Background
Students of color have not achieved equal opportunity for higher education and many of the institutions that serve them are struggling with economic and policy challenges. Some critics of the Obama Administration claim that recent accountability and financial aid policy changes would close the door to college for many deserving students.
The Civil Rights Project and partners (see below) hosted a lively forum presenting seven (7) new and original empirical studies, which examined the policy changes with the goal of avoiding unintended negative consequences.
See Recording on C-Span.org.
Presentations Include:
- Stella Flores (Vanderbilt University), how racial gaps in college completion rates are associated with both the pre-college characteristics of students and the institutional characteristics of the colleges and universities they attend;
- Marybeth Gasman (University of Pennsylvania), MSIs and a demographic comparison of students at those institutions versus students nationally;
- Sara Goldrick-Rab (University of Wisconsin–Madison), why the development of financial aid policy requires recognition of the broad diversity of institutions attracting students and families who rely on loans;
- Sylvia Hurtado (UCLA), how ratings criteria fail to credit institutions that, despite differences in their resources, do better than expected in degree attainment for the low-income, first-generation and underrepresented minority students they serve.
- Nicholas Hillman (University of Wisconsin–Madison), how market-based accountability mechanisms in the proposed ratings system could result in “education deserts” that limit choices for students;
- Wille Kirkland (Dillard University), a case study detailing how Dillard and other Historically Black Colleges and Universities have been negatively impacted by reforms to the Parent PLUS loan program;
- Anne-Marie Núñez (University of Texas-San Antonio), how the shortcomings of a postsecondary ratings system could lead to shortchanging HSIs and their outcomes, and
- Gary Orfield (UCLA Civil Rights Project), will moderate the briefing
The Agenda, Presenters’ bios, Paper Abstracts and Slides are attached.
Taped Event Available at C-Span.org Video Library
Sponsorship does not indicate endorsement for policy proposals.
