Coveted Minorities

continued

That's made it hard for Michigan to compete with Ivy League schools, which offer the most highly sought minority candidates all-expense-paid "free rides."

While coveted minority students may be trading up, other students are trading down. Though applications barely rose last year, the U-M admitted a whopping 19 percent more students, anticipating that financial pressures would steer many toward less expensive universities or community colleges or toward forgoing college altogether. They were right: the number who actually enrolled grew only 5 percent--still enough to set an all-time record of 6,079 students in the Class of 2013. With hard times continuing, officials again are pumping up admissions to the Class of 2014.   

[Originally published in January, 2010.]