Miss right at the top of that list….
Especially considering the fact that Mississippi has the highest-percentage black population of any state (39%).
As the kids say, SMH.
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This where the stat used here is misleading. 20% of MSU’s student body is black. That’s far better than most state schools. Ole Miss is only 12.9%, though that’s not really outside university/state demographic ratios at other major state schools in the south. UGA’s black student body amounts to 7.9%, for example, despite the state having a black population around 30%.
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I shouldn’t say “better” in relation to the 20% at MSU, since I really don’t think it’s better or worse if MSU has a larger black population than other schools. But theirs is far larger than most if you do think that matters.
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What does race have to do with it?
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It looks like Ohio State could use a little less team speed.
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