UTSA expert: current college prep policies aren’t cutting it for minority students

Guan Saw, colleague revisit landmark 1966 report

(Nov. 16, 2016) -- Fifty years ago, American sociologist James Samuel Coleman published a groundbreaking report on inequality in the American public education system. The 1966 Equality of Educational Opportunity Report explored many facets of education and equality, particularly the achievement gaps among racial/ethnic groups and the idea that awareness of college opportunities could be enough to close the enrollment gaps among minority students.

In a new study, Guan Saw, UTSA assistant professor of program evaluation, and Barbara Schneider of Michigan State University, revisited the idea and found that the college preparation strategies and policies that formed in the wake of the Coleman Report aren’t effective at getting 21st century minority students into college.

“The most interesting set of findings from our study is that many school interventions designed to increase students’ knowledge about post-secondary education — such as college admission counselor meetings, learning about the benefits of college or visiting colleges while in high school — have little impact on college enrollment among minority students,” Saw said.

The researchers found that students who complete college preparatory classes or take advanced placement classes are more likely to matriculate on to post-secondary education. Black, Hispanic and multiracial students tend to complete fewer of these than their peers, according to the study, resulting in fewer of these students aspiring to continue beyond a high school education. The researchers believe this explains, in part, why minorities have become underrepresented in higher education, particularly at four-year colleges.

“Since the 1966 report, the U.S. population has become increasingly diverse, and the post-secondary aspirations of minority students now vary considerably,” Saw said. “The Coleman Report didn’t consider the impact of academic preparation on whether students pursued higher education, or how it played into whether they even wanted to go to college.”

The study also found that, overwhelmingly, advanced courses in math and science often are not emphasized for minority students as a means for college readiness in high minority population high schools. The reasons vary, but the effect is the same. According to Saw, there must be more of an effort to change the low college enrollment among these students.

“Public and private institutions that are inventing and supporting efforts to increase college enrollment rates among minority students need to pay more attention to ‘hard credentials’,” said Saw. “There must be an investment of resources in order to improve high school academic preparation, which are crucial for minority students’ chances of applying to college and transitioning to post-secondary education.”

UTSA is ranked among the top 400 universities in the world and among the top 100 in the nation, according to Times Higher Education.

- Jesus Chavez

Learn more about the UTSA College of Education and Human Development.

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