Diversity in Nebraska
As we narrow down the students at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, we get to see how hard of a transition it really could be by looking at the demographics. At UNL, the College Simply racial diversity meter is at low with 77% of students being white, 3% black, 5% hispanic, 8% international and 2% asian. With this being said, when an international/foreign student comes to a University like this, the transition of using a 2nd language as your first can be stressful.
According to the Migration Policy Institute in 1990 28,198 people lived in Nebraska and were born outside of the United States (1.8% of the population). In 2000, this number reached 74, 638 (4.4% of the population). By 2019, the number of people born outside of the United States living in Nebraska was 142,468 (7.4% of the population). The 2018 statistics from the American Immigration Council stated that 7% of Nebraska residents are immigrants. In Nebraska, 34% immigrated from Mexico, 7% from Guatemala, 5% from India, 4% from Myanmar, and 4% from Vietnam. 73% of immigrants reported speaking English “well” or “very well”. 24% of immigrants have completed college or more (33% natives), 18% have completed some college (35% natives), 22% have completed high school (26% natives), 35% have completed less than high school (6% natives). Nebraska is growing and getting more diverse each year and it is great to see that Nebraska cares so much.
Even with UNL’s rare diversity, College Factual claims that UNL is 80th out of 1,279 in international popularity. The countries with the largest on campus-communities are China, Malaysia and India. International students at UNL do not get the same communication as most of the college which makes group work, understanding of the information learned and meeting new people harder. Broadening up the topic to Lincoln, Nebraska as a whole, the Lincoln Journal Star states that of the 258,000 people in Lincoln, 19,000 or 7.4 percent are foreign. Lincoln is a place that welcomes international people. Nebraska has always welcomed others into this state and are looking to grow in this area. Expanding further from UNL, in Lincoln between 2015-2019, around 8.5% of the population was foreign born. The population estimate of Lincoln in 2019 was 289,102 people. In Omaha, this percentage was 10.7% of the population. The estimate for Omaha was 478,192 people.