Coalition Aims to Raise College-Going Rates of
Minority and Low-Income Students Coalition Aims to Raise College-Going Rates of
Minority and Low-Income Students
By Anne Marie Borrego
The Chronicle of Higher Education
December 7, 2000
Washington--A coalition of foundations, colleges, and government agencies joined Wednesday to announce the creation of a new entity aimed at increasing access to higher education for minority and low-income students. The Pathways to College Network plans to identify successful college-preparation programs and find a way to replicate them.
The network will be started with initial funds of about $1.8-million from the GE Fund, the Ford Foundation, the James Irvine Foundation, the Lucent Technologies Foundation, the Knowledge Works Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the U.S. Education Department's Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education. Occidental College and the Education Resources Institute will administer the program, and the College Board and the Council for Opportunity in Education are also involved.
At a news conference announcing the network's creation, its backers cited statistics showing that members of minority groups and students from low-income families were far less likely than other young people to enroll in and graduate from college. According to the Department of Education, 47 percent of low-income high-school graduates immediately enroll in college or trade school, compared with 82 percent of students from upper-income families. Just 18 percent of African-American high-school graduates and 19 percent of Hispanic high-school graduates earn bachelor's degrees by their late 20's, compared with 35 percent of their white counterparts.
"While more and more Americans are enrolling in college, too many disadvantaged students in America lack the support, resources, motivation, and high-expectations that they need to succeed," President Clinton said in a statement read at Wednesday's press event by Gene Sperling, the White House national economic adviser.
The purpose of the Pathways network, its supporters said, is to gather data on existing college-preparation programs, decide which of those programs are the most beneficial, and promote policies that will marry the elements of the best programs already in place.
"Together they will seek to identify the most effective means of preparing underrepresented youth for college success and help this range of constituencies incorporate that information into their work," Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley said in a written statement.
For more information about the Pathways to College Network, call David Roth, deputy to the president for community and government affairs of Occidental College, at (323) 259-1443.
Copyright, 2000 by The Chronicle of Higher Education
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