Demand 3: Address the underrepresentation of HKS BIPOC students by instituting admissions policy reforms, need-based financial aid, and supporting fellowships specifically for Indigenous, Black, and Latinx students.
BIPOC students are underrepresented at HKS. Domestic students are 54% white, but only 11% Latinx, 8% Black, 18% Asian, <1% American Indian or Alaskan Native, and 0% Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander. The HKS student body is majority white and class-privileged, raising serious concerns around who gets access to this institution and whose experiences and knowledge are valued in the admissions process. This privilege is multiplied as graduates go on to positions of leadership in national governments, companies, and nonprofits.
When BIPOC students are applying, HKS has historically failed to effectively conduct outreach and recruit. Instead, BIPOC student organizations are forced to fill the gap and conduct their own unpaid outreach and application support efforts. Furthermore, HKS admissions processes are highly opaque. There is neither transparency around the composition of the admissions committee nor in how the committee is held accountable to equity and diversity goals. HKS must target overrepresentation for incoming classes to account for decades of exclusionary admissions policies and practices rooted in white supremacy and nepotism.
When BIPOC students are admitted, they face a host of concerns and barriers to choosing HKS. In 2019, Dean Isaacson and a team of HKS student volunteers piloted outreach to domestic prospective students of color who declined their HKS admission offers in order to understand the major drivers behind this decision. The major reasons for decline (in order of frequency) were the following: lack of financial aid; a negative admissions experience (e.g. cumbersome financial aid application, lack of outreach, experience during New Admit Day); a lack of diversity in student life and culture; perceptions of a corporate brand; and the academic offerings.
—Shift the financial aid structure from merit-based to need-based. A comprehensive need-based aid strategy should include: an application fee waiver and a needs-based financial aid formula that accounts for parental income and assets in addition to student income and assets. The latter serves to offset the racist policies and practices that prevent BIPOC communities from accumulating intergenerational wealth to afford graduate education, while also benefiting all students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds
—Conduct data disaggregation across a variety of metrics including, but not limited to: African diaspora communities (e.g. African-American, Carribean, Latinx, etc.); AAPIs by subgroups (e.g. people of Chinese, Indian, Vietnamese, Samoan, Hmong, etc. descent); pell grant recipients; country of origin for international students
—Create paid student positions for BIPOC admissions outreach and support, increase transparency in the admissions process, and include students on the admissions committee