Five counties make up large portion of first-year class

Over a fourth of Miami University’s most diverse class yet comes from five Midwestern counties.

Cuyahoga County sent Miami 322 freshmen this year, followed by 287 from Hamilton, 262 from Franklin, 234 from Butler and 170 from Cook County in Illinois, as of the 15th day of the fall semester. Not one of those counties is farther than five hours away from the heart of Miami’s Oxford campus.

Each of these counties is primarily white with an average yearly income that puts them securely in the middle class, according to the United States Census.

Director of Admissions Bethany Perkins said the concentration of students from these counties is not intentional but simply a byproduct of the high populations in those areas. The represented counties include large cities like Cleveland, Cincinnati, Columbus and Chicago.

There are 88 counties total in the state of Ohio.

Miami will attempt to reach each of these counties with the introduction of the Ohio Governor's Scholarship, an award that will provide a full scholarship to one student from each county in Ohio with the goal of geographic diversification.

In addition to the governor’s scholarship, Miami also has a program called the Miami Access Initiative which provides scholarships based on annual family income. Through this program, 29 percent of students who are Ohio natives will pay less than $5,000 a year in tuition, with 15 percent of those students paying no tuition at all.

“We are committed to affordability and diversification,” said Perkins. “We want to send the message that all of Ohio will be included.”

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