Much attention is being paid lately to diversity in education, from the University of Colorado at Boulder’s plans to attract more minority students with scholarship dollars and diversity training to some good news from the Colorado Commission on Higher Education. Minority enrollment at Colorado’s public colleges has increased 13 percent in five years, the agency reports. The number of ethnic minority students in four-year public colleges grew from 20,203 (16.3 percent) in 2001 to 23,356 (17.4 percent) last fall.
While this represents progress, we are far from where we should be in terms of equality of educational opportunity in Colorado. Consider:
- Colorado is the fourth most highly educated state, with one in three adults having a college degree, but we are importing our college graduates.
- Colorado ranks 41st in sending minority students to college.
- Minorities in Colorado graduate from college at a rate of 44 percent compared with an overall graduation rate of 55 percent.
Metropolitan State College is the largest minority-serving four-year institution in Colorado, but it is clear that we and the other colleges still haven’t done enough to retain these students and ensure their success.
The demographics of the workforce in Denver and Colorado are very clear about our future: unless we educate more of our own, we’re in trouble. Denver’s workforce is currently composed largely of educated people due to retire soon. The new entrants to the workforce are largely minority, and largely Hispanic. Unless we are able to educate this upcoming workforce, Denver will continue to import college graduates while ensuring that our high school graduates remain stuck in low-wage professions.
Take a look at the numbers:
- Denver Public Schools students are 80 percent ethnic minority.
- The Community College of Denver offers the most ethnically diverse community college experience, with 48 percent of its students being of color.
- The statewide average of ethnic minority students at public four-year colleges is 17 percent; at Metro it is more than 24 percent.
We have recently held a mirror up to ourselves as an institution and asked: Are we doing all we can to further true opportunity and student success across all ethnic groups? The answer is no, so we’re working to improve.
A recent study by a group called the Equity Scorecard Task Force compared the performance of our ethnic minority students against the performance of our white students. Across an array of benchmarks ethnic minority students performed below white students. In response we’ve started several new initiatives.
First, to address the problem of student retention, we are:
1) Sending staff to historically black colleges to learn what has worked for them.
2) Started working with the Community College of Denver on restructuring and aligning the remedial programs that our students take there;
3) Developing groups of students to mentor their peers through remediation classes, as well as stepping up advising services.
Second, statistics show a clear correlation between student retention and the number of full-time faculty teaching lower-division classes. We have set a goal of raising the number of full-time faculty at Metro from its current percentage of 38 percent to a more acceptable 60 percent.
We’re also proposing creation of an Office of Institutional Diversity, which will be responsible for leading institution-wide efforts to ensure diversity and civic engagement.
Fourth, helping Denver Public Schools prepare students for college is imperative to solving the problem of Denver’s shrinking pipeline to education. Because our work with Denver Public Schools is an investment in our own future success, we need closer partnerships with DPS. For example, Metro State’s Family Literacy Program, which was recently awarded a $600,000 grant from Toyota, promises to lift up entire families, and the community, by educating parents as well as their children. More than 100 families in four DPS schools will participate in the program, which aims to help Hispanics and other immigrant families with basic language and literacy skills.
Finally, we have also proposed to the CCHE new programs to collaborate with community colleges, as these are often the schools of choice for students of color. Many of these students are place-bound; Metro State can provide them more opportunity by bringing its degree programs to them.
At Metro, we serve more low-income, first generation-to-college students than any other four-year institution in the state. In addition, 90 percent of our students remain in the metropolitan area after they graduate, becoming our community’s teachers, police officers, business managers and nurses.
An investment in improving the quality of educational opportunity for all helps build a stronger community and a stronger Colorado economy.
Stephen Jordan is president of Metropolitan State College of Denver.
