Penn State won't be making any changes to its admissions policies even if the United States Supreme Court decides race can not be used as a factor for university admissions.

The Supreme Court recently agreed to hear two cases in which it will consider if the University of Michigan's affirmative action admissions policies unconstitutionally denied acceptance to white applicants.

Penn State does not use race as a factor in admissions and therefore won't be affected by the decision, said Ed Escalet, director of minority admissions and community affairs. However, Escalet said the university may use a student's race to determine which Penn State campus the student will attend.

Other factors, such as athletic ability or other talents, are also taken into consideration.

The increasingly large size of Penn State's student body allows the university to maintain its diversity without giving preference to minority applicants, Escalet said.

"Our number of minority [students] won't go down because our number of students in general will increase," said Terrell Jones, vice-provost for educational equity.

Even though race isn't a direct consideration for admission, the university does actively recruit minority students.

"We are partly looking for academically talented students of color," Jones said.

However, he said diversity does not only incorporate minority races but also other underrepresented groups, such as women.

Regardless of the strategies a university uses to diversify its student body, variety is a crucial part of higher education, Jones said.

"Students are so much more marketable if they have cross-cultural competencies," he said. "The rest of the world looks a lot different than Happy Valley."

Erik Malewski, diversity advocate for the university, also said he doesn't see the case affecting Penn State directly. He agrees on the importance of a diverse student body but doesn't think affirmative action policies are always an effective way of achieving the goal.

"Affirmative action is a step in the right direction," Malewski said.

"But until we take care of inequality [issues] at the core, we have to look at other ways to solve the problem," he added.