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No it shouldn't, now consider the fact that HBCUs used to pick up the slack where minorities wouldn't be admitted into primarily Caucasian institutions, and the fact that one of the primary reasons that minorities are widely represented at some institutions is because of affirmative action it is easy to see why race is considered. Not only does it help schools to receive more federal money it also helps to diversify the schools, which is always a good thing. Of course you always hear about how there was one Caucasian student who was not able to get into the school of his choice because the school preferred to pick a minority to fill the quote, which is unfortunate, but that rarely means that the student was not able to go to school at all, just the one that he or she had their hopes set on.

On the other hand, students should be able to be admitted strictly for meeting the criterion and being up to par, not based off of race alone. I do not personally know if there are many students who are passed over in preference of students of another race, for other reasons, and that definitely should not be the case. In fact, the whole affirmative action sort of puts you back in the same place because technically all schools have to meet those criterion anyway, so you are still at the same place you started from. The only difference being is that rather than 100% of the students being of a singular race you have numbers that closer meet reality, perhaps 90%, with 10% of another race or races, or whatever. But of that 90% that is remaining, do admissions offices simply fill up all of those slots with Caucasians, or African-Americans if it were an HBCU or do they still take everything into consideration and hire the best students for the job?

The numbers at HBCUs definitely are not representative of the general demographic for a number of reasons, first off being that students of other races typically do not want to attend HBCUs, and if they do it may be for reasons more complex than simply wanting to receive a quality education, which is perfectly fine so you will never receive a lot of applicants wanting to attend the institution anyway. The other reason is that HBCUs often serve as a gateway to other institutions when the student does not finish his education there and transfers or if the student wants to pursue a graduate degree in a field that isn't offered there, in fact some HBCUs do not offer graduate degrees whatsoever. Many students start there but do not finish there. But of other institutions would it benefit the school to enroll everyone that wants to attend regardless of they are not particularly "good" for the school from a social aspect? There are many questions to answer here but I do not necessarily feel that race should be considered as a primary factor for college admission.

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