Founded in 1976, the National Name Exchange is a consortium of fifty-five nationally-known universities which annually collect and exchange the names of their talented but underrepresented ethnic minority students who are in their sophomore, junior or senior year of their undergraduate education. The purpose of the Exchange is to ensure that participating universities continue to identify a pool of qualified students who could be recruited to the graduate programs at these institutions. The consortium of universities conducts other activities consistent with the national efforts to increase the enrollment of traditionally underrepresented peoples in graduate education.