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Rankings appear in The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education
Lafayette was ranked 12th in percentage of black first-year enrollment among the top 30 liberal arts colleges in the country according to the Autumn 2007 edition of The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education (JBHE).
44 black students were accepted by the College in the fall of 2007, which made up 7.4 percent of the first-year class. For the purposes of this study, JBHE considers black to mean African-Americans and foreign-born blacks.
This ranking places the College above schools such as Colgate University, Bucknell University, Trinity College, Vassar College, and Washington and Lee University.
The College also ranked 13th among the same group in gains in black student enrollment. 38 black students were members of the 2006 first-year class. The 44 black students in 2007 represented a 15.8 percent gain.
The same issue of the journal also includes an article ranking Lafayette fifth among top liberal arts colleges in percentage of African American faculty and a feature on David Kearney McDonogh, Class of 1844. McDonogh was the College’s first African American graduate and perhaps the first person with legal status as a slave ever to receive a college degree.