Improving Equity: Increasing Baccalaureate Attainment of Underrepresented Students in California

This paper focuses an empirical lens on the volume of change needed to eliminate gaps in baccalaureate achievement rates affecting California’s  underrepresented minority groups.

Low-income and first-generation college students—most of whom come from racial or ethnic groups that have historically been underrepresented in higher
education—are the face of California’s future. Although they now are the majority of high school graduates, their baccalaureate attainment rates are only one-third of those achieved by White and Asian students. The changing economy and the surge of expected retirements among older professionals mean that California faces a looming shortage of more than 1 million BA degrees.

Recent increases in enrollment and degree completion among historically underrepresented groups are not happening fast enough to keep pace with
population changes. At the same time, opportunities for resident Californians have fallen victim to budget cuts, and these reductions in access have disproportionately hurt underrepresented students. We are not making good on the promise of California’s Master Plan for Higher Education: that qualified students who wish to can access a viable pathway to and through higher education and toward the opportunities it provides.

California can turn this educational deficit around: eliminating the baccalaureate attainment gap among younger adults aged 25-34 will require an estimated 730,000 additional degrees awarded to Latino, African American, Native American, and Alaskan Native students by 2025—a full 73,000 additional degrees per year above and beyond current annual completion rates for underrepresented minority students. The problem cannot be solved exclusively by improving degree production at California State University and the University of California. Policymakers and educators must address disparities across the  educational continuum—from high school graduation rates to community college transfers through baccalaureate institutions.

Failure to address these gaps would worsen growing economic and racial stratification in California, with BA attainment as the dividing line between haves
and have-nots.