College Access
Our current research topics related to college access include college admissions, affirmative action, financing, diversity, and underrepresented students in higher education.
Two thousand-eight marked the 30th anniversary of the Supreme Court's Bakke decision, which legally upheld the consideration of race as a factor in admissions decisions for the purpose of promoting diversity in higher education. Such affirmative action policies have opened the doors of selective colleges and universities to many more minority students than might have otherwise had opportunities. While access to higher education has improved for minorities in this country, that progress is still severely threatened due, in part, to a series of very serious attacks on affirmative action. In 1996, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, in Hopwood v. University of Texas Law School, ended all considerations of race in admissions, recruitment, and scholarships at the undergraduate and graduate school level at all public institutions under its jurisdiction (i.e., Texas, Mississippi, and Louisiana). In 1996, California voters passed Proposition 209, a ballot initiative that also eliminated affirmative action in education, employment, and contracting throughout the state. And, the University of Michigan faced legal challenges in 2003 to both its undergraduate and law school admissions policies that give consideration to race/ethnicity.
Recent College Access Research
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Financing College in Hard Times: Work and Student Aid
- These are the third in a series of reports exploring the impact of California's fiscal crisis on the opportunities for underrepresented students in the California State University system. Although the Master Plan for Higher Education called for tuition-free affordable college for all qualified California students, the fiscal reality of California has led to the abandonment of that promise and rapidly rising tuition and other costs of college. Over the last decade, the California State University (CSU) has sustained a substantial decrease in state general funds and has offset these decreases by increasing tuition and fees by over 166 percent. In 1967 the state paid approximately 90% of a student’s education while today it pays approximately 64%. As costs associated with college rise for students, including housing and books, attending and financing college may become too difficult for students with the greatest financial need, the reports find, particularly the state’s majority of Latino and African American youth.
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Two Studies of a Faculty in Crisis
- These reports are the second in a series of independent original studies designed to analyze the impact of fiscal cutbacks in the CSU system on higher education opportunities. The Civil Rights Project is particularly interested in these issues because the CSU system is an extremely important pathway for opening opportunity to historically excluded groups of Latino, African American and poor students in California.
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The CSU Crisis and California's Future: A Note on the Series
- This series of reports is designed to analyze the impact of the fiscal cutbacks on opportunity for higher education in the California State University system, the huge network of 23 universities that provide the greatest amount of BA level of education in the state. The CSU has a much larger undergraduate student body than the University of California system and educates a much larger group of Latino and African American students. Many CSU students are first generation college students struggling to get an education in difficult times.
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Squeezed from All Sides: The CSU Crisis and California's Future
- This report is the first in a series called "The CSU Crisis and California’s Future." These reports are designed to analyze the impact of the fiscal cutbacks on opportunity for higher education in the California State University system, the huge network of 23 universities that provide the greatest amount of BA level of education in the state. The CSU has a much larger undergraduate student body than the University of California system and educates a much larger group of Latino and African American students. Many CSU students are first generation college students struggling to get an education in difficult times. This first report looks at how students are impacted by the fiscal crisis and budget cuts to CSUs. When the state of California adopted the Master Plan for Higher Education in 1960 it made a social contract with the young people of the state to provide them with a higher education. But the state has broken that social contract for many of its students. California has great wealth, but it also has many millions living in poverty with very low levels of education.
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Beyond the Master Plan: The Case for Restructuring Baccalaureate Education in California
- This study documents how the structure of California’s higher education system restricts B.A. attainment among all students and especially among students of color.
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Building on Success: Educational Diversity and Equity in Kentucky Higher Education
- This comprehensive study of equity in the entire Kentucky system not only assesses the state's progress under plans developed to comply with federal civil rights law over the past 26 years, but also recommends strategies for the next generation.
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Charting the Future of College Affirmative Action: Legal Victories, Continuing Attacks, and New Research
- American higher education has struggled now for nearly a half century to find ways to better serve and reflect the diversity of American society and to train leaders who can cross over the social divisions that have limited the American dream since its beginnings. We have learned that it can be done, that there are major benefits to the educational and research missions of our campuses, and that we know how to do it better. It is very important that our university faculties and leaders not give up on what has been a notable success but find the best ways to preserve it in a time of polarization and help to build a successful multiracial America.
