“Race and Ethnicity in Higher Education:  A Status Report”

From the Executive Summary: As the U.S. population has grown more racially and ethnically diverse, so too have students across all levels of higher education. The Hispanic population’s growing numbers and rising postsecondary enrollment rates figured centrally in both trends. While much progress has been made for nearly all groups, we nonetheless see stagnant and low levels of secondary school completion, college participation, and educational attainment for many communities of color. At both the undergraduate and graduate levels, advances in Black students’ enrollment and attainment have been accompanied by some of the lowest persistence rates, highest undergraduate dropout rates, highest borrowing rates, and largest debt burdens of any group. How students pay for higher education varied considerably by race and ethnicity, especially in terms of who borrows and who leaves college with high levels of student loan debt. Racial and ethnic diversity among college faculty, staff, and administrators still doesn’t reflect that of today’s college students.