Racial Integration in Higher Education in the North

Abstract

The scant supply of qualified Negro applicants to fill the ample opportunities available retards racial integration in higher education in the North. The fact that Negroes constitute less than 1 per cent of our Northern college population of almost 2 million is not because of reluctance to make places for them. Negroes are not excluded from colleges or graduate and professional schools, either in theory or in practice, in the 31 Northern states. Attitudes towards their admission range from willing to eager. It is the insufficiency of qualified applicants that holds the numbers down. In the past five years the National Scholarship Service and Fund for Negro Students has alone found places and $500,000 worth of scholarship assistance for more than 2,300 Negro students in over 280 different inter-racial colleges in 27 states. It might have found places for five times that number, had the qualified candidates been available.