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Financial Aid in the News

Viewbook Diversity Vs. Real Diversity (Inside Higher Ed)

"In September of 2000, the University of Wisconsin at Madison and the University of Idaho were both embarrassed when they were forced to admit that they had doctored promotional photographs to make their campuses look diverse," Inside Higher Ed reports. "In both cases, non-white faces were added to real student photographs of all-white groups. At the universities involved, officials insisted that they meant well, but just about everyone agreed that Photoshop diversity isn't the real thing. But what if photos, even real photos of real live students, convey a false impression? A sociologist at Augsburg College, together with an undergraduate, recently studied the viewbooks of hundreds of four-year colleges and universities, selected at random. The research team counted the racially identifiable student photographs and also gathered data on the actual make-up of the student bodies. ... Looked at another way, he found that more than 75 percent of colleges appeared to overrepresent black students in viewbooks."

You can read the complete July 2, 2008 Inside Higher Ed article on-line.

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