GOLDSEA | ASIAN AMERICAN U

CONTACT US | ADVERTISING INFO

© 1996-2013 Asian Media Group Inc
No part of the contents of this site may be reproduced without prior written permission.

GOLDSEA | ASIAN AMERICAN U

Berkeley's Asian Percentage Jumps to 45.2%

he Asian American population at UC Berkeley rose from 41% of total undergraduate enrollment during the 1998-99 academic year to 45.2% for the 1999-2000 school year, putting it even with UCLA for the title of top Asian American University. Whites are 34.7% of UCB's total undergraduate student population of 22,705. Also enrolled are 8,642 graduate students, bringing UCB's total student population to 31,347.
     A total of 10,278 Bears describe themselves as Asian/Asian American/Pacific Islanders. Of those 8,967 are undergraduates and 1,311 are graduate students. Of the 11,421 students describing themselves as Whites/Caucasians, 6,878 are undergraduates and 4,543 are grad students. In the graduate division Whites outnumber Asians 67.1% to 19.4% reflecting two key factors: (1) the high ratio of out-of-state students in the graduate division; and (2) the fact that UCB doesn't have a medical or dental school.
     Persons of Chinese ancestry easily make up the most numerous Asian nationality among Berkeley undergraduates, with 4,544, followed by Coreans with 1,399, East Indian/Pakistanis with 789, Filipinos with 617, Japanese with 419, Pacific Islanders with 67 and other Asians (mostly Vietnamese and those choosing to designate themselves Taiwanese) with 1,132. In addition to the above-named categories, there are 850 international students in the UG division, of which about 70% are from Asia. Another 2,012 students chose not to classify themselves by ethnicity.
     The only U.S. campus that rivals Berkeley in terms of the number of Asian students is UCLA. No accuate ethnic data is available, but UCLA's undergrad population, which is virtually identical in size to Berkeley's, is estimated to be about 43-45% Asian. The two campuses are the largest of the elite UC system and are virtually identical in overall student population, setting aside UCLA's health sciences schools of medicine, dentistry, nursing and public health which collectively number 3,784 students.
     The biggest spur to the rising Asian student enrollment was the death of affirmative action effective 1999.