An overwhelming majority of the University’s students are white.
Of the students who attend the University, 13.6 percent identify as being ethnic or racial minorities.
According to a U.S. Department of Education study, about 27 percent of students at public four-year institutions classify themselves as minorities on the national level. In four-year-institutions in Oregon, however, only 15 percent of students enrolled classify as minorities – the University is below average across the board.
Why this discrepancy exists depends on who you ask.
In Oregon, Vice Provost for Institutional Equity and Diversity Charles Martinez said, kindergarten through 12th grade schools are segregated on the basis of race, ethnicity and socio-economic class. This segregation has led to achievement gaps between white and Asian students on one side, and Black, Latino and Native students on the other, for a litany of reasons.
In many schools where the students are minorities and poor the faculty consists more often of who’s left, rather than who’s best, Martinez said. The resources are inadequate and the fundraising limps, he said.
Parents who don’t have to work can spend more time volunteering, but when both parents have to work,
volunteering and fundraising fall by the wayside, he said. Drop-out rates are higher for Latino, Black and Native students than for their white and Asian counterparts, and in these under-funded schools, administrators and teachers often fail to stress attending college as a goal.
Last year, the national dropout rate for Latino and Black people was roughly double that of the rate for whites and Asians, according to the Census Bureau.
The classes students do take provide lackluster preparation for rigorous, higher-level academics, Martinez said, so if students from these backgrounds do make it to the University, they face a set of challenges unlike those of the majority middle-class white student body.
But associate professor of economics Bill Harbaugh said this discrepancy has more to do with money than color.
“I think there is a real problem with a lack of diversity, most apparent in terms of income, not race or ethnicity,” Harbaugh said.
He said poor Americans are restricted access to education across the board, regardless of their race or ethnic background, but that “minorities are generally poor” which diverges the focus from real reform to squabbling over representation in the wrong areas and political infighting on dated issues.
But Martinez said recent studies on drop-out rates take socio-economic background into account.
“These are entwined,” Martinez said. “It’s not like race explains why some students achieve and some students don’t.
“It’s not neutral,” he said.
Whether or not things are improving also depends on who you ask.
The Chronicle of Higher Education, a weekly news publication aimed toward college and university faculty members and administrators, released its annual Almanac edition in late August with an exhaustively-researched demographic portrait of higher-education in the United States. The almanac offers statistical information on the beliefs and make up of students and faculty members, economic costs of education for the individual and the state and a demography of the American population.
Nationally, the statistics show, the past decade has seen a rise in the number of students enrolled in college, but the rise is most dramatic among students of color. Latino students – especially those who are female – show the greatest percentage-wise increase in representation, at 40 percent. African American representation has risen 30 percent in the past decade, most markedly among women.
But despite this rise, nationally the portions of the Black, Latino and Native populations attending and graduating from colleges and universities are still smaller than those percentages of white and Asian communities.
The same is true at this University.
According to statistics from the registrar, representation of Black, Native and Latino students has remained virtually stagnant for the past 11 years – 1.6 percent of students are Black; 3 percent are Latino, and 1.2 percent are Native-American- and such has been the case as far back as 1995. All of these percentages are lower than the percentages of the Oregon population these groups comprise.
Delineated by racial and ethnic groups nationally, 60 percent of Asian 18-to-24-year-olds are enrolled in college, compared with 38 percent of whites, 31.4 percent of Blacks and 24.7 percent of Latinos. No statistics were given for Native Americans, but the graduation rate at 4-year institutions for Natives is among the lowest of all ethnic groups. Mirroring the rates of enrollment, Blacks and Latinos graduate at a lesser rate than whites and Asians nationally.
This as well is true at this University; the six year graduation rates based on race and ethnicity roughly coincides with the national data showing Blacks, Latinos and Natives with significantly lower graduation rates than whites and Asians.
“Those are challenges we have to take on. Period,” Martinez said.
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