Why Minority Students Don't Graduate from CollegeBarry Mills, the president of Bowdoin Col

Why Minority Students Don't Graduate from College

Barry Mills, the president of Bowdoin College, was justifiably proud of Bowdoin's efforts to recruit minority students. Since 2003 the school has boosted the proportion of so-called under-represented minority students (blacks, Latinos (南美洲人), and Native Americans, about 30 percent of the U.S. population) in entering freshman classes from 8 percent to 13 percent. But Bowdoin has not done quite as well when it comes to actually graduating minorities. While nine out of 10 white students routinely get their diplomas within six years, only seven out of 10 black students made it to graduation day in several recent classes.

The United States once had the highest graduation rate of any nation. Now it stands 10th. For the first time in American history, there is the risk that the rising generation will be less well educated than the previous one. The graduation rate among 25-to 34-year-olds is no better than the rate for the 55-to 64-year-olds who were going to college more than 30 years ago. Studies show that more and more poor and nonwhite students are eager to graduate from college--but their graduation rates fall far short of their dreams. The graduation rates for blacks, Latinos, and Native Americans lag far behind the graduation rates for whites and Asians. As the minority population grows in the United States, low college-graduation rates become a threat to national prosperity.

The problem is noticeable at public universities. In 2007, the University of Wisconsin-Madison--one of the top five or so "public Ivies"--graduated 81 percent of its white students within six years, but only 56 percent of its blacks. At less-selective state schools, the numbers get worse. Community colleges have low graduation rates generally--but rock-bottom rates for minorities. A recent review of California community colleges found that while a third of the Asian students picked up their degrees, only 15 percent of African-Americans did so as well.

Private colleges and universities generally do better, partly because they offer smaller classes and more personal attention. But when it comes to a significant graduation gap, Bowdoin has company. Nearby Colby College logged an 18-point difference between white and black graduates in 2007 and 25 points in 2006. "Higher education has been able to get around this issue for years, particularly the more selective schools, by saying the responsibility is on the individual student," says Pennington of the Gates Foundation. "If they fail, it's their fault." Some critics blame affirmative action--students admitted with lower test scores and grades from shaky high schools often struggle at top schools. But a bigger problem may be that poor high schools often send their students to colleges for which they are "undermatched": they could get into better, richer schools, but instead go to community colleges and low-rated state schools that lack the resources to help them. Some schools out for profit cynically increase tuitions and count on student loans and federal aid to foot the bill--knowing full well that the students won't make it. "Colleges know that a lot of kids they take will end up in remedial classes, for which they'll get no college credit and then they'll be dismissed," says Amy Wilkins of the Education Trust. "The school gets to keep the money, but the kid leaves with loads of debt and no degree and no ability to get a better job. Colleges are not holding up their end."

A college education is getting ever more expensive. Since 1982 tuitions have been rising at roughly twice the rate of inflation. University administrators insist that most of those bikes are matched by increased scholarship grants or loans, but the recession has decreased private endowments(捐助) and cut into state spending on higher education. In 2008 the net cost of attending a four-year public universi

A．The College's high enrollment rate of white students.

B．The College's high enrollment rate of minority students.

C．The College's high graduation rate of white students.

D．The College's high graduation rate of minority students.