The University of Akron gets failing grades when it comes to graduation rates for black students and also has one of the largest gaps between white students and black students who graduate, according to a national study.
UA is one of three Ohio schools that performed poorly in the Education Trust study, which examined graduation rates by race at 676 traditional public and private nonprofit colleges and universities in the United States and listed the top 18 and the bottom 18.
The national nonprofit advocacy organization promotes high academic achievement and aims to identify and eliminate gaps in education opportunity by race and income.
“We know that different institutions are working with different types of students,” said Andrew Nichols, author of the study. “So we compared Akron to similar types of schools, but when we look at the performance of those schools, we still see Akron underperforming … So that’s a red flag because we’re seeing their peers succeed with the same type of students at much higher rates.”
UA President Matthew Wilson said closing the gap is one of the things that has climbed to the top of his priority list. The new chief diversity officer, Jolene Lane, will be working to resolve when she joins the staff in April, he said.
The schools included in the report enrolled nearly 60 percent of black first-time, full-time students in 2012, 2013 and 2014.
The national graduation gap between black and white students was 13 percentage points and the average of the schools included in the study was 22 percentage points during the study years, but the gap at UA, the University of Toledo and Youngstown State University was about 30 percentage points. Out of the three Ohio schools, Toledo ranked fourth worst with a 30.6 percentage point gap (51 percent whites, compared to 21 percent blacks). Youngstown was fifth at 29.7 percentage points (37.9 percent of white students, compared to 8.2 percent of black students) and UA had the sixth-poorest performance with a 29.6 completion gap, (about 45 percent of whites graduate, compared to 15.3 percent of black students).
No other Ohio institutions were on the low performance list, nor were any Ohio institutions listed in the top 18 performing schools. Kent State University was in the middle of the group of institutions with a 15.7 percentage point gap. The graduation rate for white students is 54.5 percent and the graduation rate for black students is about 38 percent.
Wayne State University in Michigan was the lowest-performing school with a 33.2 percent gap in the graduation rates between blacks and whites. Georgia State was the highest-performing institution with a negative 6.1 completion gap (55.5 percent of blacks graduate compared to 49.4 percent of whites)
Among institutions with small or no gaps, 55 are graduating black students at equal rates if not higher rates than white students. At one standout institution — the University of North Carolina in Greensboro — the graduation rate for black students exceeded the rate for white students by 3 percentage points and surpassed the average graduation rate of black students at all institutions by 13.1 percentage points.
Reaction at UA
Wilson said UA is coming at the problem from several directions.
“One way we are trying to improve the gap is to develop programs from high school to college, we created the Black Male Summit Academy for black males in particular to bring them on campus and expose them to the college experience,” he said. “We’re looking into other programs that are targeted toward retention and graduation rates starting at the high school level. Part of the partnership with the LeBron James I Promise program is doing exactly that, so when the high school students in his program come to the university they are primed, prepared, ready, know what to expect and where to get support.”
The university is also looking into what can be replicated in the athletic program, which has a 60 percent success rate of black graduates who are athletes. That is four times more than black graduates who are non-athletes at UA.
Wilson said his administration is looking at all the analytics to determine where the issues are and at what point they need to be addressed. He said the university is looking to provide personalized experiences, making sure students have a sense of community and get the right advisers.
“I can’t help but wonder how much of it is financial,” Wilson said. “I think there is a personal element to it, a preparedness element and financial. We also have a scholarship task force looking into more scholarship opportunities.”
Nichols said commitment from institutional leaders is the key to student success and should be a No. 1 priority.
“Institutions have to first figure out the challenges … dropping out because of affordability issues, a bad racial climate on campus, problems making the transition from high school to college, or poor advising when students leave in their junior year because they are having trouble identifying what they want to do in terms of a major and they’re going back and forth taking different courses accumulating credits that don’t count toward a degree so they get frustrated or they can’t get into a particular major.”
He said once the challenges are identified a school has to implement helpful interventions such as revamping developmental education offerings, trying to ensure the school’s best faculty is teaching those who need the most support, beefing up academic advising and including supplemental instruction in the classroom.
“There are many answers, but you have to make sure the interventions match up to the problems you have on your campus,” he said.
Marilyn Miller can be reached at 330-996-3098 or mmiller@thebeaconjournal.com