African American students’ college choice processes in a post 209 era

Abstract

High-achieving African American students in California are not attending University of California (UC) campuses. Due to hyper-implementations of Proposition 209, which limited UC campuses’ ability to use race as a significant admission criteria, the UC system and individual UC campus policies have scaled back their efforts to recruit high-achieving African American students from California. This article presents findings from the qualitative portion (n = 74) of a convergent mixed-method study of over 700 African American college-going students. Findings convey the critical role that access, outreach, diversity, and climate plays in the college choice process of African American high achievers. Drawing upon higher education and critical race literature, the findings further reveal the challenges and opportunities for states and elite universities in retaining its brightest students from diverse backgrounds. This research also conveys the potential of research to inform state, systemic, and institutional policies to increase access to selective public universities.