Higher ed system increasingly separate and unequal, new report says

Pat Schneider:

The nation's community colleges are serving poorer and increasingly more African-American and Latino students, but getting a smaller piece of the federal aid pie, according to a new report by the Century Foundation.

The resulting separate and unequal higher education system is not working any better than the racially stratified and resource-poor public school systems outlawed by Brown v. Board of Education, the report says.

Between 1999 and 2009, the budget at public research universities -- like the University of Wisconsin-Madison -- increased by nearly $4,000 per student, while community college budgets increased by $1 per student, the report says. That's even though 66 percent of community college students need some kind of remedial training.

Federal and state educational polices haven't kept pace with the growing enrollment at community colleges, where lower tuition may mean students are not eligible for existing aid programs, the study points out.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at May 24, 2013 1:36 AM
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