Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Roundtable: Improving Students of Color College Achievement: Lessons from Minority Serving Institutions

(Social Equity)

College enrollment has increased in the United States over the past 40 years; however, college completion rates have declined, particularly among students enrolled in community colleges and open and broad access four-year colleges and universities. This trend is most pronounced among students of color, especially male students, specifically African American and Latino students. The race/ethnicity and gender college completion gap raises two main concerns: Equity. Given the relationship between college degree attainment and long-term health outcomes, civic engagement, and lifetime income, the college completion gap may contribute to long-term disparities on various dimensions of well-being. Economic Growth. Twenty-first century jobs increasingly require postsecondary education; thus, if students of color continue to complete college at lower rates than their peers, society will not fully benefit from their potential contributions. Historically, Minority Serving Institutions (MSI) have a strong track record of giving students of color access to college along with supports that foster confidence and self-esteem, which helps those who graduate go on to be successful after college. According to an ongoing Gallup-Purdue University study, Black graduates of historically black colleges and universities are significantly more likely to have felt supported while in college and to be thriving afterwards than are their Black peers who graduated from predominantly white institutions. Conversely, like many institutions around the country, MSIs also experience challenges in raising their graduation rates for students of color. While the national average of Black and Latino student graduation is 42 and 41 percent, respectively, Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs) have a 30 and 29 percent graduation rate, respectively. Researchers partially attribute the lower graduation rates at MSIs to their high proportion of low-income and high need students who have not been served well by American education. Although, MSIs still have much progress to make in increasing graduation rates, the success of their graduates demonstrates that their strategies are effective for some students and show promise for harder to serve students. Given MSI’s current and historical significance in educating students of color, much can be learned from both their successes and challenges as they strive to help more students stay enrolled and graduate. This roundtable will engage speakers and the audience in the following questions: 1. What are MSI’s doing differently than other postsecondary institutions to make students feel more supported and to ultimately increase graduation rates for harder to serve students? 2. Have the supports yielded significant increases in graduation rates? Why or why not? 3. What are the promising gender specific strategies that MSI are implementing to address the gender completion gap? 4. What are the lessons from research and key research questions that still need to be answered to help inform MSIs and PWIs on how best to close the gender and race/ethnicity college completion gap? The goal of this roundtable will be to share knowledge and encourage the speakers and audience to move forward on solutions to the race/ethnicity and gender college completion gap.