Northern Mich. ranked among 10 whitest colleges in America

The website known as startclass.com, which specializes in creating lists/rankings of U.S. colleges and universities in a variety of categories, produced a list of the Top 10 "Whitest Colleges in America."

What's surprising is that the list, originally published last fall, consists of schools in the Upper Midwest and Appalachia, with no representatives from the South.

On the list at No. 10 is Northern Michigan University, located in the UP on the shores of Lake Superior. Startclass takes a diplomatic approach to these rankings. Here's what they said about NMU:
Located on the south shore of Lake Superior, Northern Michigan University boasts gorgeous white winters and thousands of white students—86% of the 9k student body. While students won’t find much ethnic diversity, they’ll enjoy the natural beauty of NMU’s surrounding forests, as well as a large variety of degree programs: 232 in total.

In an introduction explaining the rating system, the site offered this:
Most American colleges are becoming more racially diverse, even if it’s a slow and complicated process. But a few have remained relatively homogeneous, with 85 percent or more of the student body identifying as white. We turned to the Department of Education to count down the 10 whitest colleges in America. To avoid outliers (like tiny specialty schools), we only considered schools with the following qualifications: 4-year colleges, with at least 5,000 enrolled students.