The Pathways to College Network, a broad coalition of organizations in which AAC&U is a lead partner, last month released a report calling on leaders throughout the nation to make a college education a realistic goal for all Americans. A Shared Agenda: A Leadership Challenge to Improve College Access and Success presents the latest data on rates of high school graduation, college enrollment, and degree completion and compares the performance of different groups of students. The study documents the large achievement gap that continues to divide low-income students, minority students, and students with disabilities from White students and students from middle- and upper-income families. Perhaps most disturbingly, the data suggest that although public investments in education over the past three decades have improved the overall educational attainment of students in the U.S., those investments have failed to lessen the gaps in college preparation, access, and graduation rates.

In response to these findings, A Shared Agenda recommends specific actions for state and federal officials, school leaders, college and university administrators, outreach program leaders, and communities. To view these recommendations, or to read the entire report, download the complete text of A Shared Agenda.

For more information about the Pathways to College Network, visit their Web site at www.pathwaystocollege.net.

FINDINGS

Disparities in and Research on College Preparation

• Only 28 percent of low-income students are enrolled in a college-preparatory curriculum, compared to 49 percent of middle-income students and 65 percent of high-income students.
• African American students are three times more likely than White students to be placed in special education programs and are only half as likely to be in gifted programs in elementary and secondary school.
• White students take Advanced Placement examinations at nearly six times the rate of Latino students and more than 13 times the rate of African American students.
• African American, Latino, American Indian, and low-income eighth graders are twice as likely as White or upper-income students to be in remedial math.
• A region's high school curriculum has greater impact on bachelor's degree completion than any other pre-college indicator or academic preparation, regardless of socioeconomic status or race.
• Fewer than one-third of high school graduates complete the full sequence of college-preparatory courses recommended in A Nation At Risk (published in 1983).

Achievement Gaps Along the "Education Pipeline"

• More than 90 percent of students from the top two income quartiles graduate from high school, compared to 65 percent of those from the bottom quartile.
• Only about half of African American and Latino ninth graders graduate from high school within four years, compared to 79 percent of Asian Americans and 72 percent of Whites.
• In 2000, 82 percent of high school graduates in the top income quartile enrolled in college, while only 57 percent of students from the bottom quartile did so.
• More than 65 percent of White high school graduates in 2000 continued directly on to college, compared with 56 percent of African American and 49 percent of Hispanic high school graduates.
• Sixty-five percent of students graduating from high school in 1992 whose parents had bachelor's degrees enrolled in four-year colleges, compared with only 21 percent of students whose parents had a high school diploma or less.
• By their late 20s, more than one-third of Whites have at least a bachelor's degree, but only 18 percent of African Americans and 10 percent of Hispanics have attained degrees.

DID YOU KNOW?

• A child from a family in the top income quartile is five times more likely to earn a bachelor's degree by age 24 than is a child from the bottom income quartile.
• Among college-qualified low-income students who do go to college, fewer than 25 percent earn bachelor's degrees.
• The average Pell grant now covers 25 percent of the total costs at public four-year colleges—down from 47 percent in 1975—and 10 percent of private college costs—down from 24 percent in 1975.