Jobs, News and Views for All of Higher Education - Inside Higher Ed :: Flagships Flunked on Access: "Flagships Flunked on Access

Nothing subtle about the title: “Engines of Inequality.” Public flagship universities do a generally poor job of enrolling and educating underrepresented minority students and those from low-income families, and actually regressed rather than made progress on those fronts from 1995 to 2004, the Education Trust argues in a report released Monday.

The report from Education Trust, a nonprofit group whose mission is advancing the interests of educationally disadvantaged students, grades 50 leading public universities and the group as a whole on their success (or, more often, their perceived lack of it) in enrolling low-income and minority students and in graduating minority students. The nonprofit group gave 4 of the 50 institutions an overall grade of B, while 14 received C’s, 25 earned D’s, and 7 were hit with F’s. (A listing of the institutions and their grades is in the table below.)

It particularly decries the growing tendency of elite public colleges to provide institutional financial aid based on academic merit than on students’ financial need. In the aggregate, the report shows, the 50 flagships increased the amount of institutional aid they gave to families with incomes over $100,000 by 406 percent from 1995 to 2003 (to $257.3 million from $50.8 million), while the amount for families earning under $20,000 actually declined and the amount for families earning $20,000 to $39,000 grew by 54 percent."

Newly Nominated Defense Secretary Praised for Diversity Efforts as TAMU President
By Tracie Powell


Instead of directly applying race to the admissions process, Gates ramped up Texas A&M University’s efforts to recruit minority students by creating 2,300 new scholarships aimed at underrepresented groups. He also ditched the school’s tradition of giving admission preference to relatives of alumni, a practice critics say favored White applicants.

Meridian Star - Cooke Foundation offers scholarships: "The Jack Kent Cooke Foundation has opened the nomination process for the largest scholarships available to students and recent alumni from community colleges.

Through the initiative, called the Undergraduate Transfer Scholarship Program, the private foundation will award up to $30,000 a year to help students and recent alumni from community and two-year institutions pursue four-year degrees at any accredited college or university in the United States and abroad. "