Equity, Access, & Success: Confronting Racial Disparities in U.S. Higher Education

The protests against racial injustice that occurred throughout the country in 2020 have made clear the need for Americans to more seriously address racial inequities — including at colleges and universities. These recent protests are byproducts of the anger and frustration many African Americans and others have felt about the educational and economic systems that historically and continually subjugate them to discrimination, harassment, poverty, and degradation. While these inequities have existed since our nation’s founding, the continuing protests have renewed the urgency to identify solutions.

Higher education in the U.S. is not at all immune from systemic racism. In fact, many studies illustrate that current college and university policies and practices work to perpetuate it.

Current Racial and Ethnic Inequities in Higher Education

Higher education has made considerable strides to be more equitable, but our work is far from done. One piece of good news is that, according to the Pew Research Center, from 1996 to 2016, the share of college attendees from underrepresented minority groups increased even faster than the total student population. In 2016, non-white students accounted for 47 percent of the population, up from 29 percent in 1996.

However, progress in access has not necessarily resulted in corresponding progress in outcomes. The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) has found that just 22.7 percent of Black students who entered college as first-time, first-year undergraduates in 2011–12 had achieved a bachelor’s degree by 2017, compared with 43.4 percent of white non-Hispanics.

As a recent report from the Education Trust demonstrates, African American and Latino students are still vastly underrepresented at four-year public institutions — particularly highly selective flagship research universities — due to unfair admissions, financial aid, and other practices in nearly all states.

How students pay for college also typically varies by their race and ethnicity. The American Council on Education’s Race and Ethnicity in Higher Education Status Report shows that some student groups, including Black, Latino, and Native American students, are more likely than white and Asian students to receive their grant aid from the federal government, while white and Asian students are more likely to receive grant aid from institutions. The report also shows that Black students are more likely to borrow and to graduate with higher average debt per borrower than students from other racial or ethnic groups.

High levels of underrepresentation of people of color are not limited to student populations. The American Council on Education’s 2017 American College President Study (ACPS) survey found that just 17 percent of college presidents are people of color, while NACUBO’s 2016 National Profile of Higher Education Chief Business Officers showed that just 10 percent of the CBOs at U.S. colleges and universities are people of color.

Even greater disparities by race appear at the faculty and senior administrator levels. Of the 1.5 million full-time faculty at American colleges and universities in Fall 2017, just 6 percent were Black and another 6 percent were Hispanic, according to NCES. The College and University Professional Association for Human Resources (CUPA-HR) found that in 2020, people of color held just 23 percent of higher education professional administrative positions.

There is cause for concern about diversity in the pipeline for leadership positions as well. Recent polling sponsored by NACUBO and CUPA-HR showed that only 36 percent of CBOs at four-year public institutions and 13 percent at private, nonprofit schools could readily identify a high-quality internal candidate for the CBO position who is a member of a racial/ethnic minority group.

So, where do we go from here?

Many campuses have undertaken efforts to address systemic racism. They have hired directors of diversity, equity, and inclusion; they have created strategies to improve student recruitment and retention; and some are using new approaches to hire and retain faculty and administrators of color at all levels. But there is more work that must be done. Here are three strategies institutions can undertake to address these systemic issues.

Make a commitment to underrepresented communities. Like many individuals and organizations, events in 2020 have reinvigorated NACUBO’s own efforts to address diversity, equity, and inclusion. As a step toward recognizing and correcting these racial disparities, in 2020 NACUBO committed to a plan to “continually evaluate our practices and policies, examining the extent to which advancing diversity and inclusion and identifying and closing equity gaps, as well as exposing and eliminating racist ideas.” NACUBO’s goal is to work with our members to eradicate racial/ethnic gaps in access, equity, and achievement among students, faculty, and administrators at all levels and at all types of higher education institutions.

Ultimately, this work must be done on college campuses. Findings from ACE’s ACPS show that 92 percent of college presidents think it is important for presidents to make clear, public statements about the status of racial minorities on campus. College presidents, working with senior leaders, faculty, and stakeholders, must engage in meaningful efforts to discuss, examine, and eliminate racism — in curriculum, in leadership, in research, and in other areas impactful to student experiences. Having diverse administration, faculty, and staff enriches educational experiences for all students regardless of their backgrounds.

Trust the evidence — then turn it into action. Aggregate data showing the national picture for racial equity concerns in higher education mask the individual context at each institution. Although the national data point to racial equity concerns with admissions, retention, persistence, and outcomes in higher education, leaders at individual institutions should commit to diving into their own data as they set priorities and make plans of action for improvement.

Some institutions already are using data to make improvements for historically underserved students. As an early adopter of using analytics to support student success, Georgia State University is often cited as an equity success story. Analyzing more than 800 metrics, the institution was able to target student services and support, including emergency financial aid, to students who were most at risk. By 2018, this helped to increase graduation rates for African American and Latino students from 25.6 percent to 58.4 percent and from 22 percent to 57.6 percent, respectively, since 2003.

Georgia State is not the only institution to have made such strides. Lehman College, located in the Bronx, NY, offers another example. Campus leaders leveraged data to help them achieve the 90x30 challenge, a plan to increase the number of degrees and credentials awarded from 45,000 to 90,000 by 2030. Using dashboards that offer real-time insights about student progress, faculty and administrators can make decisions to ensure students are in the right courses, have the resources they need, and are making academic progress. In addition, data serve as a mirror for the institution — helping leaders identify structural flaws and improve efficiencies while maintaining quality.

On the other side of the country, Long Beach City College (LBCC) provides another example. In 2018–19, LBCC was cited as being one of the most improved among all California community college districts. To reach that recognition, leaders at the institution adopted a data-informed decision-making culture. They analyzed data from student information systems, course registration and enrollment, their early-alert advising system, student financial aid information, and labor market data. Subsequent dashboards helped leaders create more supports for students — leading to a 29 percent increase in the Associate Degrees for Transfer awarded, with a particular increase among students of color.

Data alone can’t drive change — leaders do. Leaders at each of these institutions had the data literacy skills to translate analytics into action, and their use of data was guided by their institutions’ missions. If data alone are left to drive decisions, too much room is left for unintended consequences. And evidence shows that when institutions don’t use data ethically and with a mind toward equity, data can do more harm than good by perpetuating biases.

So how can institutions ensure leaders are effectively using data to inform decisions that support their missions and advance equity? Part of this answer is that institutional leadership should advocate for and invest in the use of analytics, including building up campus-wide data literacy skills and awareness of the institution’s mission and equity priorities.

Invest in Equity. The more challenging part of the answer is investing in practices, policies, and services that will diversify the institution’s administration and faculty, that value inclusive practices, and that lead to equitable student outcomes. These are investments students have already been calling for. In 2015, student activists created lists of demands for how colleges and universities could demonstrate their commitment to diversity; 88 percent of the lists called for more resources for diverse and marginalized students and 86 percent called for increased diversity in faculty, students, and/or staff and administration.

A growing body of research shows that services like robust advising, tutoring, and mental health counseling are critical to keeping students in college and helping them graduate on time, or at all. Connections with faculty and staff have a major impact. And those relationships provide mentoring and social capital that, along with internships and other work-based learning experiences, play an important role in helping students land good jobs and launch meaningful careers.

Beyond concerns about race and ethnicity, colleges and universities also should consider investing in services that meet the changing needs of today’s students. According to the 2016 National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS), about 32 percent of all undergraduates work at least 30 hours a week while enrolled, and one in seven are single parents. Many of these students see themselves as workers and parents first, and colleges need educational models and support services that are designed to serve every type of student.

Many institutions are stepping in to provide students with additional needs through a web of campus and community services and support. In spite of campuses’ efforts to meet more of these needs, some students continue to struggle to keep up. Some students also have complex mental health needs, and services are in distressingly short supply. Student parents may struggle to balance their studies and childcare, but fewer institutions are offering on-campus child-care centers, often due to high associated costs.

A growing body of research backs up what intuitively makes sense: All things being equal, students have better outcomes when they attend institutions with more resources. But the sobering reality is that many disadvantaged students — particularly students of color — are most likely to attend institutions with limited bandwidth to best support their success.

So what does this mean for institutional leaders generally — and business officers in particular — who are working to demonstrate a sincere commitment to marginalized students? We see two essential steps they should follow to address these issues. First, leaders’ decisions should be guided by their institution’s diversity, equity, and inclusion priorities. Second, more-resourced institutions should provide additional support to students to help them enroll and succeed. Institutions with fewer resources, which often enroll larger shares of minority students, should turn to data analytics and other measures so that they are using their available funding in the most effective and efficient ways possible to meet students’ needs.

The pandemic and other tragic events in 2020 have put racial equity challenges in America under a microscope. Campus leaders must make every investment possible to strengthen higher education, and student health and other issues must not be an afterthought in COVID-19 crisis response plans. To meet these challenges, colleges must trust the data, make a commitment, and invest in making a difference in each of these areas.

A slide deck with additional charts accompanies this post and is available on the NACUBO website.