College 'road map' for minorities

And once minority students do get to college, state education leaders are also looking at how to keep them there and get them to the graduation line. Student advisement, increased scholarship options and a stable social network could all help keep minority students on that track, Brinkman said.

Roughly 9 percent fewer nonwhite students graduate within four years than their white counterparts, according to U. statistics.

At Salt Lake Community College, leaders have also been working to get minority students to graduation, especially when it comes to the school's smallest minority populations, Asians and American Indians.

Although the graduation rates for those two groups surpass the school's national peer group at about 25 percent and 14 percent, those rates are below the 37 percent graduation rate for white students and the 40 percent graduation rate for Hispanics. All of those rates are based on the number of students who graduated within 150 percent of normal completion time.

"These data help us identify specific groups that we may need to target on specific ways. That was not on our radar until we started looking at it in a disaggregated way," said Deneece Huftalin, vice president of student services at SLCC.

In particular, Huftalin said she's working to increase scholarship support for low-income students, who often include many of the school's minority students. SLCC leaders are also trying to create an advising network for minority students to help them find their way through a degree while also encouraging social connections with other members of their ethnic group.

"There's a balance between making them feel a part of the community, based on race, and at the same time making them feel part of a larger, more diverse community — the entire student body," she said.

For senior Trang Nguyen, the school's efforts to reach out to the Asian population have made a difference for her as a native Vietnamese student. Although she said many Asian students drop out before they graduate, the school has tried to provide a social and academic safety net for Asian students.

"They let us know everything that's going on within the school. That's kind of welcoming. Sometimes you get to school, and you have no idea what's going on," she said.

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