Report: Georgia State awarded most B.A. degrees to blacks in nation

ATLANTA - Georgia State University awarded more bachelor&#39;s degrees to black students last year than any other non-historically black college in the country, officials report. <br> <br> Preliminary statistics from the Department of Education for the 2000-01 academic year show that 743 black students received bachelor&#39;s degrees from Georgia State, 30.1 percent of the bachelor&#39;s degrees the school awarded. <br> <br> University administrators say they have worked to maintain a diverse student population by offering a balance of academic programs and social events. The Office of African-American Student Services and Programs was opened in 1990. <br> <br> ``We&#39;re getting more minority faculty, better quality undergraduate programs and are attracting more students into our graduate programs,&#39;&#39; Georgia State associate provost Bill Fritz said. <br> <br> ``We made an environment in which minorities could succeed all students could succeed.&#39;&#39; <br> <br> The downtown Atlanta university, the second-largest public university in Georgia, enrolls more black students than any other public or private college in the state. Last fall, 6,878 of the school&#39;s 25,743 students or 27 percent were black. The largest campus the University of Georgia, with 32,317 students enrolled 1,832 black students. Clark Atlanta University, Georgia&#39;s largest historically black school, enrolled 4,186. <br> <br> ``Students come on campus, and it&#39;s so large,&#39;&#39; said Doris Derby, director of African-American student services and programs at GSU. ``They have to have a place where they can feel at home.&#39;&#39; <br> <br> For the second year, nearby Georgia Tech ranked first in the nation in the number of engineering master&#39;s and doctoral degrees awarded to black students, according to preliminary statistics from the Department of Education. <br> <br> However, Tech fell to second place in the number of engineering bachelor&#39;s degrees 107 earned by black students. North Carolina A&T State University, a historically black school, awarded the most, with 120.