Stony Brook University has established itself as a flagship university with trailblazing efforts towards demographic diversity progress. 

Praise for the University’s recruitment efforts have not eased, even after receiving recognition from The New York Times for its booming popularity and success. However, evaluating the effectiveness of these efforts in promoting a diverse and inclusive environment is difficult. The Statesman tracked campus undergraduate demographics over the past decade in an attempt to identify possible trends over time. 

According to the University’s official fall headcount, the 2013 undergraduate student body consisted of 15,992 students. In 2023, the number of undergraduate students increased by 9.7% to 17,549. 

Asian and white students have been the majority of undergraduate students over the past decade. The Black and Hispanic/Latino undergraduate populations have increased slightly over the past decade but are still only about 25% of the population.

In 2013, there were more men in the undergraduate student body than women. Now, women are the slightly more prominent of the two groups.

The total student population (including graduate students) according to the fall 2023 headcount consists of 25,865 students. Of the total student body, the prominent groups are Asian students (39.5% of the population) and white students (39.8% of the population).

In 2021, Stony Brook received a $113 million budget increase in state funding; $60,000 was allocated to student enrollment and $53,000 went to hiring more diverse staff members. 

In 2022, Dr. Judith Brown Clarke, Vice President for Equity & Inclusion and Chief Diversity Officer for Stony Brook University and Health System, told The Statesman, “There will be more students and they’ll see themselves within their classrooms, within their research and their programming.”

The staff and faculty at Stony Brook is a combination of all of Stony Brook’s employees, including those who work at the school, the hospital and the veterans home.