I've been a student at the University of Dayton (UD) for three years and, although it's easily been the best three years of my life, one of my regrets about coming to UD is that I haven't been exposed to the different cultural backgrounds that I am yearning to learn more about.

As a resident assistant at UD, I can easily say that UD is a strong supporter of diversity. With many classes, events, and programs that support liberal ideologies of being open and accepting of everyone, UD is undoubtedly dedicated to creating a warm and welcoming campus environment that encourages students to learn about different cultures, societies, religious affiliations, and identities.

While this is one of my favorite things about UD, the quizzical part in all of this is that UD's campus supports diversity but lacks a diverse study body. Nearly 80% of students at UD are white, and I can almost guarantee that the majority of those students are extremely privileged when it comes to other identities such as sexual identity and socioeconomic class.

It's great for a college to support diversity, but there's no point in doing so if the campus isn't accessible to diverse students.

And that seems to be the main reason that UD's diversity is lacking: students who do not hold privilege rarely have the opportunity to attend UD because it's an expensive, private, Catholic school. Non-white students who have been systematically oppressed simply can't afford to attend UD because they don't have the necessary resources to get them onto such a privileged campus.

If UD truly cares about people with diverse backgrounds, then the school needs to reevaluate in order to find ways to make receiving an education at UD more attainable for students who don't come from privileged households.