PRINCETON ― When it comes to the best return on investment regarding a college education, minority-serving institutions (MSIs) across the United States continue to lead the way.
That was the sentiment among dozens of MSI college presidents, professors, alumni and advocates who gathered recently at the Educational Testing Service (ETS) for a two-day conference that affirmed MSI’s current role within the higher education landscape.
The National Minority Serving Institutions Return on Investment (ROI) Convening, sponsored by ETS and the Center for Minority Serving Institutions at the University of Pennsylvania, highlighted the ROI for MSIs, who serve minority populations that are often first-generation college students or hail from low-income backgrounds.
The convening included four commissioned, empirically based ROI-focused papers focused on historically Black colleges and universities, tribal colleges and universities, Hispanic-serving institutions, and Asian American and Pacific Islander-serving institutions, also known as ANNAPISI. The papers were written by leading education scholars such as Dr. Terrell L. Strayhorn of The Ohio State University and Dr. Stella M. Flores of New York University.
In addition, the convening included four short Impact talks aimed at helping attendees to think differently and expansively about the meaning of ROI, says Dr. Marybeth Gasman, director of Penn’s Center for Minority Serving Institutions and a full professor in the university’s Graduate School of Education.
“I was very pleased with the diversity of different types of research presented,” said Gasman, who added that a report based on the ideas from the convening will be circulated. “It showed the variety of different techniques that we need to use to understand return on investment and the power of those techniques.”
Gasman said that a ROI campaign focused on MSIs will likely help to change perspectives about the value of minority-serving institutions.
