203. Unstack the Odds--Set at Birth? Part 2

Unstack the Odds: Help All Kids Access College—and Graduate!
by
Joe Rottenborn

Executive Director, Mahoning Valley College Access Program (MVCAP)

1. Are the odds being stacked at birth against some kids going to college and graduating?

According to the American Council on Education (ACE), the rates of degree attainment vary widely according to the racial and ethnic category of students. As stated in its Minorities in Higher Education: 2009 Supplement:
“As of 2007, 27.4 percent of young Americans aged 25 to 29 had obtained at least a bachelor’s degree, and an additional 8.1 percent had earned an associate degree. . . . These average rates conceal large disparities among subgroups. Asian Americans aged 25 to 29 are at the top, with 58 percent holding a bachelor’s degree, followed by whites (33 percent), African Americans (17 percent), Hispanics (11 percent) and finally, American Indians (9 percent). These large gaps are unlikely to change without reducing disparities at each transition point in the educational pipeline.” (Mikyung Ryu, Minorities in Higher Education: 2009 Supplement--Twenty-Third Status Report, American Council on Education, September 2009, p. 1.) http://www.acenet.edu/AM/Template.cfm?Section=CAREE&Template=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=34214

Furthermore, a gender gap is also evident in the matriculation data; simply put, women are more likely to enroll in college than are men. And this gender gap varies by racial and ethnic classification. Per the ACE 2009 Supplement, “As with high school completion, gender gaps widened in college enrollment rates. The proportion of young women enrolled in college
increased from 30 percent to 45 percent between 1988 and 2007, an increase twice as large as for young men (30 percent to 37 percent). Of all racial/ethnic groups, African Americans and Hispanics showed the largest gender gap in college enrollment rates.” (Ibid., p. 2.)

As Kevin Carey, policy director of the nonprofit Education Sector, stated in a recent posting, "All in all, this confirms what we already knew: College works well for the kind of student who has been going to college for a long time: white middle- and upper-class children of college graduates who enroll full-time directly after leaving high school." (“College Grad Rates Stay Exactly the Same,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, December 2, 2010.) http://chronicle.com/blogs/brainstorm/college-grad-rates-stay-exactly-the-same/29394)

By contrast, data on underrepresented U.S. students—including those of low income and minorities—continue to demonstrate their difficulty in going to college and in graduating. Indeed, Martin Haberman quoted Loeb (1999) as stating “If you’re in the top economic quarter of the population, your children have a 76% chance of getting through college and graduating by age 24. . . . If you’re in the bottom quarter, however, the figure is 4%.” (“Urban Education: The State of Urban Schooling at the Start of 21st Century,” 7/12/2010.) http://www.educationnews.org/ed_reports/104105.html).

As for minorities, in the state of California among community college matriculants, Joanne Jacobs posted that “only 26% of black students and 22% of Latino students had completed a degree or certificate or transferred after six years, compared to 37% of whites and 35% of Asian Pacific Islanders.” In her view, “Students fail because they're not prepared for college-level reading, writing and math. Many are juggling jobs and family responsibilities too, of course, but college readiness is the make-or-break issue." (“Unready and Unsuccessful,” The Huffington Post, October 29, 2010.) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joanne-jacobs/unready-and-unsuccessful_b_775668.html)

Even among matriculants to colleges and universities, a graduation gap exists by race. In a posting on The Hechinger Report, Sarah Butrymowicz pointed out this information:
“But a study released last summer by the Washington D.C.-based Education Trust, which analyzed data from 456 colleges and universities, found a disturbing gap in graduation rates when disaggregated by race. At private institutions, 73.4 percent of white students earned their degrees within six years, while only 54.7 percent of black students and 62.9 percent of Hispanic students made it through the schools they started.” (“Can universities keep the minority students they woo? The Hechinger Report, February 23, 2011.) http://hechingerreport.org/content/can-universities-keep-the-minority-students-they-woo_5239/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+HechingerReport+%28Hechinger+Report%29