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The
Graduation Gap: A Detroit News Special
Report Colleges'
retention of blacks dismal Analysis shows just
40% of blacks graduated compared to 61% of whites in Mich. schools
Daniel Mears / The
Detroit News
Tyra Lumpkin dropped out of
Oakland University because of trouble adjusting to college life.
By Janet
Vandenabeele, and Jodi Upton / The Detroit
News African-American students are dropping out of Michigan
universities at rates far greater than whites, adrift at schools that
vigorously recruited them. A Detroit News
investigation of seven Michigan universities shows that among black
students who were freshmen in 1994, just 40 percent got their diplomas
after six years, compared to 61 percent of white students and 74 percent
of Asians. "We're throwing them out after taking
their money and they're getting nothing out of it," said Barry Mehler, a
history professor at Ferris State University, who helped start a program
to keep minority students in college. "We're mugging (the majority) of
them, taking their money, taking their dignity. "I
feel like I am participating in a vast criminal conspiracy."
The falloff between white and black graduation
rates here raises high-impact issues, because Michigan sits in the
epicenter of the national debate over affirmative action in college
admissions: * The state's universities have
special programs aimed at helping black students meet financial, social
and academic challenges, but graduation rates for blacks haven't
improved consistently over the past decade, The News found.
* Universities knowingly admit students who have a
high chance of failing. * Michigan has presented
itself as a test case for affirmative action in higher education, but
the state is no national model on how to retain black students.
Experts blame a variety of reasons for high
dropout rates among African-American students, from money to inadequate
academic preparation to an unfriendly campus climate.
"A lot of students don't feel like there's a true
effort to make universities diverse," said Bryan Cook, a doctoral
student who advises black fraternities at the University of Michigan.
"They think it's a show commitment and the programs they offer are
watered-down." Knowing why blacks are dropping out
doesn't mean the universities are on top of the issue.
"It's the nature of the beast," said Lester Monts,
U-M's senior vice-provost for academic affairs. "We just don't have a
handle on this. Most universities don't have a handle on this at all."
When Mario Harper of Oak Park looks at pictures
from his freshman year at Michigan State University, he realizes that a
lot of African-American classmates who started with him are no longer
around. "There are so many who've just dropped out
of sight, nowhere to be found," said Harper, an MSU senior who graduated
from Shrine Catholic High School in Royal Oak. "I make sure I do the
best I can. I want to get rid of that stereotype of the lazy black male.
But it is a lot of pressure."
Better than average U-M,
Michigan State and Central Michigan are the only Division I schools in
Michigan whose black graduate rates are better than the national average
-- which, at 39 percent, is nothing to brag about. The reason: They are
the more selective, and tend to get better-prepared and better-financed
students. The 10 years' worth of data analyzed by
The News shows that the more selective a university is in choosing its
students, the more likely its students are to graduate. That's clearly
illustrated by U-M, whose admission standards are the state's toughest.
Conversely, those that are less choosey about admissions have higher
dropout rates. Of the seven schools studied by The
News, the graduation rate for black students is highest at U-M (about 64
percent over the past decade) and lowest at Oakland University (about 22
percent). That compares to white graduation rates
of 86 percent at U-M and 43 percent at Oakland University.
U-M, cheered on by other Michigan universities and
blue-chip corporations, currently is defending legal challenges to its
admissions policy, which favors black applicants over whites and Asians
with stronger academic credentials. The case is likely to be decided by
the U.S. Supreme Court. U-M administrators and
supporters say a diverse student body is crucial to the quality of
education -- and to the total college experience -- of all students.
Dropout figures, however, show there's not much
racial diversity left, by the time students are upperclassmen.
Example: When U-M freshmen began in 1993, 67
percent of the class was white and 9 percent black. By graduation, the
percentage of African-American students had fallen by a third, to just 6
percent of the class. Graduation rates among black
students are worse at MSU, Central, Eastern Michigan, Western Michigan,
Northern Michigan and Oakland universities. The News reviewed 10 years
of graduation rates at NCAA Division I schools, because those are the
only ones for which national rates are kept. (Wayne State University has
not kept dropout records by student race until recently; the first set
of six-year figures will be out next year.)
Hispanic and Native American students also leave
Michigan colleges at rates higher than whites, and are equally courted
by selective schools such as Michigan and Michigan State. But their
graduation rates tend to be higher than those of African Americans.
College administrators recognize the moral dilemma
of recruiting black students, knowing their high chances of failure.
"We want to make sure we aren't just pushing
people in. That's unethical from my standpoint," said Lee June, MSU
vice-president for student affairs.
Pay their own bills While
high dropout rates are commonly blamed on poor academic preparation,
that's not the whole story, some educators believe.
Minority students tend to come from less affluent
families, so when the financial aid check doesn't come, or the grant
doesn't cover all the college bills, parents are less able to bail them
out. Black students may have to work longer hours
at a job to pay their own bills, or to help out with a family crisis.
Study time suffers. Because fewer family members
have even attempted college, black students may find themselves alone
when it comes time to make a decision to stay in school, or quit.
Chandra Cross gave Wayne State University a try
last year. But her dreams of a degree in computer science collapsed amid
the weight of tuition payments. Hoping to afford
tuition working full-time at a Wal-Mart in Taylor, Cross was surprised
to learn that students still have to pay for classes they drop. After a
few semesters, Cross left. She's now working at a Burger King in
Dearborn Heights. "The classes were too big and
you always had to run around trying to find your professors," she said.
But not everyone blames the universities. Some
minority students fall victim to the same thing white students do: too
much freedom. "I just didn't go to class," said
Tyra Lumpkin, a Detroit student who attended several semesters at
Oakland University in 1999-2000. "I had become real lax and wasn't
concentrating on school." A few professors asked
about her when she quit attending, but Lumpkin said she was aware of no
programs designed to make sure she stayed in school.
"There were no black professors and most of the
people in my classes were white, but that wasn't the problem. It was
me." said Lumpkin, who hopes to attend Alabama State University this
fall. Recent good times may actually have worsened
the exodus of minority students, said Rodney Lopez, a counselor in Wayne
State University's Chicano-Boricua Studies program.
"When the economy is doing real well, they find
good jobs and they like the money," he said. In
the long-run, however, the high African-American dropout rate is costly
for taxpayers, as well as for the students themselves.
If they graduated at the same rate as their white
counterparts, minority students would earn an additional $5.3 billion a
year, according to a study done by the National Center for Public Policy
and Higher Education. And the state, already
tightening its belt as the economy contracts, would be getting an
additional $1.9 billion in tax revenues from those college-degreed,
higher-paid workers.
Intimidating atmosphere For
some black students who have grown up in neighborhoods and schools with
few whites, a predominantly white campus can be intimidating and
unwelcoming. "Sometimes there's a disconnect
between universities and students of color," said U-M graduate student
Bryan Cook. "It's not that universities don't have a desire to enhance
diversity. But sometimes, those efforts backfire and don't work to make
life for black students easier. That can be alienating."
Rina Henry of Detroit said she had little trouble
adjusting to campus life at Wayne State. The bills were tough, though:
She worked two jobs and paid the school $600 every two weeks.
Henry, a computer science major, left Wayne State
about six months ago, but plans to return soon. "I
liked it, but if anything, I wish there was more hands-on teaching with
the professors," she said. "You sit down in class, they write on the
blackboard and tell you to do this, do that, read this, read that."
University officials acknowledge they need to make
the whole campus atmosphere less threatening for everyone -- whites and
minorities alike. "The only way you foster true
diversity and plurality is to foster interactions between all the
groups," said Glenn McIntosh, director of Oakland University's Office of
Equity. "(This) will lead to (producing) leaders of the 21st century.
They will be more marketable." Creating a climate
that embraces diversity, at a time when race is a national obsession, is
"a continual challenge," MSU provost Lou Anna Simon said.
"Do students believe there is a climate issue? Of
course. ... Even when we do something (to encourage tolerance) students
live in a larger society. We get 10,000 new students every year, each
with their own perceptions," she said. Overcoming
long-ingrained ideas of social, academic and economic class may prove
more challenging than simply throwing money into a new program.
Mehler, who heads the Institute for the Study of
Academic Racism at Ferris, which was not among the colleges studied by
The News, says don't underestimate the impact of stereotyping and
racism. "You have many professors who simply are
racists. Their racism is based on their intellectual perception of
reality," Mehler said. Said Bill Bloomfield, a
veteran of several national programs for minority high school and
college students: "You need (change) sunk into the bedrock of the
institution from an administrative, budgetary and cultural perspective.
"The issue isn't so much that the kids don't have
the oomph to pull it off. It ain't the kids' problem."
Staff writer Joel Kurth contributed to this
report. You can reach Janet Vandenabeele at (313) 222-2309 or mailto:jnaylor@detnews.com
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