WASHINGTON— Identifying and replicating practices and policies that lead to improved rates of attaining college degrees among underrepresented groups in higher education generated frank discussion at a forum Wednesday in Washington, D.C. titled “Why the Nation Needs to Do College Attainment Better.”
Hosted by Educational Testing Service, the American Council on Education and Diverse: Issues In Higher Education, the forum brought together education leaders and policymakers who insisted that postsecondary educational institutions, states and the federal government have a responsibility to create and invest in tailored efforts to help vulnerable, underrepresented student groups persist and attain college degrees or related credentials at higher rates.
“We know that college completion lags, and it lags in a non-random fashion,” said ACE President Dr. Ted Mitchell. Calling the problem of inequity in degree attainment rates for African-Americans, Hispanics, American Indian, Alaskan Native and other underserved groups a “devastating one,” he spoke of a “need to redouble our efforts” in numerical and moral goals.
Research by Dr. Michael T. Nettles, senior vice president and Edmund W. Gordon Chair of the Policy Evaluation and Research Center at ETS, indicates that the specified subgroups will not reach the federal or Lumina Foundation benchmarks for college degree attainment by 2060, the furthest projections for data from the U.S. Census Bureau.
The federal benchmark calls for 60 percent of Americans between the ages of 25 and 34 to have earned a two- or four-year college degree by 2020. Similarly, the Lumina benchmark calls for 60 percent of Americans ages 25 to 64 to have a post-secondary credential by 2025.
“This is just not acceptable to think that we’re going to be having these goals, and these population groups not achieve them by 2060,” Nettles said.
In a presentation before the forum’s panel which was moderated by Diverse executive editor Dr. Jamal Eric Watson, Nettles gave a synopsis of the findings in his ETS report “Challenges and Opportunities in Achieving the National Postsecondary Degree Attainment Goals.”
