Increase of non-black student enrollment at FAMU

Non-black student enrollment has increased by more than 100, while the African-American population has slowly decreased by almost 400 students. According to the Office of Institutional Research enrollment, between the years 2011 and 2015 FAMU’s campus has become more diverse than it has ever been before.

Lindsay Caserio, an occupational therapy graduate student at FAMU, expressed her perspective on student enrollment.

“If you look at our class [occupational therapy grad] we are more diverse… we have different cultures, but I love it, that’s how the world is so it’s great studying where there’s diversity,” said Caserio.

Nigel Edwards, the Associate Vice President of the Division of Student Affairs, elaborated on these statistics.

“We’re [FAMU] actually one of the most diverse HBCU’s. It’s a good thing that we’re becoming more diverse because that means the word is going out about our school from all over. We have some of the best schools: School of Business and Industries, School of Journalism, one of the top 20 nursing school, etc., it’s not much about ethnicity or race, we want good students as a whole,” said Edwards.

Edwards also addresses how the decrease of black students at FAMU has happened and how the university is working to continue to raise the enrollment.

“In terms of enrollment, we’re going up. But there are some concerns…we’re working on our retention … we’re trying to figure out why we lost some of our elite 3.0 students… we need to ensure that the students we admit graduate,” Edwards said.

Edwards also confirmed that the university is working on gaining more supplemental instructors in tutoring and group studies to help students academically. He also intends to figure out if the decrease in African-American students is a personal or academic problem.

Ryan Rogers, an undergraduate psychology student, had this to say about FAMU’s recruitment initiatives.

“FAMU gave me an opportunity no other university offered. Because of this institution, I will have a 4-year degree and be debt free this upcoming April,” said Rogers.

FAMU continues to pursue diversity initiatives, not just in race, but in the type of programs offered to its’ diverse students.