Ideas offered to improve minority education

Higher education leaders on a committee aimed at improving post-secondary education and access for minority and disadvantaged students have settled on a number of recommendations they say could improve education attainment for those groups.

One of the strategic directions adopted by the State Board of Regents in 2005 was meeting the needs of disadvantaged and minority students in Utah.

"There is a huge gap in terms of higher education attainment rates," said Dave Doty, assistant commissioner of higher education. "We want to try and close the gap and get many more minority and low-income kids preparing, participating and enrolling in college and completing degrees.

"We want to make a significant push with these particular populations because that's where we are really losing ground," said Doty, who is also chairman of the task force.

The group, composed of around 20 members with representatives from the colleges and universities, Utah System of Higher Education and leaders from the minority communities, met half a dozen times over the past six months.

The recommendations all fit into five categories: preparation, college mentoring and outreach, campus academic support, public relations and financial aid.

Many of the recommendations would require continuous work with the public education system, such as creating preschool and full-day kindergarten, providing incentives, encouraging secondary students to take rigorous courses and emphasizing curriculum that is reflective of the race of minority students.

Doty said public education leaders have been working well with higher education on a number of projects and he is hopeful the relationship will help bring some of the recommendations to fruition.

Under the K-16 Alliance during the past year, representatives from the State Board of Education, Board of Regents and other education officials have met regularly to discuss myriad issues.

"This is certainly going to be part of that group's agenda and focus," Doty said. "It's really difficult to say that a problem can be solved just in K-12 or higher education — everybody needs to come together on this in order for us to have an impact."

Other recommendations involve steps that would need to be taken internally by the universities and the Office of the Commissioner and could be done with existing funding.