Diversity Programs: Have They Achieved Their Goals for Minority Students? (February, 1999)

Summary

Gaps in enrollment, retention, and graduation rates among targeted minority students and particularly between Black and White students have remained virtually unchanged over the past two decades. During this same period a succession of affirmative action/diversity programs has sought to reduce these gaps. Countless deadlines for meeting various numerical goals have been set but have never been met. The most fundamental reason why these gaps remain is that the various affirmative action/diversity plans have failed to confront the key obstacle, the lack of adequate academic preparation by so many members of targeted minority groups. The UW-Madison can and should take action to publicize the nature of this obstacle. It should also help provide leadership to ensure that two decades from now this obstacle has been substantially reduced if not eliminated. Only then will UW-Madison have any chance of succeeding in its quest for a more diverse student body.

Introduction

Three widely-accepted benchmarks for gauging the success of affirmative action/diversity programs indicate that UW-Madison is making little or no progress toward the goal of a more diverse student body. Despite three decades of effort to eliminate gaps in minority freshmen enrollment rates, second-year retention rates, and six-year graduation rates, wide gaps persist. Meanwhile, the campus is about to launch Madison Plan 208, a “more of the same” 10-year program to increase the presence of minorities. Three conclusions are inescapable. One, past programs have failed. Two, campus leaders seem unable to accept these failures and move on to search for new solutions. Three, the proposed Madison Plan 2008 is also doomed to fail. This study assesses UW-Madison’s quest for diversity. It begins by examining the evidence on “underrepresentation” of minorities, and moves on to examine recent trends in UW-Madison enrollment, retention, and graduation rates for minorities. It then contrasts these trends with the goals laid out in a succession of campus diversity plans. Finally, it points to the fundamental problem that campus diversity plans continue to ignore, namely, the inadequate academic preparation of minority students graduating from Wisconsin high schools. Throughout this analysis, particular attention is given to the situation for Blacks.

Minority Underrepresentation

The concept of underrepresentation describes gaps among race and ethnic groups between the percentage distributions of newly enrolled freshmen and recent high school graduates. Thus, if Blacks represent 3.8 percent of Wisconsin high school graduates, as they did in 1997-98, they are viewed as underrepresented at UW-Madison if less than 3.8 percent of entering freshmen in Fall 1998 are Black. In fact, only 2.1 percent of all Fall 1998 entering freshmen from Wisconsin were Blacks. Thus, underrepresentation for Wisconsin Blacks is -1.7 percentage points. This underrepresentation means that UW-Madison “should have” enrolled more Black students. Translated into absolute numbers, instead of the 75 Black freshman who entered in Fall 1998, this campus should have enrolled 139 Wisconsin Black freshmen, or 64 more than it did. The implication of such underrepresentation is that UW-Madison must increase the effectiveness of its recruitment efforts. When the concept of underrepresentation is applied to retention and graduation, it refers to differences in retention and graduation rates between race and ethnic groups. Thus, if in Fall 1996 the second-year retention rate of White students is 91 percent (meaning that 91 percent of entering freshman from Fall 1995 enrolled again in Fall 1996) and the Black retention rate is 78 percent, then Blacks are underrepresented by 13 percentage points. The implication of this differences is that more academic assistance must be provided to Black freshmen in order to boost their retention rate. The six-year graduation rate is viewed in the same fashion, but it involves comparing the number of graduates in, say, 1996-97, with the number of entering freshmen in Fall 1991. The six-year graduation rate for Whites entering as freshmen in Fall 1991 is 74 percent as compared to 38 percent for Blacks. The 36 percentage point gap for Blacks implies that more academic support must be provided to Black students over the entire college career. The implicit assumption underlying this approach to underrepresentation is that Black students and White students are equally well qualified academically when they are admitted and therefore have equal prospects of a successful undergraduate experience. Unfortunately, that assumption is not correct, as elaborated in a related study. To make any sense, underrepresentation in enrollment must focus on pools of high school graduates by race/ethnicity who are comparably qualified for admission rather than on all high school graduates, many of whom do not meet this standard. Similarly, underrepresentation in retention and graduation rates must take into account differences in prior academic achievement by race and ethnicity.

Trends in Minority Underrepresentation:

Enrollment Gaps for Entering Freshmen. The percentage of all Wisconsin high school graduates who are Black and the percentage of entering Wisconsin freshmen who are Blacks from 1984-85 to the present are displayed in Figure 1. Two conclusions emerge. First, the percentage of Black high school graduates has remained relatively constant over most of the past decde but is subject to erratic fluctuations from year to year. Second, the percentage of Black freshmen shows some evidence of increasing but again there are substantial year-to-year fluctuations. As a consequence, the enrollment rate gap, shown in Appendix Table 1, has remained virtually unchanged since the early 1990s. Nevertheless, the enrollment rate gap continues to be a wide one for Blacks. Changes in the gaps for other race and ethnic groups are also difficult to summarize because the gaps fluctuate from year to year, as shown in Appendix Table 1. Wisconsin minorities as a group remained underrepresented throughout the period. The gaps for Native Americans and Hispanics remained essentially unchanged. The gap for Asians, however, is positive rather than negative, reflecting their overrepresentation, which increased somewhat in the 1990s. Of course, Whites have been overrepresented, at least until 1998-99. Gaps in Second-Year Retention Rates. Long-standing diversity goals also call for eliminating gaps in retention rates between minority students and the rest of the student body. For purposes of this analysis, these gaps are defined as the differences in second-year retention rates (the percentage of entrants from the fall semester one year who reenroll in the fall of the following year) between White students and minority students. As shown in Figure 2, the retention rate for Whites has risen while that for Blacks has remained roughly constant. Thus, the retention rate gap has increased somewhat. Because the gaps show considerable year-to-year variation, making generalizations about trends remains hazardous. Still, gaps in second-year retention rates from 1974 to the present, as shown in Appendix Table 2, indicate that Native Americans experienced the widest gaps, followed by Hispanics and then Blacks; the gap for Asians has been negligible. The recent three-year drop in Black retention may be reason for some concern. Indeed, in four of the last six years the Black gap has been at the double-digit level. Whether any relationship exists between the falloff in retention rate and the rise in enrollment rate requires further examination. Gaps in Six-Year Graduation Rates. Similar comparisons can be made for six-year graduation rates going back to the middle 1970s. The White graduation rate has continued to rise while the Black rate which rose sharply in the early 1980s, plateaued thereafter, and then dropped slightly in the most recent year. (See Figure 3) What might account for this drop is impossible to say. It is clear, however, that a wide gap remains. As shown in Appendix Table 3, the gaps for Native Americans and Hispanics are narrower. Only Asians have graduation rates that approach those of Whites, but even they show a -5 percentage point gap in 1991. Throughout the period, the gap for Asians remained small and roughly constant. The gaps for Blacks, Native Americans, and Hispanics are roughly comparable overall, with the gap for Native Americans somewhat larger in recent years and that for Hispanics somewhat smaller. Unfortunately, the graduation rates for all three targeted minority groups, Blacks, Native Americans, and Hispanics, all remain well below the 50 percent mark.

  • Figure 1: Under-representation of Entering Black Freshmen Who are Wisconsin Residents
    Data Source: Department of Public Instruction and UW-Madison Registrar’s Office
  • Figure 2: Gap in Second-Year Retention Rates Between Black and White Students
    Data Source: UW System Data
  • Figure 3: Gap in Six-Year Graduation Rates Vetween Black and White Students
    Data Source: UW System Data
  • Appendix Table 1: Percentage Point Gaps in Enrollment Rates of Entering Freshman from Wisconsin Compared to Wisconsin Public High School Graduates, by Race/Ethnicity
  • Appendix Table 2: Percentage Point Gaps in Second-Year Retention Rates Between White Students and Targeted Minority Students For All Freshmen Who Stayed at the Institution They Enrolled In As Freshman, Fall 1974-96
  • Appendix Table 3: Percentage Point Gaps in Six-Year Graduation Rates Between White Students and Targeted Minority Students For All Freshmen Who Stayed at the Institution They Enrolled In As Freshman, UW-Madison, Fall 1974-92
  • Appendix Table A1: Percentage Distribution of Wisconsin Public High School Graduates, By Race/Ethnic Group, 1984-85 to 1996-97
  • Appendix Table A2: Percentage Distribution of Wisconsin Resident Entering Freshman by Race/Ethnic Group, Fall 1983-84 to Fall 1998-99

The Gaps — A Summary. On three key indicators of diversity — entering freshmen enrollment rates, second-year retention rates, and six-year graduation rates — the gaps between the rates for three minority groups of most concern, namely, Blacks, Native Americans, and Hispanics, are sizeable. Moreover, they show remarkably little evidence of any significant narrowing. Thus, the underrepresentation of targeted minorities continues.

Efforts to Reduce These Gaps

That the enrollment gap remained essentially unchanged may be surprising to many readers unfamiliar with the data. It might have been expected that while gaps remain, they would have narrowed over the years. That proved not to be the case despite a succession of well-publicized affirmative action/diversity plans and programs. In particular, the accelerated push for diversity, under former UW-Madison Chancellor Shalala’s 1988 Madison Plan and under former UW System President Shaw’s 1988 Design for Diversity program, might have been expected to decrease underrepresentation of Native American, Hispanic, and especially Black undergraduates. These plans all included the standard components: expanded recruitment programs to increase the percentage of entering freshmen students; academic support programs, including mentoring, to increase the numbers of entering students who would be retained and eventually graduate; and attempts to change the campus “culture” so that majority students would be more accepting of minority students and more minority students would feel more comfortable in the campus environment. In addition, all of these plans relied on a publicly-unacknowledged policy of preferential admissions for targeted minority applicants. Even with this help, these plans failed to succeed. Still another component of these and even earlier affirmative action/diversity plans was explicit numerical goals and timetables for reaching proportional representation. Although currently the official position of the campus and the UW System is to avoid numerical goals and targets, they inevitably slip into the language of diversity plans. To illustrate, the February 1998 UW System draft of its Plan 2008 in its Goal #1 called on campuses to “increase the number of well-prepared high school graduates of color who apply to the UW System in order to bring enrollment, retention, and graduation rates for underrepresented students of color into alignment with those of the student body as a whole.” [Emphasis added] Because the enrollment goal was criticized as too ambitious, the final version of Plan 2008 approved by the Board of Regents in May 1998 modified its Goal #1 to read: “Increase the number of Wisconsin high school graduates of color who apply, are accepted, and who enroll at UW System institutions.” This goal is meaningless. With such vague language, the campus can take credit for enrollment increases that may occur for other reasons, including increases that occur in spite of diversity programs. The final version of Plan 2008 also included a new Goal #3 which was to “Close the gap in educational achievement, by bringing retention and graduation rates for students of color in line with those of the student body as a whole [by 2008].” This is clearly a numerical goal, as the earlier discussion of trends in retention and graduation rates indicated. Moreover, this goal is very unlikely to be reached for reasons already made clear in my April 1998 An Alternative to the UW System Diversity Plan. It seems reasonable to believe that the UW System Plan 2008 and also the Madison Plan 2008 now under discussion would reflect what lessons might have been learned from past experience. That, however, is not evident. A brief review of goals and timetables from earlier UW-Madison and UW System diversity plans illustrates this point. Indeed, the history of both the UW System and UW-Madison in meeting their affirmative action/diversity goals for undergraduates is not a happy one.1970. The UW-Madison established a goal of proportional representation of minority students, stated as follows: “The University of Wisconsin-Madison should strive to achieve, in its undergraduate student body, a level of minority group representation that is at least proportional to the population served.” (UW-Madison, Faculty Document 20, December 1970)

1972. The new UW System Board of Regents established a long-run diversity goal of equalizing undergraduate enrollment, retention, and graduation rates (UW System, AP 7.2, 1972). 1976. The UW-Madison Faculty Senate reaffirmed its 1970 and 1971 commitments to the goal that minority recruitment be proportional to the population served, i.e., the minority proportion of new freshman should equal the minority proportion of recent Wisconsin high school graduates. It proceeded to set 1979 as the target date for achieving proportional representation in freshman minority enrollment and 1981 as the target date for equalizing retention rates. (UW-Madison, Faculty Document 267, December 6, 1976).

  • By Fall 1979 the enrollment of new minority freshmen, up from 192 in Fall 1976, reached 248, well below the goal of 387. (UW-Madison Faculty Document 371, December 3, 1979, Table 4, p. 9)
  • By Fall 1981 the second-year retention rate for minorities, which for Fall 1975 entrants stood at 78.4 percent as compared to 81.7 percent for non-minorities, had dropped for Fall 1980 entrants to 73.2 percent for minorities as compared to 82.3 percent for non-minorities. UW-Madison Faculty Document 632, February 3, 1986, Table 4). In other words, the gap widened.

1976. The UW System Board of Regents established a System-wide goal of enrolling 9,000 minority students and awarding 800 baccalaureate degrees to minority students by 1981 (UW System, AP 7.2 Revised, January 1976, p. 31).

  • By Fall 1981 UW System fell well short of its target for enrolling new freshmen minority students and in 1980-81 it fell well short in awarding undergraduate degrees to minorities.

1984. The UW System Board of Regents established minority goals of proportional representation among entering freshmen as well as equal retention and graduation rates. It set 1988 as a target for reaching the minority freshman enrollment goal and 1993 as a target for reaching the minority graduation goal. (UW System, Annual Report on 1985-86 Progress and Achievement of Goals for American Racial and Ethnic Minority Students, November 1987, “Summary” — unnumbered).

  • This effort’s lack of success for UW-Madison is evident from the trend data discussed earlier in this paper (Appendix Tables 1-3).

1988. The UW-Madison Campus set out The Madison Plan which called for doubling entering freshman enrollment within five years, raising the total from 185 in Fall 1987 or from 232 in Fall 1988 (the language is unclear about the base year) to 400 by Fall 1993 (Madison Plan, 1988, p. 8).

  • By Fall 1993 Madison campus minority enrollment of Blacks, Native Americans, and Hispanics reached 201, well short of the goal of 400 students. (UW-Madison, Office of the Registrar, Enrollment Reports for First Semester, 1993-94).

1988. The UW System established its 10-year Design for Diversity Plan which called for a 50 percent increase in the number of entering minority freshman (and transfer students) by Fall 1993 and a 100 percent increase by Fall 1998 (Design for Diversity, April 1988, p. 1).

  • By Fall 1993 the UW System enrollment of entering freshmen minority students had increased from Fall 1987 by 33 percent, and by Fall 1997 (the most recent available data) by 40 percent.

This long, painful record should have had some impact on the thinking of campus administrators and faculty, UW System officials, and the Board of Regents. Nonetheless, the UW System Plan 2008 received unanimous endorsement by the Board of Regents in Spring 1998. The Madison Plan 2008 now being prepared for submission to the Board of Regents accepts without question the goals set out in UW System Plan 2008, including the goal of equalizing minority retention and graduation rates. Campus leaders seem unaware of past efforts that were expected to achieve this goal 20 years ago. One other numerical commitment to undergraduate diversity deserves mention. In Spring 1996, UW-Madison Chancellor Ward endorsed as UW-Madison policy the enrollment goal advocated by the Civil Rights Defense Coalition. That goal called for eliminating by the year 2000 the underrepresentation of minority groups among entering UW-Madison freshman. While it is impossible to predict how many minority freshmen, particularly Black freshmen, will enroll in Fall 2000, the likelihood this goal can be reached, without compromising the academic quality of minority applicants, appears slim. To summarize, the UW-Madison’s record in delivering on its promises deserves a grade of F. The campus is long on ambitious and reassuring rhetoric. It is woefully deficient in following through on its promises.

Why Haven’t UW-Madison Diversity Efforts Been More Successful?

The reason why the UW-Madison consistently failed to achieve its minority enrollment, retention, and graduation goals is rarely recognized in the many faculty reports and plans dealing with diversity, most notably UW System Plan 2008 and Madison Plan 2008. The typical explanations for failing to meet their goals include insufficient funding, lack of effort, deficient leadership, a “hostile” climate, and so on. The barriers, however, are much more complex. First, many promising Wisconsin high school graduates want to attend colleges and universities that, for whatever reasons, appear more attractive to them than UW-Madison. Among the considerations they take into account are size, location, and academic environment. There may be little that can be done to attract these students to Madison. Second, it is abundantly apparent that wealthy private colleges and universities are always able to outbid UW-Madison in attracting promising college-bound high school graduates from Wisconsin, particularly minority students. This institution’s financial aid resources are not abundant enough to meet this kind of competition. Third, attracting out-of-state minority high school graduates may be problematic for two reasons: first, offering financial aid that includes out of state tuition proves to be enormously costly, and second, enrolling non resident state students may impose additional pressures on them because of their inability to maintain home and community contacts due to travel costs and travel time. The most fundamental problem is the small relatively small numbers of minority high school graduates who can compete academically with UW-Madison’s highly talented student body. The caliber of the competition is formidable. Comparative data for new freshmen in Fall 12997 shows an average high school class rank of 73.8 for targeted minorities as contrasted to 86.2 for nontargeted students. Similar differences occur in ACT scores, with an average ACT score of 23.5 for targeted minorities and 26.6 for White students and 26.7 for Asian students. An analysis of the academic qualifications of Wisconsin Black high school graduates indicates that perhaps no more than 5-8 percent, as compared to 25 percent of White high school graduates, can be viewed as competitive applicants to UW-Madison. The problem goes much deeper, however. Based on 1997-98 data from the Wisconsin Student Assessment System for all 70,000 tenth graders in the state, about 25 percent of them read at the “advanced” level. Among the just over 5,000 Black tenth graders, however, only 192 read at the “advanced” level. Similar disparities appear in the math and science scores. These numbers illustrate the tremendous job that needs to be done to improve the academic achievement of Wisconsin’s Black youth population and thereby expand the pipeline of potential college students. The UW-Madison can never hope, either through its currently structured diversity programs or Madison Plan 2008, to achieve proportional representation for each of its targeted minority groups within the time frame of Madison Plan 2008. For this reason, it must try to look beyond the year 2008 to a time when a substantially larger proportion of the state’s minority high school graduates can compete academically with UW-Madison’s traditionally talented student body.

What to Do?

What UW-Madison and the UW System must now do is take the lead in alerting the state to the serious problem it faces, that of vastly increasing the number of the state’s high performing high school graduates who come from minority groups. This calls for mobilizing parents, teachers, school officials, legislators, the governor, and influential leaders from the private sector to search for more successful ways of increasing the academic achievement of minority kids. Waiting until they reach college age is much too late. Trying to reach them in their early high school or even middle school years is also too late, particularly if they haven’t taken or plan to take key academic courses, such as algebra. Interventions at the lower grades may already be too late. It would appear that only with improved parenting, more pre-school opportunities, and increased academic help during the early school years is there much hope of raising the academic achievement of minority kids. As such a system takes hold, the now-clogged pipeline of minorities can be opened up and pave the way for later admission to college.

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