Support for Black Students in Public Colleges Diminishes [Study]

Very few public colleges and universities help black students when it comes to supporting them from admission through graduation.

A study conducted by the University of South California’s Race and Equity Center found less support for 900,000 black students enrolled in public universities and colleges.

The report has given Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, the University of California-San Diego and University of Louisville the highest equity index score of 3.50 for supporting black students, While Flordia Polytechnic University, the University of Alaska Southeast and Fort Lewis College have performed the worst with 0.33 and 0.50 scores respectively.

Funded by the Ford Foundation, the report used data from the U.S. Census and the U.S. Department of Education and graded every institution on different parameters, including student-to-faculty racial ratios, representational equity, gender equity, and completion equity.

“You can’t just throw a couple dollars at the problem or hire a chief diversity officer or bring a speaker to campus. Addressing the systemic problems that black students face requires a deeper strategy,” Shaun R. Harper, who authored the report with Isaiah Simmons, a research associate at the center, said.

“Our research at the USC Race and Equity Center makes painfully clear that most people who work in higher education never learned much, if anything at all, about how to address racism or strategically achieve racial equity. Since those who are supposed to fix racial inequities on campuses were not taught how to do so, it is no surprise that widespread inequity continually persists,” Harper added.

The report included only 506 public universities and colleges and not the Tribal Colleges, military academies, graduate universities, HBCU’s and other institutions.