College Access
Our current research topics related to college access include college admissions, affirmative action, financing, diversity, and underrepresented students in higher education.
Two thousand-eight marked the 30th anniversary of the Supreme Court's Bakke decision, which legally upheld the consideration of race as a factor in admissions decisions for the purpose of promoting diversity in higher education. Such affirmative action policies have opened the doors of selective colleges and universities to many more minority students than might have otherwise had opportunities. While access to higher education has improved for minorities in this country, that progress is still severely threatened due, in part, to a series of very serious attacks on affirmative action. In 1996, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, in Hopwood v. University of Texas Law School, ended all considerations of race in admissions, recruitment, and scholarships at the undergraduate and graduate school level at all public institutions under its jurisdiction (i.e., Texas, Mississippi, and Louisiana). In 1996, California voters passed Proposition 209, a ballot initiative that also eliminated affirmative action in education, employment, and contracting throughout the state. And, the University of Michigan faced legal challenges in 2003 to both its undergraduate and law school admissions policies that give consideration to race/ethnicity.
Recent College Access Research
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Race and the Metropolitan Origins Of Postsecondary Access to Four Year Colleges: The Case of Greater Boston
- The Metro Boston Equity Initiative is devoted to analyzing race relations and racial equity issues not simply in the city of Boston, but across the entire metropolitan region. Although greater Boston still has a large white majority and suburban sectors with very little diversity, immigration of Latinos and Asians is driving the region’s growth, and much of this population increase is taking place well outside of the city limits. Changing patterns of school enrollment provide a good sense of the region’s near-term future.
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State Merit Scholarship Programs and Racial Inequality
- Unmet financial need – the gap between the costs of attending college and the resources available to students from their families and from all sources of financial aid – presents a major barrier to college for students from lower-income families. The federal Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance found that unmet need is a barrier both to students’ initial enrollment in college and to their ability to persist through and earn a degree.
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Appearance and Reality in the Sunshine State: The Talented 20 Program in Florida
- After a review of Florida state and institutional data and interviews with staff at five campuses of the Florida State University System and several Florida state agencies, this report describes the history, implementation, and effects of the Talented 20 Program. The report concludes that Talented 20 Plan is, in fact, not race-neutral and is not an effective alternative to race-conscious affirmative action.
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Percent Plans in College Admissions: A Comparative Analysis of Three States’ Experiences
- Our public schools are becoming increasingly segregated by race and income and the segregated schools are, on average, strikingly inferior in many important ways, including the quality and experience of teachers and the level of competition from other students. Given these facts, it is clear that students of different races do not receive an equal chance for college.
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Trends in Public School Segregation in the South, 1987-2000
- Our analyses show that segregation has remained at very high levels in most Southern states and districts, and has even increased by large amounts in many others. There does appear to be an important trend toward resegregation, but that trend is not uniform across the South. We also find that some trends are masked from one measure of segregation, but revealed by others, stressing the importance of the use of multiple measures and the examination of local situations.
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Who Should We Help? The Negative Social Consequences of Merit Scholarships
- From a civil rights standpoint, shifting from need-based to "merit" aid means shifting funds from blacks, Latinos, and Native Americans to whites and Asians, from city and rural residents to suburban residents, from children from one-parent families to those who have two parents.
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A Public Laboratory Dewey Barely Imagined: The Emerging Model of School Governance and Legal Reform
- Public school reform raises the prospect of a broader redefinition of our very democracy.
