AUSTIN, Texas — Texas is in line to meet the 2015 higher education enrollment goal of 1.65 million students, but the state must work harder to encourage minorities to pursue advanced degrees, according to the state’s higher education commissioner.
More than 1.5 million students attended Texas public and private colleges and universities in 2010, Raymund Paredes told reporters last week during a conference call.
The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board on Thursday received an update on the 2015 Closing the Gaps initiative, a push adopted in 2000 to also increase the number of nationally recognized programs and add federal funding for scientific research.
Overall targets of higher enrollment and the awarding of degrees are being met, Paredes said.
“We are doing extremely well in terms of the two most important goals. Having said that, we still have some very substantial challenges” involving goals for Hispanics and African-Americans, Paredes said.
Total higher education enrollment in fall 2010 was 1,505,499, an increase of 84,456 students since a year earlier, according to figures provided by Dominic Chavez, a board spokesman.
About 194,000 African-Americans were enrolled in Texas higher education last fall, Chavez told The Associated Press. The number of Black students added since 2000 was 85,300. The goal for 2010 was to have added 49,800 African-American students.
