Muncie Times, Muncie, Delaware County, 16 November 2006 — Page 27

The Muncie Times • November 16, 2006 • Page 27

TO BE EQUAL Road to Greater College Graduation Rates for African American

Marc H. Morial president and CEO of the National Urban League.

Over the past decade or so, the number of African Americans pursuing higher education has hit new heights, according to a new report by the Washington, D.C. based American Council on Education. From 1993 to 2003 black enrollment at the nation’s colleges and universities surged nearly 43 percent - to more than 1.9 million students. Students of color mad up 27.8 percent of nearly 17 million student son campuses across the country, up from 21.8 percent in 1993. And, according to The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, blacks in 2004 earned an all time high of 131,241 bachelor’s degrees from four year American colleges and universities, up 6 percent fro 2003 and more than twice that of 1990. But don’t go cracking open the champagne just yet. According to the American Council study. African Americans are the most likely to drop out of college than any other minority group. Of students who entered college in the 1995-1996 academic year, only 36.4 percent

of blacks received a degree, compared to 42 percent of Hispanics, 58 percent of whites and 62.3 percent of Asian Americans. Obviously, somewhere along the line there has been a major disconnect. While blacks are entering college at record highs, they’re lagging significantly behind whites and other minorities in terms of graduation rates. In September, a U.S. Education Department advisory committee on student financial aid concluded that as many as 1.6 million degrees were lost in the 1990s among low and low middle income students who decided not go to college because of costs and other factors. With family median income of $30, 858 and net worth of roughly $6,000, African American households are at a substantial disadvantage in affording college compared to whites, whose median income is at least $20,000 or more a year and whose net worth is 10 times that of blacks. According to a July survey by the Project on Student Debt, 56

percent of black adults said they worried somewhat or every often about not being able to afford education costs for their children. Nearly 60 percent said they felt students carried too much debt after college and 66 percent said it was too hard to pay back. Back in March, Harvard University announced that it would no longer expect households with less than $60,000 a year in annual income to contribute to their children’s education. It represented a major expansion of its 2004 financial aid initiative that set the cutoff at $40,000 per household and brought about a 24 percent hike in enrollment of students from lowincome families. Harvard’s decision in 2004 to raise the financial aid stakes served as the catalyst in a chain reaction among its competitors - including Yale, Stafford and to a large extent my alma mater university of Pennsylvania, which replaced loans with grants for students from households’ earning less than $50,000 a year. “We will accomplish

nothing significant in improving access for students from low and middle income families unless we focus our attention on strengthening our need based financial aid program.” Wrote University of Pennsylvania President Amy Guttmann in a Washington Post commentary from early October. “Financial aid based on need is the great equalizer of opportunity in higher education. Nothing promotes equity and socioeconomic diversity more effectively. Even if tuition rates were frozen a college education would simply be out of reach for low income and most middle income families were it not for need based financial aid.” Our democracy cannot expect to continue down the same track and remain a superpower if our most talented children are denied access to the

highest quality education. We cannot pin the sole responsibility upon the world of academia and individuals. Some of it lies on our state and federal governments. The powers that be in Washington D.C. and elsewhere cannot expect our nation to continue to excel in the global marketplace if they continue to cut back Pell Grant funding and downsizing federal and state financial aid programs. According to the Project on Student Debt, a majority of African Americans agree, 64 percent said the federal government was doing too little to make higher education more affordable and accessible. Our nation’s investment in higher education is an investment in our future. The less we invest the less our childen will have to celebrate.