The swelling enrollment of black and Hispanic students at public universities in Maryland and Virginia has cheered educators but also caused worries about whether college graduation rates will decline.
At Virginia’s public universities, black student enrollment increased by 52 percent between 1996 and 2006 to 86,540 students, according to data compiled by Atlanta-based Southern Regional Education Board. Hispanic enrollment climbed to 17,163 students, a 111 percent increase from 1996.
In Maryland, the number of black enrollees grew by 41 percent over the same 10 years to 82,635, while Hispanic students increased by 93 percent to 12,298.
“Those were the underserved populations, and the one good thing No Child Left Behind did was help us to focus on creating access to rigorous education for black and Hispanic youngsters,” said Bonnie Cullison, president of Montgomery County’s teachers union. “That’s paying off.”
White students remained the majority on the states’ campuses. In Virginia, their presence increased by 14 percent to 292,601 students in 2006. In Maryland, their population fell by .5 percent to 169,561 students.
Virginia and Maryland’s numbers are consistent with the U.S. average, where enrollment growth of black and Hispanic students was 50 percent between 1995 and 2005, or 1.3 million students. Overall growth was only 23 percent, totaling 3.3 million students.
Even as class rosters fill up in the fall, though, public four-year graduation rates remain dismal. In Virginia, 65 percent of all students will graduate within six years. In Maryland, only 59 percent will do the same.
“The good news is enrollment is up,” said Alan Richard, spokesman for the Southern Regional Education Board, a coalition of governors and leaders from 16 Southern and mid-Atlantic states focused on improving education in the region. “But we’ve got to do a better job making sure that students who start college actually finish it.”
Cullison said high schools bear some of the responsibility. “Sometimes we’re encouraging kids to be in high-level classes without assessing if they have those skills, but we’re working on that and making changes so they’re college-ready.”
