Tuesday, April 5, 2005 | 11:03 a.m.
Bucking national trends, UNLV has significantly decreased the achievement gap in graduation rates among its minority students in the past year, according to data released by the university's Institutional Planning and Analysis office on Monday.
Just as national education experts descended on Las Vegas Monday to discuss ways to decrease the gap in graduation rates between Hispanics and whites, UNLV data requested by the Sun showed that the university had done just that.
According to 2004 graduation numbers, all minority groups at the university are within 5 percentage points of the overall six-year graduation rate of 41.5 percent, with blacks surpassing whites for the first time.
Asians had the highest graduation rate with 44.7 percent, followed by blacks at 41.3 percent, then (non-Hispanic) whites at 40.4 percent, Hispanics at 38.2 percent and Native Americans at 36.2 percent.
In 2003, the six-year graduation rate for blacks at UNLV trailed that of whites by more than 12 percentage points, and the graduate rates for Hispanics was nearly nine percentage points behind whites, who were graduating at a rate of 38.7 percent. Six-year graduation rates are considered the standard nationwide, and for 2003 the rate would have tracked the percentage of students entering in 1997 who had earned a four-year degree by 2003.
Nationally in 2003, blacks were nearly 20 percentage points behind the white graduation average of 59.5 percent, and Hispanic students were 12.5 percentage points behind.
Both Hispanic and black student populations at UNLV had major increases in their six-year graduation rates in the past year, with the graduation rate for Hispanics jumping to 38.2 percent in 2004 from 29.8 percent in 2003, and the graduation rate for blacks increasing to 41.3 percent in 2004 from 26.4 percent in 2003. The Native American population similarly had its graduation rate rise to 36.4 percent in 2004 from 21.4 percent in 2003.
The graduation rate for whites only increased three percentage points, to 40.4 percent in 2004 from 38.7 percent in 2003. Asian students actually had a drop in their graduation rate -- to 44.7 percent in 2004 from 46.4 percent in 2003.
No one from UNLV was available Monday to explain the data shift, spokesman Gian Galassi said, but he said the numbers bode well for the university.
UNLV has several federally funded programs for low-income, first generation students to help them enter college and to provide tutoring to keep them on track, Galassi said. But there are no specific programs geared toward minority students.
Eliminating the graduation rate gap and other educational inconsistencies between Hispanic and white students across the country was the focus of a new national report released Monday in Las Vegas and of the National Latino Education Summit, a nationwide conference of educators gathered through today at the MGM Grand.
The goal of the conference and the report, "Latino Students and the Educational Pipeline: Pathways to the Bachelor's Degree for Latino Students," is to improve the educational system, William Colon, president and chief executive officer of The Latino Institute Inc.
"Looking at the pipeline there are leaks everywhere, and we are looking at how we can fix the pipeline so Latino students can complete their education," Colon said.
The New Jersey-based nonprofit organized the summit, which attracted about 150 educators from across the country and which Colon said he hopes will be hosted annually in Las Vegas.
According to the report, released by the Washington, D.C.-based Educational Policy Institute, helping Hispanic students plan and prepare for college is more likely to up their graduation rates than helping them with college applications or financial aid.
Planning for college, taking college preparatory classes in high school and staying continuously enrolled once in college all are more likely to increase the graduation rates for Latinos, Watson Scott Swail, president of the Educational Policy Institute, said. Finances are still a major factor in a student's ability to earn a postsecondary degree, Swail said, but financial aid itself played a "statistically insignificant" role in a student's persistence through college.
Using data from the National Educational Longitudinal Study, which tracked the educational attainment of 26,000 students from their 1988 eighth grade class through 2000, Swail's group was able to go back through the surveys and pinpoint different factors that positively or negatively influenced an individual's ability to earn a degree.
Latino students who planned and aspired to earn a bachelor's degree in the eighth grade were 53 percent more likely to complete a bachelor's degree, Swail said, and students whose parents expected them to earn an advanced degree were also 46 percent more likely to earn that degree.
Students who do well in high school and college, both by taking high level courses and earning higher grade point averages, are also more likely to earn the bachelor's degree, Swail said.
Continuous enrollment in college classes immediately after high school is also essential, Swail said, as any delay in enrollment into college, any stop in the process or even taking classes part-time will decrease the likelihood that a student will finish the degree program.
The findings may appear to be "no brainers," Swail said, but having the data to back up those claims will help educators do a better job of keeping Latino and other students in the educational pipeline from Kindergarten through graduate school.
Aldo Aguirre, cultural diversity consultant for the Nevada Department of Education, said the data is important for state policy makers and shows the need to focus college recruitment efforts on the pivotal eighth grade year. Students need to begin thinking about college that early to be able to take the right classes in high school, both Aguirre and Swail said.
"They need to be aware of the opportunities and be able to take advantage of them," Aguirre said.
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