The U.S. Departments of Justice and Education issued new guidelines on December 2, 2011 proposing how colleges and universities could increase diversity at their institutions while remaining in compliance with U.S. Supreme Court decisions.  The guidelines recommend that colleges and universities clearly state the goals and rationale for their admissions programs and articulate the relationship between their interest in achieving student body diversity and their mission and unique set of circumstances.

The federal guidelines provide concrete examples of what higher education institutions can do for admissions, pipeline programs, recruitment and outreach, and support services.

Admissions

Institutions of higher education can consider a range of factors, such as: socioeconomic status (SES), first-generation college status, geographic residency, and students overcoming certain kinds of hardships (e.g., frequent changes of residence and/or school or enrollment in low-performing schools or school districts).  Colleges can also select schools, including community colleges, based on their racial or income demographics and grant admission preference to all students who have graduated from those schools, regardless of the students' race/ethnicity.

Pipeline Programs

Colleges can form partnerships with particular schools or school districts based on one or more criteria, such as: school-wide performance on standardized tests, school-wide SES characteristics, racial composition of school/district student populations, and geographic proximity to the college.  They can also form partnerships with other higher education minority-serving institutions to promote diversity at the undergraduate or graduate levels.

Recruitment and Outreach

Institutions can target high schools or school districts that are underrepresented in their applicant pools by considering geographic underrepresentation, low-income status of family households,  high dropout rates or other similar factors. 

Support Services

College mentoring, tutoring, retention and other similar services can be extended to all enrolled students at risk of not completing their programs.  If an institution has a selective mentoring program with a limited number of spaces for students, it can include race in its selection criteria along with other characteristics, such as grade point averages, community service and teacher recommendations.

We're bringing these guidelines to your attention, in part because many of the institutions we work with are addressing access issues in some form.

To read more about the federal guidelines, click here.  To read the New York Times article on "U.S. Urges Creativity by Colleges to Gain Diversity," click here.