Promising Results for Students of Color

The benchmark scores show a promising pattern for students of color. Taken as a group, African American, Hispanic, and Native American students are more engaged than their fellow students who are white. Though the differences are fairly small, they are consistent, and they suggest that students of color are exerting relatively more effort while experiencing greater academic challenge. They also are reporting higher levels of support for learners at their colleges.

Promising Findings

In a comparison of white/non-Hispanic students with non-Asian minorities (i.e., African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans), the data show encouraging patterns:

• Overall, the students of color report slightly higher levels of engagement in the classroom, in interaction with faculty members, and in serious conversations with students of a difference race or ethnicity than their own.
• Students of color give their colleges significantly higher ratings for providing academic, social, and financial support to help them succeed. They also give similarly high ratings for relationships with students, instructors, and administrators on campus.
• In general, more minority students report using key academic and student services (e.g., academic advising/planning, career counseling, financial aid advising, tutoring, skill labs) than do white students. They also rate the whole range of support services as significantly more important than do white students; and finally, students of color report generally higher levels of satisfaction with the services they use.
• Minority students also recognize the challenges that they often bring to college with them, indicating a higher likelihood that full-time jobs, caring for dependents, and academic underpreparation are “very likely” reasons that they would drop out of school.
• Across the board, students of color are significantly more likely to estimate that the college has contributed “very much” or “quite a bit” to learning outcomes, including acquisition of a broad general education, writing, speaking, solving numerical problems, understanding self, understanding people of other racial and ethnic backgrounds, and learning effectively on their own.
• Relatively speaking, minority students seem to perceive that they are well served by their community colleges.

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