President Barack Obama spoke at the University of Texas today about setting a specific goal of producing eight million more college graduates by 2020. For the president, this is a vitally important objective in order to rebuild our economy.
Obama is also clear that our country will not achieve this goal without the academic acceleration of Latino and African American students, as evidenced by his comment, “We’re giving students the best chance to succeed. . . .And that’s why we’re also reinvesting in our HBCUs [Historically Black Colleges and Universities] and Hispanic serving institutions. . . .”
The president and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan have appointed leads from each community of color to work closely with universities, high schools and nonprofits to ensure that all students understand the complexities of college applications and financial aid. Our president gets it—we cannot meet our nation’s college attainment goals by leaving anyone behind.
Minnesota, are you listening?
According to Measuring Up 2008, a report conducted by the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, Minnesota has one of the largest gaps in the nation between whites and persons of color and Native American students when it comes to degrees awarded per 100 college students. Yet, the K-12 Minnesota Student Survey data reveals that aspirations to higher education are high among our students of color. As highlighted in MMEP’s 2009 State of Students of Color & American Indian Students report, 82 percent of African American males, 75 percent of Latino males, 77 percent of American Indian females and 93 percent of Asian female students in the 9th grade aspire to go to college.
These data points do not go unnoticed by MMEP. Since 2001, we have produced research, led advocacy efforts, and developed a college access initiative to address the academic disparities in Minnesota—and we do not shy away from the issue of race. An upcoming report, College Access Matters II, includes survey data from over 2,500 diverse Minnesota high school-aged students and will reveal how students acquire key college preparation, financial aid, and admissions information. The findings reveal that aspirations for college are high; it’s the information gap that is the barrier!
Here are some key areas that Minnesota could focus on to impact college attainment and graduation rates in order to meet the president’s goal:
Pay Attention to Information Gaps and to Access by Communities of Color
Information, information, information!
Both the Minnesota Department of Education [MDE] and the Minnesota Office of Higher Education [OHE] should provide multilingual information and provide that information where families of students of color are at (e.g. community-based sites, nonprofit organizations, ELL adult classes). MMEP works at this in collaboration with the OHE through its College Access Challenge Grants. Just a look at our collaborative partners statewide and specifically within community-based sites that reach Latino and African American families, will reveal specific strategy towards the attainment goals we have for our state!
Creatively Expanding Access: Flat-rate tuition for undocumented immigrant youth
Through our policy brief work, MMEP finds that the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities’ flat-rate tuition plan has had a positive impact on Latino student enrollment. Now the University of Minnesota can follow suit and similarly increase its rate of Latino students.
Higher education must be made more affordable
The rapidly increasing cost of college has been a difficult issue for all Minnesotans. This has been made acute by the present economic recession for many families. An Economic Policy Institute study found that Twin Cities’ African Americans are three times as likely to be unemployed as whites, the second largest big-city unemployment rate in the nation. Given these large wage disparities, saving for college is a daunting task for many members of our communities of color. We must continue our state’s tradition of providing strong financial aid, look to expand The Power of You program and broaden access to Postsecondary Enrollment Options for more students of color.
Completion of College
Let’s do a better job of documenting how each community’s pathway to higher education completion varies. It’s time for Minnesota to be clear to the public about who graduates from high school, who enters college and who completes college. Minnesota needs to set an overall mark AND specific attainment goals for each community of color, such as Texas has in their “Closing the Gaps” higher education plan. Without disaggregated data on each racial, cultural community, we will not be able to benchmark our progress nor identify the most effective strategies needed in order to meet the president’s goal of eight million more college graduates by 2020.
Carlos Mariani Rosa, executive director
Jennifer Godinez, associate director
