How can colleges increase their minority students population - Essay Example

Colleges such as University of Southern California, University of San Francisco and even Stanford University have gained many benefits from having a diverse population both in terms of students and faculty. However, it must be noted that, obtaining a high level of diversity is not an easy objective and a lot has to be done by many colleges before they can claim to have diversity as an advantage that the offer to their students. Diversity can be clearly understood as a competitive advantage since it allows students to experience the world as it would be in their real life work environment.

As per the suggestions given by Sherman (1996), the experience of diversity can help in breaking any stereotypes that a person may have and this would help in improving not only the overall outlook of the student but also improve their chances of having better future encounters with individuals coming from diverse backgrounds. There are several strategies that can be recommended to colleges for increasing their level of diversity. The most practical advice in this case is given by Dr. Campbell (2006) who works with the NAMCE (National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering).

She suggests that colleges should try and reach out to diverse populations rather than sit back and hope that diverse populations will seek them out. She also applauds the GE Foundation that funded the Math Excellence program which helped colleges get more diverse engineering students through financial education support and by creating connections between colleges and students. As suggested by Trumble and Overstreet (2006), such connections work in the corporate world quite affectively when it comes to retention and recruitment and there is no reason why they can not work in the education sector.

These connections were formed when colleges brought students from a diverse background to the campus in order to help them understand why