When everybody tries to recruit from the same pool, the number of black and Hispanic undergraduates does not grow.

In 1928, he enrolled at Columbia, where he was one of five black undergraduates at the time.

The first black undergraduate was Frederick Scott who entered the school in 1945.

The big issue on campus was desegregation of the student body, because there were no black undergraduates at the time.

The absolute number of black undergraduates also fell, to 734,000 in 1985 from 749,000 in 1976.

There may also be bursaries and scholarships for black undergraduates - an ethnic version of schemes run in the universities by the armed services.

The university's record is particularly noteworthy because its first black undergraduates did not enroll until 1955.

The number of black undergraduates declined from a high of about 70 in the mid-1970's to 40 last year.

In 1980 the figure for black undergraduates was 1,028,000.