Minority Student Access to Higher Education

Jodi Hope Buyyounouski

Although college enrollment rates have swelled over the past thirty years, minority students tend to be less likely to matriculate and persist in college. As the relationship between college degree attainment and economic mobility continues to strengthen, it becomes imperative to understand the accessibility of higher education, especially for underrepresented minority groups. This entry explores factors affecting minority student participation and opportunity in the higher education arena. Tracing back to its beginnings, higher education in the United States was reserved for an elite few, typically White males from privileged backgrounds. As a result, minority students found alternate paths to higher education through such initiatives as the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Although the 1954 landmark case Brown v. Board of Education focused on elementary and secondary public school education, it underscored the inequity of educational opportunities for students based on race. Campaigns such as the civil ...

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