A rising tide does not automatically lift all boats, especially if you’re an African-American college student, a new report shows.
Even at public colleges that have improved their graduation rates, the gap between blacks and whites is growing wider, not narrower, in more than half of cases. The report examined 232 four-year public colleges where graduation rates had improved over a 10-year period.
Written by researchers at The Education Trust, a nonprofit group that advocates for closing achievement gaps, Rising Tide II: Do Black Students Benefit as Grad Rates Increase? found that while college graduation rates for black students did increase overall between 2003 and 2013, the gap between blacks and whites also increased. At 30 percent of the colleges examined, black graduation rates declined or stagnated as white grad rates climbed. The study’s authors argue that the difference between colleges that widened the gap and those that narrowed it lay not in dissimilar student enrollments, but in different actions taken by the institutions to address the gap.
“Even among the institutions that improved, black students were not always able to reap the benefits,” said Andrew Nichols, Education Trust’s director of higher education research and data analytics and a co-author of the report. “What we see in our report lends credibility to what the student activists have been saying. You can think it’s anecdotal when it’s just a protest here and there, but what we find here are distributing trends that have been taking place for years and years.”
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Dr. Nichols noted that not all the findings were bad. At 70 percent of the colleges where overall graduation rates improved, black students made progress as well — just not as much progress as their peers.
“What we see in our report lends credibility to what the student activists have been saying. You can think it’s anecdotal when it’s just a protest here and there, but what we find here are distributing trends that have been taking place for years and years.”
The report singles out universities that have made progress. For example, at Ohio State University, 73 percent of black students graduated in 2013, up 26 percentage points since 2003. While 83 percent of white students there graduate, the gap between the two groups has shrunk nine points over that time period. The university credits initiatives aimed at supporting first-generation students as well as black and Latino students. One program begins in middle school and provides academic and financial support through college. There are also programs and retreats led by students themselves to provide ongoing support and problem solving.
At Texas Tech University, black student graduation rates have risen by ten percentage points, and the gap between black and whites students has shrunk by four points. After noticing a high dropout rate among students of color, college administrators developed a program called Mentor Tech. It includes about 60 workshops a year that offer academic, career and personal support to black and Latino students. Still, the report’s authors note that even some of the colleges making the most progress have a long way to go – the average graduation rate for black students at Texas Tech, for example, was 53 percent in 2013.
Related: College degree gap grows larger between whites, blacks and Latinos
The report also lists the institutions that are doing the worst. For example, at Texas A & M University-Commerce, only 29 percent of black students graduated in 2013, a drop of 13 percentage points since 2003. The gap between black and white students has risen a whopping 23 points.
Nichols says change has to start from the top, and the diversity of colleges where there has been improvement shows what’s possible.
“It’s not just about the students you bring in. It’s what you do with them,” he said. “You can’t just blame the kids.”
This story was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Read more about Higher Education.
The trend I’m seeing even among recent articles is this subtle-underlining blame on the institutions and white people. In reality many if not all higher learning institutions have programs, support groups, tutoring services, and etc. to combat such disparities. The fault of the institution isn’t readily recognized in that aspect. The biggest thing these articles gloss over is the family/cultural and socio-economic dynamics. That influence the ‘individual’ up to their entry into college. Asians, Whites, Blacks, and Latinos all have unique family trends. Some are close-knit large family hierarches, others are ruled be an older matriarchal figure, and some just adhere to that cliché nuclear family structure. Point is our livelihood up until college has been defined by our family; regardless if they’re good or not. So many of our morals and beliefs are an extension of our families. College is just a dipping toe into the pool of adult identity. Despite that outlook college still is a separation from family. Many college student’s are lured by this amazing illusion of freedom. This freedom ultimately is the traditional students undoing in academic success with a dropout rate floating around 50% within their first years. College itself is a journey to define one’s self. This particular message is longstanding credo for many higher institutions. So my final thought is, “if college is an expansion of the ‘individual’ self? Then why isn’t the ‘individual’ student being held accountable for not graduating?”