Press Release

Contacts:
Debra Humphreys, Vice President for Communications and Public Affairs
AAC&U
202-387-3760 ext. 422
Humphreys@aacu.org

Alex Barnum, Communications Officer
The James Irvine Foundation
415-777-2244
ABarnum@irvine.org

New Study: Economic Diversity on College Campuses Declining

California College Report Shows a Decreasing Percentage of Enrolled Students, Including Underrepresented Minority Students, are Pell Grant Recipients

San Francisco -- July 11, 2006 -- A new report released today revealed that broad efforts to diversify the student body are not resulting in increased economic diversity at a set of 22 private colleges and universities in California. The report, “Using Multiple Lenses: An Examination of the Economic and Racial/Ethnic Diversity of College Students”, was released today as part of The James Irvine Foundation Campus Diversity Initiative, coordinated by Claremont Graduate University (CGU) and the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U). The report analyzed enrollment data disaggregated by race/ethnicity and by Pell Grant status at 22 independent colleges and universities that are part of a grant-funded project designed to increase access and success for low-income and underrepresented minority (URM) students. The federal Pell Grant program provides need-based aid to low-income students. URM refers to members of African American, Latino/a and American Indian/Alaska Native communities.

The report traced changes in economic and racial/ethnic diversity by comparing data from 2000 and 2004 submitted by each of the colleges and universities in the study. The report shows that:

The average percentage of all students who receive Pell Grants decreased from 26 to 23 percent;
The average percentage of URM students who received Pell Grants decreased from 45 to 41 percent;
Much of the growth in URM student enrollments involved students who were not low-income.

"This report shows that, for analytic purposes, race/ethnicity and class should not be conflated if we want to improve college access and success,” said the report’s lead author, José F. Moreno, Assistant Professor of Chicano and Latino Studies at California State University, Long Beach and Senior Analyst of the project. “Policies and practices that target race/ethnicity or class in isolation are not sufficient for sustaining access. Multidimensional analyses of these issues are needed to create policies and practices that reflect the impact that race/ethnicity and class have on student success.”

The report also shows how data disaggregated by race/ethnicity and income level must be considered together as well as independently in order to create greater access and success for low-income students from all racial/ethnic groups, and for URM students from all income levels. For example, the report shows that the percentage of all Pell Grant recipients who are URM actually increased from 34% to 37%, despite the fact that a lower percentage of all URM students are receiving Pell Grants. By combining this data, the report highlights how increasing the number of URM students does not necessarily increase the number of low-income students.

"The common myth that minority students are low-income and low-income students are minority is as damaging as it is false,” added report author Alma R. Clayton-Pedersen, Vice President for Education & Institutional Renewal at AAC&U and co-director of the project. “Conflating race/ethnicity and socio-economic status can mask the complexity of barriers to student access and success and lead to misperceptions about what is and isn’t working in campus diversity initiatives.”

In addition to Moreno and Clayton-Pedersen, other project principals and report authors include Sharon Parker, Senior Research Associate at CGU; Daryl G. Smith, Professor of Education at CGU; and Daniel Hiroyuki Teraguchi, Associate Director and Research Associate, Office of Diversity, Equity, and Global Initiatives and Director, Program for Health and Higher Education at AAC&U.

Because this was a multi-campus study, the authors chose Pell Grant data as the best indicator for the presence of low-income students. However, the report recommends that campuses use a broader array of income data to assess economic diversity. The report also recommends that campuses:

Disaggregate enrollment and other data by income level and by race/ethnicity;
Disaggregate data on racial/ethnic groups by income level;
Use data disaggregated by race/ethnicity and income distribution to inform campus diversity policies, practices, and programs.

Additional recommendations and details on the report’s methodology can be found in the full report at www.irvine.org.

The James Irvine Foundation established the Campus Diversity Initiative (CDI) to help 28 independent colleges and universities in California address issues of diversity. The initiative supports a range of campus activities and institutional changes with the aim of increasing access and success of historically underrepresented students in higher education. Researchers from CGU and AAC&U designed and led the CDI Evaluation Project to assist the campuses in developing their own evaluation expertise and mechanisms. This report is the third in a series of three research briefs stemming from the project, along with a final report, a monograph, and a resource kit.

To read the entire report online, visit the Irvine Foundation Web site at www.irvine.org. To read more about the Campus Diversity Initiative, visit AAC&U’s Web site at www.aacu.org/irvinediveval.

AAC&U is the leading national association concerned with the quality, vitality, and public standing of undergraduate liberal education. Its members are committed to extending the advantages of a liberal education to all students, regardless of academic specialization or intended career. Founded in 1915, AAC&U now comprises more than 1,000 accredited public and private colleges and universities of every type and size. AAC&U functions as a catalyst and facilitator, forging links among presidents, administrators, and faculty members who are engaged in institutional and curricular planning. Its mission is to reinforce the collective commitment to liberal education at both the national and local levels and to help individual institutions keep the quality of student learning at the core of their work as they evolve to meet new economic and social challenges.

Founded in 1925, Claremont Graduate University is an independent institution, striking in its global linkages and partnerships, innovative in the ways it teaches, characterized by continuous reconfiguration, responsive in its research to social issues and needs, and sensitive to aesthetic and moral dimensions of professional life. CGU enrolls approximately 2,200 students in eight graduate schools of arts and humanities, behavioral and organizational sciences, educational studies, information science, management, mathematics, politics and economics, and religion. Among its nearly 18,000 alumni are 38 current or former college and university presidents, two members of Congress, and three MacArthur Fellows. CGU is a member of the Claremont Colleges consortium. For more information about CGU, visit www.cgu.edu.

The James Irvine Foundation is a private, nonprofit grantmaking foundation dedicated to expanding opportunity for the people of California to participate in a vibrant, inclusive, and successful society. The Foundation’s grantmaking is organized around three program areas: Arts, Youth, and California Perspectives, which focuses on engaging new constituencies and infusing new ideas to improve public decision-making. Since 1937 the Foundation has provided more than $900 million in grants to nonprofit organizations throughout California, and with current assets of more than $1.5 billion, the Foundation expects to make grants of $69 million in 2006 for the people of California.