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Aug. 30, 2000
New grants support research on diversity in higher education
Princeton, N.J. -- Princeton University Sociology Professor Marta Tienda has received two major grants to research diversity in higher education, an issue that has become especially urgent as the courts dismantle affirmative-action programs.
How are colleges and students of all races affected by the new rules of a post-affirmative-action world? And what are the factors that help minority students succeed? "We are looking at all sides of these questions -- the successes as well as the failures, the institutions as well as the people," Tienda said.
Across the country, university admissions programs that take race into account have come under fire in both the legal and political arenas. A survey released in August by the American Council on Education found that nearly 9 out of 10 Americans believe it is important to have racial and ethnic diversity on college campuses, but only one-quarter support the use of affirmative action to achieve that goal.
With an initial grant of $620,000 from the Ford Foundation, Tienda and four other researchers are beginning a five-year project to investigate the impact of new admission policies in Texas, where a federal court outlawed affirmative action in the 1996 Hopwood decision. A second grant, for $300,000 from the Andrew Mellon Foundation, will allow Tienda and co-investigators to study the changing participation of Hispanics in higher education.
Together, Tienda's projects will present a portrait of how minority students -- particularly Hispanics -- stand in higher education today, and offer insights that could help them fare better.
In 2003, Hispanics are projected to pass African-Americans to become the largest minority group in the U.S. Yet while their total enrollment in higher education continues to increase, the gap between Hispanic and white enrollment, and Hispanic and black enrollment, is growing as well. Since the mid-seventies, the Hispanic enrollment rate has increased about 8 percent, while the rate for African-American enrollment grew by 12 percent and the rate for white students grew by 15 percent. Hispanics also have the highest high-school dropout rate, about 27.8 percent.
"While there is cause for celebration in the improved college graduation rates, there is equal cause for concern about the rising disparity in college graduation rates between minorities and whites, and especially between Hispanics and whites," Tienda said.
The Ford grant allows Tienda and four researchers -- Kim Lloyd of Princeton, Kevin Leicht of the University of Iowa, and Toni Falbo and Teresa A. Sullivan from the University of Texas at Austin -- to take a close look at the groundbreaking admissions policies implemented in the wake of Hopwood. As an alternative to affirmative action, Texas legislators created what has become known as the "10 percent plan," in which Texas high school students who graduate in the top 10 percent of their class are guaranteed admission to any state university. Already, similar plans have been adopted by California and Florida, although Tienda noted that the plans vary and results will not be the same across the board.
Specifically, researchers will investigate how the 10-percent plan has changed minority enrollment in Texas' colleges and universities; how more intensive recruitment and stronger financial-aid packages have changed minority application, enrollment and high-school counseling; and how students admitted to college under the new procedures fare after they arrive.
With the Mellon grant, researchers will examine what accounts for the success of Hispanic students who beat the odds, including those who attend America's most selective colleges. Although this project is not designed to answer questions relating to affirmative action, many of its conclusions will be relevant to that debate, Tienda said.
This grant's focus on Hispanic students continues the analysis begun in the groundbreaking study The Shape of the River, by William G. Bowen, former president of Princeton University, and Derek Bok, former president of Harvard University -- perhaps the most comprehensive exploration of affirmative action in higher education. Using the same set of data, Tienda's team will explore how Hispanic students manage the transition from high school to college, how and where they apply to college, and what affects their chances of success in college and beyond.
"Parents of Hispanic students often have extremely low levels of education, which implies lifelong differences in opportunities for the children," said Tienda, whose own father immigrated from Mexico and had less than a primary-school education. "We can learn new things by focusing on the successes rather than pounding on the failures -- is it just that these students are so resilient or have there been circumstances that helped them do well?"