While Penn State officials welcomed the U.S. Supreme Court decision last week backing the use of affirmative action by universities, they said the Court's decision would have little impact on Penn State's admissions process.

Officials said the university uses affirmative action in its admissions process, but race is not a factor in its final decisions.

"It was good to see the majority of the Supreme Court ruled that diversity is important on college campuses," Penn State spokesman Bill Mahon said. "That is certainly something we strive for at Penn State."

In the Supreme Court decision, justices upheld the University of Michigan's consideration of race in admissions but did not approve of it as a determining factor in the decision.

Penn State evaluates students based on their high school record, including grade point average, Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) or ACT Assessment scores, class rank, and other honors, but not race, said John Romano, dean and vice provost of enrollment.

The University of Michigan used a points-based admissions process, for which students received extra points for being a minority.

"[Michigan's approach] didn't seem to have a useful application within Penn State," Romano said.

One reason for this could be that the University of Michigan has only one campus and a lower enrollment and is therefore more selective, Terrell Jones, vice provost for educational equity, said.

While the university does not consider race in its decisions, Romano said it "absolutely" uses affirmative action in its admissions process.

Romano said Penn State actively recruits minorities from Pennsylvania -- with recruitment centers in Harrisburg, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh -- and other areas.

The aim is to create a student population representative of the state's population, Jones said.

"Our goal ... is reasonable representation," he said. "That's always been our goal. We're nowhere near that."

Jones said the black population in Pennsylvania is about 11 percent while Penn State's is only about 4 percent.

While bringing minorities to Penn State has been one goal, Jones said another was ensuring those that attend graduate.

"We believe that recruitment and retention are tied concepts," he said. "Who you can retain is directly correlated to who you admit."

This effort has led to Penn State having the highest graduation rate among blacks in the Big Ten, he said.

"We've emphasized the front end and back end of the process," Mahon said, referring to recruiting and retention.

Since 1995, Penn State's university-wide minority population has increased by 35 percent, from 6,914 to 9,352, he added.

Jones said another benefit of the Court's decision was to remove diversity from the circle of debate. It should now be accepted as beneficial, he said.

"Like it or not, the Court has spoken," he said.

Jones said the next step would be to help people understand the Supreme Court's decision and stop it from being characterized as a "win or lose" situation.

"This is a win for all of us," he said. "It's a win for the future of society. It's a win for the commonwealth. It's a win for Penn State."