PSU Sees Increase in Students of Color

Tuesday, November 17, 2015

GoLocalPDX News Team

28 percent of Portland State University Students are students of color, according to statistics released by the University. That is an increase from 23 percent last year, and the largest percentage of students of color ever at Portland State.

“It is our responsibility to be accessible to all Oregonians,” said Wim Wiewel, the school’s President. “We’ve made significant investments to attract and support student diversity, as these numbers show, but we still have more to do.”

Latino students are the fastest growing minority population in Oregon. Portland State has a total of 2,932 Latino students, a 10.4 percent increase from last year. There are 2,125 Asian students, a 7.6 increase from 2014, 906 Black students, up 3.2 percent, 362 Native American students, up 1.3 percent, 162 Pacific Islanders, a 0.6 percent increase, and 1,437 students of multiple races or ethnicities, a 5.1 percent increase

Portland State has done more to recruit minority students to its campus in recent years, according to the University, including hiring a full-time Latino admissions recruiter and holding many outreach events on campus and in the community.

“Even more of a focus for PSU is the retention of our students of color to graduation and beyond,” said Carmen Suarez, PSU’s Chief Diversity Officer. “This retention requires that we continuously partner with all of our students so that they have successful outcomes, both in the classroom and across our campus.”

Related Slideshow: 10 Oregon Colleges With The Most Reported Crime

Public and private universities are required to report criminal offenses every year, under the federal Jeanne Clery Act. GoLocalPDX analyzed the reports, made public through the Department of Education, for data from 2009 through 2013.

The ranking is based on the average reported crime over five years, per 1,000 students.