Improve Recruitment of Underrepresented Students

As the population of high school graduates becomes more diverse, and the overall number of college-age students declines, universities must do a better job recruiting populations that have historically been underrepresented in post-secondary education (first-generation, low-income, underrepresented minority, and rural students). Read the Roadmap for stepwise guidance on how to better recruit underrepresented students.

Over the past two decades, higher education has become more stratified. Low-income and underrepresented minority students are more underrepresented today at selective colleges and universities than they were two decades ago while public universities (and regional public universities in particular) have become the largest engines of social mobility. 

Access challenges manifest differently at different institutions.  Selective universities struggle to enroll students from underrepresented backgrounds. Regional universities support disproportionate numbers of Pell, underrepresented minority, and first-generation students. Review some of the foundations of this stratification in higher education.

College access programs are designed to boost the college-going rate of students in the institution’s region. While well-intentioned, most programs have limited impact on the pipeline of underrepresented students to their universities.  To increase their reach, institutions must be far more strategic about their use of these programs.

Though the number of college access programs has grown, these programs have not significantly increased the pipeline of underrepresented students enrolling at four-year institutions. College access programs face five common challenges:

Providing wraparound services only to small cohorts of students Selecting students with the most academic potential and less demonstrable need for interventions Serving students who are already enrolled in other programs Focusing on individual students over systemic problems at school or district level Failing to align interventions with the underlying problems at K-12 school

Families are one of the most important influences on where students eventually enroll, and their role is even more pronounced with the first-generation students. Colleges and universities must be sure…