Study Shows Economic Growth Depends on Educating Minority Students

We are hearing in the news more and more about the importance of educating all students. This study shows that minorities, although increasing in the number of graduates, are not increasing at the same rate of white students graduating and, for all populations, we are not recruiting enough STEM graduates.

Are we in trouble?

I love statistics.  They are like little toys to play with.  Click on the map to play along.

We have made great progress in attracting and retaining minorities to college, but it has been a slow, very slow process.  Educational attainment is not magic in the sense that it is instant. Educational attainment requires time, money and lots of work.

Lets take a look at what was happening with popular culture since 1940 when WWII taught us a well learned lesson that U.S. citizens were going to have to be educated, especially in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

When soldiers returned from WWII they had the G.I. Bill to help them get to college and they went in droves.  However these benefits were not extended to women, minorities and those that did not go to war.
Click on the map above, drag the timeline to 1940 and then 1950 and compare white educational achievement with minorities.  We see a huge jump in the numbers of white males that earn a degree but not so with minorities.

Affirmative action, tossed around during the Kennedy years was not signed into law until 1964.  Although in 1954 desegregation of schools was outlawed, nationally  the schools took until 1970 for all of them to desegregate.  Use the map again and compare each year until 1980.  Minority graduates jumped considerably after they obtained improved schooling and programs to support them through college.

Federal programs are a must in order to continue the progress we have made to attract and retain students to college.  Affirmative action programs have perhaps run their course in the population they have targeted.  Pell Grants have never been higher and had so many students able to use them.  Government guaranteed loans and private college loans have never been higher.

What needs to happen is that we investigate further, beyond minority status and economic condition to find alternative ways to get more students to completion.  It was easier when it was easy to target populations that needed assistance.  Our next step may not be as easy to identify and target with appropriate action when the solution expands beyond ethnicity, economic status and gender.