students at four-year institutions. racial segregation has harmful effects on outcomes. racial segregation in elementary schools is a key factor in the achievement gap as measured by differences in test scores. ou research further suggestions negative effects on college completion itself. students have different rates of participation in high school college preparation college courses by race and ethnic background, associated with the odds of college completion. let me be clear here. academic preparation remains the most important factor if predicting the odds of college access as well as college completion. however, students of all racial groups do not receive the same preparation, particularly in math, the gateway course, or trig trigonometry. that race is 70% for white students. 61% for hispanic students and

47% for black students. similar gaps remain for dual enrollment programs. college costs perceived or real and financial aid continue to matter as gate keepers to enrollment and completion and they also may matter by race and income. more than 30 years of research indicates financial aid in the form of grants and tuition discounts and scholarships positively affects enrollment. nonetheless, it remains a contested issue across the states and individual institutions in the form of preferences to fund students less likely to exhibit need. we've seen a trend in an increase in merit aid and decrease in need-based state. location of college is important, especially for minority students. in terms of where black students are increasingly going to college that is the community college. where as before we saw trends of black students surpassing latino

state of the unions attending four-year colleges they're now more likely to attend two-year colleges. for latinos, no other institution represents their attendance in the hispanic serving institution yet we have only minimal evaluation evidence on how well the hsis are doing. yet, that is the place where la too latinos are more likely to go to college. there's substantial white completion gaps. the racial college completion gap, at least in texas, between white and hispanic student is 14 points. between white and black students is 21 points. what drives this gap differs for the group. for the hispanic white group the two key factors that drive the the achievement gap is attending a high minority high school and/or economic disadvantage. for black students, while attend attending a high minority high school explains a large portion of the gap, the most critical

factor remains academic preparation. commissioners, improving the civil rights outcome of all students requires a collection of strong evidence through the form of reliable individual level data sources to produce the most successful and sustainable interventions students deserve. dismantling efforts for the collection of such data is likely to lead to underresearched and ineffective policy decisions with implications not only for disadvantaged students but also all students in the nation. we cannot afford to formulate responsible education policy without strong data systems and research designs. finally, i'll end with the demographic changes highlighted here bring to light immigrant and english language learners. understanding the educational civil rights implications for these students are particularly critical for large districts in the southwest and increasingly

the southeast. where schools have seen an influx of students with no teachers prepared to teach these populations. thank you for the opportunity to offer this testimony. i'm happy to answer questions. >> good morning. >> good morning. >> i would like to begin with a brief description of what we do at the national education of statistics or nces. i say this because i think it has implications for your work here on the commission, and for the work of all who is concerned with civil rights issues. the first federal department of education was established in 1867, and i quote, for the purpose of collecting such statistics and facts as shall show the condition of education in several states and

territories, unquote. congress has legislated several mandates for nces. one that might be a particular interest to you, we are to conduct objective statistical data that's impartial, clear and complete. in addition, congress has required us to play a critical role in parer inning with other agencies and department in the federal government to strengthen and to improve data quality and access. of particular note is our role in gathering the data from my brother's keeper. also more recently, we are now administering the data collection for the office of civil rights within the department of education. many of the demographics that you see here are interrelated. poverty. educational. attainment and other factors are linked to system inadequatesy,

as you well know. it's important to note that unless i otherwise state, however, that the outcomes and measures that i'm going to talk about briefly today do not account or control for interrelated factors. dana from a number of ncss reports and surveys and assessments support the con conceptual model shown here. they include access enrollment statistics and completion. so let's start with achievement gaps as one of the first access indicators here. achievement gaps for minorities and low students start early and their persist. >> dr. carr your microphone

just went off. >> thank you. let's begin with a look at the key trends in academic achievement gaps. historically black, hispanic and american indian and alaskan native students have lower assessment scores in reading and mathematic than white and asian peers. there are two pieces of good news in the data seen here. these data depicts performance over time for black and white students eighth grade students and you see the performance is improving for both groups. and the distance between the performance is also known as the gap narrowing. that is good news. while the sharp displays, the black white gap this is also true for whites and hispanics and less true but also true of native americans and whites and

there has been a truly significant increase for asian students. i'm going to skip this next graph in the interest of time. now we're looking at curriculum levels related to mathematic achievements achievements. within each group students earn higher scores as the national process than graduates completing lower curriculum. so a rigorous curriculum includes four years of english, three years of foreign language three years of social studies four years of mathematics and three years of science including biology chemistry and fezzics. however the completion of a rigorous curriculum did not eliminate racial ethnic gaps in performance, as you can see here. the average scores for black and hispanic students were lower

than the average score for white and asian students. this was not due to race or many other con founfounding factors, such as the representation of ses or social economic status among minority students and the true rir rigor of the courses they are taking, not just the title of the courses. this slide depicts gap in advanced science course taking by the level of density within a school. the term advance science courses refers to courses beyond introductory, biology chemistry and physics, as well as api and ib science courses. density refers to the percentage of minority students within a school. the gaps you see here are larger for schools with higher density. as you can see here there are differences in education and the

percent of 12th grade students at or above proficient in reading. proficient refers to solid mastery over challenging subject matter on average for 12th graders in mathematics. 26% of the students in this country are at or above proficient. 7% for blacks and 12% for hispanics hispanics. here you can see that the rates are different for students that are being placeded in juvenile or residential facilities. this is particularly true of males and particularly true of minority males. in general, disparities exist in enrollment and persistence, and persistence patterns are particularly complex. and this next slide here, you're seeing that trends in college enrollment have increased for all races and ethnicities, and this is particularly true of

hispanic students. persistence is important. as you can' here, there are a number of factors that relate to persistence. for example, whether the student has taken credits, courses, and not gone back and they're not going to get credit for them, incuring additional costs and so forth. and finally attainment patterns resemble some of the patterns already discussed. we'll show this last slide here. overall, lower percentage minority and low sec students obtain a bachelor's or higher. however, even among higher ses students differences in attainmentment among various racial ethnic groups. so in sum, progress has been made across the metrics that i have discussed here today but clearly there are many

challenges here. we need to improve our measures. for example, the eligibility of free and reduced price lunch has long been use as a proxy for family income, but there had been new provisions and allocations of eligibility, and that has put a bit of a wrinkle in the use of free and reduced price lunches a proxy for student ses status. digital data collection is also a challenge and an opportunity. i will stop there. if there are addition na l questions, i would be happy to answer them. >> very interesting stats. we'll definitely be delving into that. mr. minor? >> good morning, mr. chairman and members of the commission. i want to thank you for the invitation to speak this morning. i'm happy to be here on behalf of the u.s. department of education's office post secondary education, which administers higher education programs, designed to promote innovation and improvement in post secondary education expand

access and opportunity to students from low-income families, and increase college completion, which as you know, has significant consequences for our nation. under the authorization of the higher education act of 1965, as amended, the office of post secondary education awards more than 4,000 new and continueuation awards each year, totalling over $2 billion annually. presently the higher education program office has approximately $7.5 billion obligated in grants intended to improve college access and to strengthen the capacity of institutions to serve students more effectively. no other institution or agency in the private or nonprofit sector comes close to making that kind of investment in college access, or constitutioninstitutional capacity building annually. the the office administers num rative exitive grants designeded

to support minority serving institutions including hispanic serving institutions tribal colleges and universities, native american serving non tribal institutions alaskan native, asian american, and native american and pacific i lander serving stuxs as well as historically black graduate institution ls. these programs support improvement in educational quality, management, fiscal stability, and are intended to strengthen institutions that serve large numbers of minority students, while maintaining low per student expenditures. these programs represent a mix of competitive and formula based grants and are funded by congress through an annual appropriations bill. 2015. more than $775 million was appropriated for institutional development programs. minorities serve institutions

that these programs support have traditionally been underfunded and rely on these programs for activities such as faculty development, student serves construction of facilities, purpose of education materials and endowment building. as of 2012, minorities serving institutions enroll 3.6 million graduates. each year 20% of all undergraduates hispanic serving institutions enroll 50% of latino students despite only being 4% of all colleges. more than 50% of students at minority serving institutions receive pell grants. that's compared to 31% of all students and nearly half of all students at minority serving institutions are first generation college students, versus 35% of those at majority institutions. community ledges have an particularly important role to play in providing educational and degree opportunities for minority students. approximately half of all

hispanic students enrolled in post secondary education attend two-year institutions. as do a third of african-american students. affordability and open enrollment policies are often cited as key reasons why a community college is likely to be more appealing to students for low-income backgrounds or those who may be less prepared academically for higher education. the office of post secondary education also administers federal trio programs that serve low-income students at various points in the educational pipeline for middle school all the way through graduate school. you may be familiar with some of these programs such as talent search, upward bound, student support services, educational opportunity centers. while these programs do not explicitly target minority students, many participants in the programs underrepresented groups. based on data from 2012 and 2013, the percentage of participants who were

african-american ranged anywhere from 29% of student support services to 38% in student upward bound services. for the same reporting year the percentage of participants who were hispanic ranged from 12% to 30%. and in addition to serving minority students, many trio programs are hosted at minority serving students, including historically black colleges and universities predom in and aboutly -- predominantly black zempbing and in tribal agencies. congress has appropriated close to $850 million for trio programs in 2015. also in the office of post secondary education portfolio is gaining early ayarness and readiness for undergraduate programs. also phone as gear up, which provides funding to states and partnerships to serve cohorts of

students. gear projects provide services such as tutoring fostering family involvement and raising awareness of college admission and financial aid services. like trio, gear up is not specifically targeted to minority students but serves many as a result of focus on low-income students. in 2015, congress appropriated $215 million for gear up. the department believes these programs are krutcritical for improving and increasing the number of american who is not only enter college but also complete. as recent as 1990 as you may have heard -- number one in the world in terms of the proportion of citizens who had a college degree of post secondary credential. we're now 11th. the president has been clear about the goal to once again lead the world in having the highest proportion of citizens with a post secondary degree or

credential. which means we need to produce 10 million additional degrees over and beyond the expecteded projections. this will require three and a half million more high school graduates and 6.3 million adult learners to become college graduates. if the nation will make significant progress, two things are clear. first we must create new and innovative teaching and learning opportunities that provide diverse pathways for earning post secondary credential. we must pay particular attention to the students who struggle most. college completion rates will bear particular relevance for minority students. i want to conclude by mentioning the department's programs are

paying very close attention to the types of interventions that particular grantees are proposing to use and whether the interventions are actually successful. and increased emphasis on evidence has ruled in more rigorous standards for applicants seeking to obtain federal funds as well as the the evaluations produced once the program has been implemented. we believe the requirements will enhance the suck says and provide important information that can be used. in closing, i want to thank you for allowing me to speak today in scheduling this briefing on a critically important topic. thank you. >> thank you, dr. minor. would you like to open the questioning, commissioner? >> thank you, mr. chairman. thgs for professor flores and dr. minor. professor flores, you said that

precollege characteristics, levels of poverty, segregation, course selection, cost of education, location of the college campus, all of these factors weigh extremely heavily on whether we can predict access success and completion. did i understand that? is that a fair -- >> yes. >> and yet we also see large -- we also see success happening through campus based programs and as a result of federal investment in such programs as

delineated by dr. minor, namely trio and gear up, just to name two. i mean, there are many others. how do you explain those two variables? >> yes, that's a very good question. i'm glad you skszed that. it basically depends on where you start measuring. and so the work in terms of where we begin our analyses is in high school. and so when we talk about campus based programs we're talking about already students enrolled in college. the students that made it that already show some form of success and so we track the students back to high school and early as possible. that's where you see the disconnects in the findings. but we're talking about students

who have successfully enrolled in college and my research covers the students that don't make it. >> i see. that's an important clarification. >> yes, it is. >> has enhanced my understanding of what the statistics tell us. you mentioned the critical nature of these programs that your office administers. could you talk a little bit about the measurement that suggests to you these programs are operating as intended and you also mentioned that they were underfunded. what does that mean? >> well as the office that administers the majority of grant programs provided to higher education students, i have not met a constituent yet

who -- >> doesn't believe it. >> right. right. but we know some of that is measured against need. what program directors and institutional leaders often report to us are not only the numbers of students that they're serving but the number that they're able to serve because of resources. and given the size and scope of the investment that the department is making, there are hundreds and thousands of students not being served due to shortage of resources. >> you mentioned $302 million for gear up. that's an awfully modest amount one would think, as compared to the numbers of students who might benefit from such a program. is that your testimony? >> yeah, i think that's an argument that could be made.

between trio and gear-up alone we're serving approximately 1.3 million students across the country. and again if you balance that against the number of students who need to be serve, certainly an argument can be made in those programs. >> and these are students who are already, in the case of the trio programs, already admitted to universities. is that correct? >> some of them. the range of programs start to serve students as early as middle school, and they serve students through their time at colleges and universities, and even in graduate and post back baccalaureate programs. >> but these are students who have indicated through performance that they have some academic merit that they're college material, no? >> well, the requirement is not based on academic merit.

it's based on household kmk primarily. and so know, it is not true. l with the programs are intended to do is to increase the number of percentage of low-income studentses students who would be the first in their family to attend college, to actually encourage them and to provide resources to them that would increase the likelihood they would transition from k-12 to post secondary institutions. >> could i ask one more question, mr. chairman? >> sure. >> does your office also administer or have information regarding scog? >> yes. yes. we do. but i will be careful to tie that program to the performance of the ones that we discussed here this morning. >> why? >> why is that? >> because it's a

congressionally mandated formula? or some kind of formula? >> in part. but the performance of the programs are prior mayly determined by annual reports that are submitted by the program directors. and so it is true, but they are distinct funds and they are distinct programs. >> understood. but we heard testimony yesterday from a number of experts that the -- and we'll hear today later, a kind of comparison, and i'm wondering what you think about this h. it was stated that this grant is designed to address the low-income populations in the colleges and the universities, right? i mean that's what it's -- that's what it's appropriated for, is that correct?

>> that's correct. >> and we heard a statistic yesterday that $10 million of the grants are appropriated to all of the ivy league universities collectively and that collectively those universities enroll 60,000 students, and i'm not clear the the number of pell eligible students within that, but 60,000 students. i was told as well, however that the california state university system, which enrolls 400,000 students receives $11 million, as compared to $10 million for 60,000. $11 million for 400,000. and the situation where almost after of those 400 thousand stay tuneds are pell eligible,

meaning some level of low-income student, and i'm wondering how could that be? >> let me just make one distinction that will be helpful. there are two primary doe nan mains of grants that the department makes. one is a formula based grant. which means they're eligible to receive that grant or award. the other category is kis cession nar or competitive. >> sure. >> meaning that applicants submit a proposal that is scored primarily by peer reviewers. so the department doesn't decide who the winner or loser in those competitions are. so we have a review process that scores and rates the applications. and there's no way for the department to dictate what the

the composition of award winners will be for those competitions. >> so they are -- >> both are competitive. >> right and this is pursuant to formula. and who sets the formula? >> well the formula is established in statute and regulation. near is something that the department gets to arbitrarily change or an act of congress that changes a stat commute. t. >> so the rule making is done pursuant to a regulatory regime adopted by the congress, is that correct? >> that's correct. >> thanks very much. >> mr. flores, you mejsntioned the number of latino students in your college is going up. that's due primarily to demographics, that our population is growing so fast and quickly that by the very nature you'll see more latinos in the pipeline, but it's not

attributeable to any programs getting them in the pipeline. it's just the population is gubl bubbling up, so it's going to reflect this those statistics. is that right? >> yes, and so my paint poin is not to reach toward the conclusion of success without understanding that it may just be demography and not successful programming and policies. and while those statistics are very important because demography is very important, it's also pup lick policy 101. don't make conclusions based on demography. >> one of our speakers was making the point that more hispanics are going to college now than whites. >> he did say he was not an official demographer. >> is he a doctor? >> i don't remember. i don't think so. dr. carr.

in your statistics, you show among the various minority groups the asian population continues to do better in most of those, if not all of those areas of measurement. commissioner narasaki yesterday very eloquently distinguished between various subgroups of asians, and we had testimony as well from the south asian community, which is substantially underserved and underrepresented. but as commissioner narasaki said yesterday there are other communities such as the indian community and chinese community who have come here with higher educational credentials, and so their children have been able to proceed in a more successful route for the most part. the uz your data take account of the subgroups of asian americans or latinos, for that matter? >> well, the data i presented today does not differentiate between asians the traditional reference to chinese japanese

versus pacific islanders. but in recent years we have started to advocate for data that way and i should say that the gaps between those groups is just as wide as the gaps between whites and black students or whites and asian -- between whites and native americans excuse me. so we have only just begun to differentiate the types of origins of the asian-americans. but it is important and the department has been put on notice that this is something that the community wants to see. and as we begin to release data in years to come. we do not have data as differentiated for hispanic-americans however, it is more difficult to assess that

data. many of the data we're getting from schools and school districts. they don't all collect the same way. certainly this is one that working very hard to have data in the future to differentiate their results. >> to the school districts are differentiating between and among asian subgroups but not hispanic? >> yeah. >> why is that? >> they do. but they don't all report to us that way. they don't all report the origin, and we don't collect the data in such a refined way. >> but now you're planning to begin to collect the data. >> yes. >> is there some way that -- you know, yesterday we were talking about leveraging federal dollars for state investment in education. since i'm sure the school districts are receiving some form of federal aid, that you can request if not mandate that they provide you with that data broken down by subgroup? >> well, i don't want to say they're refusing to give it to

us. it's a manner of putting the procedures for data collection in place such that when one state gives us an indication and a deaf nation for origin of a student, it is the same as another state. so i think it's a matter of getting our definitions and procedures in place. i don't think it's a funding issue. >> and whose responsibility is that? >> it's a collective responsibility. of working partnerships with the states, and with the surveys and mandated surveys in addition to the ones that are not mandated. at the u.s. department of education. >> is there a plan to do that or is it just it would sort of be nice to do that? >> no we are cognizant of the these to differentiate amongst the origins of the students. >> and we have started, as i ind kalted, most notably with asian-americans.

so we're on the pattonh pathway yes. >> commissioner narasaki. >> thank you. we've been talking about an achievement gap, there's a financial gab that and then there's the completion gap in terms of being once you're able to finish it and how all of that goes towards debt burden income earning, and in the cases of some you have the ability to escape a life of the low sec factors, what have you. m one of the questions i want to ask for all of you, if you have it, is it appears to me that in in looking at the issues of access to begin with. that community cljs play a very important role in providing a couple of things. one, if we can achieve, as some

states are doing and as president obama has wanted, to have free community college we're closing the financial access gab there. but secondly you can provide the kinds of instruction that can get someone up to the speed where they can then transfer to if four-year institution for completion. do we have any data on community colleges and their role, and their success rate in terms of minority students getting them in, and being able to matriculate them into a four-year institution, and whether or not that has an impact on their able to complete the baccaleureate degree. do we have data on that? >> there is data both at the national and state level. i would argue that some of them have the best day to really track the pathway in clear detail.

a number of studies across different states ohio, texas, and a few others actually found that starting at a community college reducing your race of ba completion. so knowing that, then how do we work around it or with it? there has been an explosion of research on community colleges. teachers out of columbia has done a great deal of work as with el. in terms of minorities, because of low-income students that is the first place of entry, regardless of academic preparation, so it's an opportunity and also a challenge, if the institution is not operating or performing as it should, it has -- it could have the the effect of basically working against the preparation that students come with. at the same time student who is are very -- who don't have proper preparation, this is a good place to begin to at least learn some form of credential. but there is a lot of work out

there. i would say the state data bases have that level of detail, and also, you can get more information on the partnerships because arkansasticulation agreements. florida has great articulation agreements. one of the trends we're seeing in texas is students can graduate with an associate's degree in high school. that's been a development in how we think about post secondary education. you don't have to finish high school before you begin. that's another area where some states have better data than others to really look at the community college as the boundaries are now blended between high schools and colleges. >> dr. minor? >> thank you. i do think we have very good data. i just think we're not very enthusiastic about what it tells us about how first generation low-income students are performing in community colleges. although they are very accessible to students and

relatively affordable, if not free in some states or virtually free we still have very serious challenges getting those students to complete either the associate's degree or to earn enough credits to transfer into a four-year college and university, 25 years ago, maybe community colleges were talked about as having a cooling out function. and i do think we have enough day to suggest in some cases it does lower the likelihood that students earn the bachelor's degree. but there are two things, or a few factors that i think play into why we are experiencing these kinds of outcomes for students. in any state system, community colleges tend to be underresourced institutions. the majority of the faculty tend to be contract faculty. and there's not a residential component, which means students pursuing the associates or

taking classes at community college are also living their life. unlike students who attend four-year colleges. and then i do think in some states that have good articulation agreements we still have the issue of students accumulating enough credits over a period of one or six or eight semesters, that would allow them to transfer. so california is a good example. it's also a challenging example. that for a long time had the most universal access. the strongest articulation agreements. 75% of latino students and 75 pblgt of african-american students who begin don't transfer or don't earn the associate's degree after six years. and that's very problematic. >> what's interesting to me because the search for these kinds of answers, i think that commissioner was sort of talking

about the fact that you have ul these different things in play. i mean education is a wholistic endeavor. starting from you know, you're trying to make up for deficiencies that may have happened in k through 12. do you do it at a community college level? do you do it through supplemental services at the college level? part pof what you're telling me is maybe community colleges aren't the secondary lifeboat that they could be or should be. or maybe they should be be they're not resourced correctly and they're not staffed correctly. they're not programmed in the right way. they become this generic catch-all for a lot of different things that may or may not really lead to that degree. t so i wish that -- part of me wishes we had a second day to get community college folks in here to talk about this.

that seems to be a lot of us throwing that out there. if they can't get into cal if they can't get into michigan state or wherever, they go to community college. if they are alty isn't really there, we need to know about that. there's one thing i want to pursue that commissioner was trying to nudge you on, and i appreciate that you may not be able to talk about it. when you look at programs like trio or creatures of congressional creation our job here is to be the watchdog. our job is to bark as loudly as we can an on issue where we think that maybe something needs to be changed. when you look at completion rates within colleges and across the board.

does it say to any of you that maybe trio or student services, shouldn't be a grant but should be a formula based on how many low-income minority students you have in your institution? that it shouldn't be a question of whether or not you have a good grant writer and someone has the time to do that but simply decided when the cal state system has so many -- so many latinos in their system or african-americans or whatever, that we need the ability to say this should not be a discretionary program. this should be a mandatory program because we have a national challenge, we have a national goal to ensure that once you're there you make it out. we heard testimony yesterday. what happens about people that don't make it out, the debt burdens it caused them.

for the next generations that impedes their ability to move on. there are things we can do. are these things where we should be rethinking the issue of grant and thinking more along the lines of pell or something, as an entitlement to institutions almost -- it's almost a reward for their able to enroll minority and disadvantaged students, but it's also just a reality that we're going to help make more productive people if we give them their resources to stay and succeed. >> yeah let me just answer quickly, and carefully. if i may. >> i understand. >> it's an interesting question, but i think we have to consider it carefully. there are provisions in the regulations that spell out who should be served by many of these programs. and i'm very clear about the regulations, and they're

designed to serve first generation and low-income students. the question you're pursuing is where the grants ought to live and what kinds of institutions. >> not even that. part of what i was looking at yesterday i asked this as well. do we need -- i mean, it's great, and it's certainly -- it's creation that we understood that first generation individuals are people who deserve extra attention. over the past 25, 30, 40 years things have changed. we created a legacy of -- we created a legacy of poverty and injustice of certain communities in this country where essentially for all testing purposes, they are first generation. their generation never got the chance to get the pramss of

that -- that government and others made on the war on poverty and others. do we need to change that and say trio should not be just -- should not be a grant award restrict to this category but we should look at disadvantaged students generally in a trio type program for all those students. >> yeah, again, i think it's theoretical question. it's a philosophical question. i think in the actual -- >> it's a fiscal question. >> that all of those things combined, and i think one of the opportunities will -- congress will take out the reauthorization of the higher education act. and it is one of the questions that i think is worth pursuing, and i think what's baked in or the bigger question there is how effective are the programs that we're currently invested? could we leverage the funds differently or focus them differently in a way that would be more effective and ultimately

sort of improve in the social mobility of the students that we think the programs were intended to help? i think that's one of several questions we should take up. but we should do it kwar carefully because there are no clear answers. the final thing is any provisions that spell out how federal grant awards would be made has to be careful not to offend the constitution and applicable laws which will make it very difficult, in some cases, to focus on specific populations as recipients of federal funds. >> sure. >> thank you commissioner i'm sorry vice chair. you're next followed by commissioner -- >> i'm sorry. i thought -- >> oh i'm sorry. >> okay. go ahead. >> well, i'm not necessarily going to tell the federal government where they should redistribute their money but i will say you brought up the point of successful grant

writers. i think we have a problem of capacity at some institutions and social capital in terms of being able to leverage the best grants, the best designs and so forth, and so i think maybe investing in institutional capacity to have stronger grant opportunities and more successful grant opportunities would be one way to think about where to spend additional funds, and i think even if we were going to redistribute or between programming, we still need form of accountability if the money is being spent right. and i think to dr. minor's point, about not offending the constitution, there is a way, i think, to be able to increase capacity of institutions with the lowest income students. and still call for accountability. >> thank you. madame vice chair you'll be followed by commissioners

narasaki and heir yet. >> thank you very much, mr. chair. this question would be to all of our panelists. as educators and others have looked out and and reviewed pathways to higher education for our poor, our first generation college and under represented minority students, one of the fairly novel concepts that has been developed is that of the early college. and as i understand that program, it combines high school and college that by the time a student completes their high school requirements they have also completed two years of college. i was wondering if there's any data out there and whether this is a trend you see merit in or what do our statistics and information tell us?

>> well, what i would say is that these are fairly new programs not in all cases but we hadn't seen them as systemic programs. one of the challenges is that public education in our country belongs to the states. a few places that outlive or had the pleasure of learning there were more school districts than counties which all had different calendars and graduation requirements and rules and regulations about how to account for coarses, it's challenge. theer thee receiptically it's a wonder wonderful idea, students accumulate college credits which makes college more affordable but was more important is that they understand themselves as clearly transitioning from high school to some host secondary

institution. it's a way maybe not normally but culturally and socially to get students in the mindset of they are expected to transition from high school to some post secondary institution. i think it's early -- it's interesting, i was in the state of florida a few weeks ago and their legislature mandated that they've got four lab schools attached to the universities, one is fi -- fau, florida atlantic university which not only does early college. i had an opportunity to meelt a 17-year-old and 19-year-old who both were on their way to graduate school, they aaccumulated so many credits not only in high school but on a college campus during that period of time. we've got models but i don't think we've got systemic data at this point that suggests which models of early college work best. >> that something that the

department of education can understand how education is generally a state run program, but is there something that the department of education could possibly do to encourage folks to go and get additional information because you're right, the kids are actually on at college campus in more often than not. they gip to see themselves there. >> absolutely it's one of the things that we expect to incentivize in our programs where it's a appropriate. so we're very excited about the potential of early college. >> and the statistics with transcript data from high schools and we're also beginning to collect data from middle schools as well because some of these kids are involved in these programs. it is a new trend. and it takes a while to sort of get this in the mode of data collection. but we are on it. and we understand that even

different models of types of these programs. but it takes time to collect this data and get them into the pipeline. i should say though, that one of the things that's going to facilitate this type of data collection the digital approach to transcript data collection, currently what is done for most -- most schools and school districts is that we have to do it by hand which is very labor intensive. we have the pulling of this data not very standardized. so there are some issues to work out. but it will be available in the coming years. xbr i would add, a couple looking at not necessarily college or high schools but one of the things to note on these programs, what are we measuring?

are we measuring students who would have gone to college anyway? it's getting through that issue of selection and finding the benefit to students who may not have gone to college. and i think that's one of the key things to disentangle out of this. but forgive me for repeating this again there are ways to begin to measure this. i think some of the state databases, like the one in texas would be able to give you some of the answers that you're looking at because we are seeing students from the rio grande valley in south texas graduating with associates degrees leaving high school. we don't know what that means for long term trajectory but do have evidence that completing the associate's degree does lead to increased odds of completing a bachelor's degree. >> thank you, mr. chair, do i have time for one question? as a former state trial and

appellate judge, i saw early on that indeed there was correlation between education and incarceration. in fact, it was often repeated that number of students not reading at grade level by the third grade was one of the assessments that was used to project the number of prisons to be constructed and prison beds we would need as the states and the nation. can you comment on that? is there any truth, dr. karr to such a statistic being kept and if you know whether in fact it's used as a projection for the number of prisons and prison beds that we'll need? >> i can say that we certainty don't keep it.

but i don't doubt that it doesn't exist are people aren't using it to make such projections. but i can say that the gaps between minority students or white students, are large and persistent and start early. this is something we need to be concerned about, the reading of students inability to read as early as third grade is a predictor of a lot of factors that are detrimental to the fut or of the students and their academic pursuits. i think though we cannot lose sight that there has been significant progress. it's not all doom's day it looks bad. the data suggests that all students are improving although the gaps are still there. the only reason the gaps are nar rowing is even as small as they

are is because the bottom of the distribution is coming up quicker. minority students are making significant improvements. >> i would concur. i don't doubt the statistic exists, it's not something the department of education maintains. >> i would add there's evidence out of economics that shows increased educational and completion of the high school degree reduces crime. >> thank you, dr. minor, you made a comment there were clearly many more students who are eligible to be served who probably aren't being served because of limitations resources. do you have an estimate about how many we're talking about?

>> i think it varies by state. but in most programs we probably could double the number of students that are being served by the programs that are currently funded. >> so some of the witnesses who testifying over the watt days of hearings, either they feel there is insufficient data to show the trio in the other programs have been suggestly successful so that we should eliminate funding for that or some of them have been successful perhaps it would be better to roll it all into one big general grant program that was more flexible. i'm wondering what your take on in terms of the data, how could we improve the data collected? dr. minor you noted that the department has been doing more rigorous data based research.

i'm wondering what you've learned. and i'm wondering whether you -- any of you have a response to the issue how could these programs be improved? >> well, thank you. i appreciate you highlighting the point. there's no doubt about it that we need to have better ee val yags and data attached to this kind of investment annually. i make no bones about that. and in terms of what to propose in place of or instead of is an interesting question because as durable as these programs have been, i don't think there's consensus in the field about how to replace them or do the work better. i think the one thing we are clear about is that there are many factors that contribute to a young person being successful in an education system. there's some need for diversity of efforts. but one of the things that i've been very clear about and i

think the department is very clear about is increasing the rigor of the evaluations that are attached to the program. some of these programs were started 50 years ago and rigorous evaluation and effectiveness was not a part of legislative record at that time. but i think now as we move forward, i think we do -- we are significantly more sophisticated in terms of social science and still have serious data problems to fix. i can guarantee you, it's not just the department that grantee communities and constituents are very cooperative and interested and willing to learn about how to more effectively serve students. i melt with the group just two weeks ago and one of the things i try to communicate to them, these are not federally funded programs to build roads or to build bridges these are young people. and i take seriously the issue

we could be spending taxpayer dollars in programs that don't effectively help students be successful in educational systems. it is something that we're very serious about and i expect that to become a much more significant factor going forward. >> anybody else? >> has congress been providing sufficient funding to do the kind of research that i think everybody agrees with the idea? >> the answer is no. what's interesting when we raised this with the grantees, the kind of expertise and data collection and capacity required to do the kind of evaluation is not sort of been baked into the budget. so one message from grantees that we're working as hard as we can to serve students. now you want to lay on this exquisite evaluation without

additional resources it is problematic. i think that's something that we have to take upt if in fact we're going to ask individuals who -- that are awarded grants to do additional work and be responsible for rigorous evaluation, be serious about providing that kind of support. >>. >> commissioner harriet? >> i think -- >> are you sure? i actually have one more question. so it's been my experience that the cost of attending college is not just the tuition and fees. the challenge in the reading that we have is that not surprisingly if you come from a poor or low income family, you're trying to work full-time. or a lot. and that contributes potentially to not being able to finish on

time. and so i'm wondering how much research if any has been done on the efficacy of providing stipends so students -- so they can spend more time being able to study and take a full load than having to have the stress of working full-time as well as trying to carry a full load. >> let me say quickly, i'm very proud of one of the programs run by the department of education, we refer to it as campus. childcare access means parents in school and it provides childcare access for students who have children. and so i think it's a critically important factor. one of the things i want to make clear. and i don't know this has come up in a day and a half you heard testimony is that we often talk about college students as 18-year-olds who just left high

school. when in fact that's not true that the mean age of students has gone up over the years. right now in this country there are more individuals between the ages of 25 and 64, individuals we expect to be in the workplace that have some college but no degree. meaning that they started college somewhere and they fell out. there are 36 million individuals in that age group and only 33 million individuals in that age group who actually have a bachelor's degree. what that tells me is that not only do we have to provide a very traditional opportunities for individuals to earn a post secondary degree we also have to provide less traditional ways or nontraditional ways for students who may have started three years ago, stopped out to work and have children and raise a family and do those kinds of things. we have to provide pathways for those individuals to return.

>> i think i would add that the common student is no longer the 18 through 24-year-old without work responsibilities or family responsibilities. so this idea of a stipend would be a great experiment to implement, would it work? part of that may mean you have to fill out the fafsa and comply with federal regulations and at the ends of the day for many poor students they never get near filling out the fafsa, there's going to be significant scaffold teenagering needed to see who would qualify for a stipend. we come back to the sim application iks. the easier way is to pay as you go at community colleges. it could be a great experiment but it's going to require additional scaffolding. >> thank you.

>> commissioner harriet? >> thank you. i wanted to go back to a point the chairman started with and point out that it's a complicated world for all races and we talked about this data for asians and for hispanics. but this will make things look different for blacks and whites as well i believe. for instance my understanding is that caribbean blacks tend to do better on -- in the higher education setting than noncaribbean blacks. and that among whites, you get some big differences as well. some ethnic groups do better than others in higher education. jewish students for example have been extraordinarily successful in the higher education setting. scot's irish have been considerably less successful in that setting, not done nearly as

well. this is not to say that these groups don't excel in other areas, an area of higher education, there are big differences among subgroups within blacks and whites. and has anyone collected any data on that? is there any plan to collect data on that kind of issue? >> i guess this is for you doctor are or anybody else who would like to jump in there? >> it's a very complex set of questions to start asking people those sorts of things about religion and even sometimes the origin. and the country of origin. we have to be very careful to work closely with omb regarding how we can ask these questions. and how we can report out on these questions because the states or the school districts collect the data does mean that supports us reporting on out

data in that way. i do think there's a wealth of data through other means, not just from national education statistics that show that blacks differentiation between the african nations, for example, tends to score higher on -- the caribbean blacks as well. there's a lot of information that tells us that we need to be praying attention to these different shagss, but we have to be careful how we ask these questions. >> i appreciate your question. i think it's very important in terms of when -- the question to me makes me think of studies of immigrant students and generational status and the census as many data sets, you can begin to desegregate between white, black, latino and asian groups and there is significant work thinking about by generational status how are they

doing and i would be happy to refer you to that research. i don't think the answer is to not desegregate. if we're thinking where to spend federal money or state money, it's important to know where the gaps are. >>. >> i would add one sort of technical problem with the desegregation subpathway and it's a statistical one. once you start disaggregating at a certain level you won't have enough statistical power to detect patterns that are reliable and dependable over time. in many instances you can't go down as far as you'd like or to cross those groups with gender, for example, and a really good case, there are very few, located in certain states, only in about five states to be specific. >> the thing that worries me is

that i think a lot of -- blacks as a group and whites as a group are monolivic and neither group is the least bit monolivic. i take your point on the sensitivity of the issue. but it's important that people understand that these are not monolivic groups. is it a quick question? >> i think so. thanks, mr. chair. what factors contribute -- first of all, socioeconomic status, i think we have a general understanding it has to do with primarily income or -- to determination of someone's socioeconomic status. >> there are three factors in

the literature that are typically used to determine socioeconomic status. in 1954 identifies income, parental education and occupation as the three key factors. but having done research in that area myself i can say even within those key factors there's differentiation about what they actually mean based upon the cultural and racial makeup of the family. so income for $100,000 of income for a black family means something very different than $100,000 for a white family or having a four-year degree for a black family a family with -- may be something different from a family with a different sort of access to a different type of four-year institution.

so it varies and we have to be very careful. so the department has most notably on data from the free reduced price lunches i mentioned earlier but we're having problems with the reliability of those data. collecting those actual income data from the parents it's also a bit of a herring because parents don't want to tell you how much they make, even when you get them ranges. >> corrupt income, parental occupation -- asian even from low sce dramatically outperform not just other groups from loxt scs but groups from high scs. do you have an analysis or data why low ses individuals perform

better than anyone else? >> when you divide by socioeconomic, the asians are not disproportionately located as compared to say blacks and hispanics. unless you separate the asia-pacific islanders out there very poor, you don't see the pattern that we saw here today. >> another question for dr. minor, you mentioned a number of programs, do you have an understand being of how much those programs -- have the level has been flat? has it increased from 1990 to the present? do you have any data related to that? >> yes we have very specific data for all of the programs in terms of the appropriation levels from year to year. i would say for the last decade there have been very small incremental increases subject to

budget fairly flat, compared to lots of other indicators. whether or not to actually sort of see the movement we need to see across the country, but in the last just several years it's been relatively flat in small incremental increases. >> when do those programs, for example, when did the bulk of these programs have -- is it recently or was it -- can you take it back to 1970s, 1980s, 1990s sns. >> some of the programs we spoke of earlier, the trio programs eoc, were about 50 years old. they were a part of the legislation gray society that sought to end poverty in 1960s.

some of them gear up that we mentioned came along in 1998. some of them as recent as last year 2014 was the first year of that grant program. so the majority of them, there was a bundle that came online about 50 years ago. some mid to early 90s some of these represented extensions much other programs and some of them are new. you heard me mention earlier the president's goal to be first in the world. that has been complimented by the establishment of a grant program to spur innovation and post secondary education. so that program this year is only two years old so -- >> i'm going to exercise the chair's prerogative and wrap up. we're already over. i did want to ask quick thing before we close. dr. flores you mentioned that i think dr. minor also concurred

that starting an associate's course at community college makes it less likely you'll obtain your bachelor's degree is that correct? >> students who start -- yeah, yeah. >> yesterday dr. flores william flores, president of the university of houston downtown indicated that one of their success factors is that those students who enroll in a community college and transfer to their school, they actually have them go back and complete their associate's degree and then gradually go through a graduation ceremony and that actually increases their likelihood of completing the bachelor. i don't think that that's necessarily inconsistent with what you're saying, but could you address that if you're even familiar with that latter issue? >> i think my light is off i'm going to have to speak loudly. so that -- i was speaking about didn't account for these potential innovations.

i don't think those are necessarily inconsistent stories, i think what we're talking about is additional intervention. the university of houston downtown study, it started this intervention of taking students back. those other studies didn't account for that intervention. it's not that they are inconsistent. that could be an additional way, the students already transferred -- that says a lot about the student because most students never even transferred. >> can i just answer his question. >> is that what you want to do? >> yeah. >> so for the asian-american community again a lot of the demographics are shaped by how immigration has created the community here and the biggest predictor of poverty in the asian-american community is limited english proficiency. as you know, many languages aren't based on latin so it's

very difficult -- much more difficult to learn english. you have a situation where a lot of parents for example, from korea and other countries may be highly educated and may eastbound have college and advanced degrees but can't automatically turn their professional licenses here into a professional license to practice whatever their career was. they end up owning grocery stores or doing very low income work. they are highly educated as a parent, which is the best predictor whether the kids are going to college. but their income is going to be very low. >> my understanding is parental education is one of the factors correct? >> yes, it is. but these factors really need to be culminated into a construct for them to be truly predicted. >> i'm going to wrap this panel. we could talk for much more but we have another panel and want

to be respectful of that panel. thanks to each of you. stick around for the balance of the day. i ask the other panelists to begin to move forward and staff to change the name plates so we can get started on our next panel. thank you. the u.s. commission on civil rights held this on access to higher education for minority students. the next panel looked at what's being done in different school districts to hen students graduate on time. and the important role of community colleges. it's an hour and a half. >> we're reconvening for our seconds panel of the day. let me briefly introduce our

panelists and swear them in. the first is dr. timothy p. white. and second is dr. william e kerr win from the university system -- i'm sorry. looking at the wrong -- okay, patrick hogan. okay. you are sitting in for dr. kerwin, patrick hogan. we have scott miller university of virginia. we have dean maurice abry from the university of virginia and b.j. pend car from the cal state fuller ton system and derrick hamilton with the new school of public affairs. i'll ask you each to raise your right hands and be sworn. do you swear or affirm the information you're about to provide us is true and correct to the best of your knowledge and belief? okay, thank you. dr. white, please proceed. >> thank you, chair castro and commissioners and staff for the opportunity to speak with you today. my name is timothy p white and

i'm the chancellor of the california state university. a public university comprised of 23 campuses 460,000 students and 47,000 staff and we're celebrating this year our graduation of our 3 millionth living alumni. we're one of the largest and most diverse university systems in the country. i'm honored to be here for you this morning to discuss the work the cal state university does to expand access to a quality education and provide tools students need to excel and graduate and carry out the public mission for the good of all cal yans and americans. education has a unique role a gate way or in its absence a barrier to social mobilitity and civil engagement and responsibility. therefore, equitiable access to quality education is an important issue in the advancement of civil rights. the csu is born of the idea that

a high quality education should be accessible to those willing and able to do the work. this is and still is revolutionary. california's public system remains a model for many colleges and universities across the country and the world. by creating multiple points of entry, for high school graduates and transfer students and returning adults and advanced professionals, they are meeting the needs of the modern student. in fact, you can see the public mission of the california state reflected in the student population. half of our students are earning under graduate degrees and receive awards. a third of our students are among the first in their family to attend college. many students commute from their childhood homes and majority work to help cover school and family expenses. students of color make up nearly two thirds of this degree seeking under graduate population. and more than half of all

bachelor's earned annually by california's latino students, the largest demographic group are earned at the california state university. expanding access is central to the csu mission. but access is only part of it. it's getting students to complete a high quality degree and flourish is our true goal. the first and often most daunting barrier to completion is college readiness. csu embraced several approaches for those who need -- to be successful in the university environment. partnering with k through 12 and community colleges and help students develop university level skill sets and also forging clear degree pathways dwen the systems. for many, the near term goal of high school and community college education is receiving that university acceptance letter. yet we as university folk must

look out to the further whoize ron. acceptance must come with a plan of support and will and abilities and resources to execute that plan. we recently launched graduation initiative 2025 to raise our 4 and 6 year completion rates while narrowing the persistent degree team gaps for historically underserved and low income student populations. the core principle is that all students should have the opportunity to succeed regardless of the neighborhood they grew up in or schools they attended or parent's educational level or family income level. it means confronting the full range of barriers they face. yes, i'm here to tell you these barriers can and will be overcome. students and faculty and staff are already leading the way. we're bringing individualized learning to scale in a massive system in nearly half a million students and this bold action

requires a combination of resources from the university from the state and from the federal government. university and state efforts have also kept our tuition fees down for students and their families at an average of just $6,759 for california's full-time under graduates and been at that rate now for the past four years. roughly half of our students graduate with no student debt. and those who do borrow do so well below the national average. modest increases in federal financial aid investment combined with strategic reallocation of resources cohen sure they have resources they need to be successful. for example, in detailed in my written statement campus funds being allocated inequitiably, disproportionately go to few

students at high cost institutions. that something we should address. likewise a trio and framework could be strengthened by eninvesting in summer bridge, focusing more stem disciplines and expanding veterans upward bound, for example. these suggestions are modest yet they are important and they are achievable. the combination of federal state and university efforts helps students stick through the early phases of an under graduate education which is the time frame of highest attrition. these coordinated efforts are a tremendous benefit to under serve population and begin to address the civil rights unequal access and unequal support to degree. in the entire american public shares in the benefit of better access and student be success through a stronger global economic position and stronger society. we're all in this together. for me it is professional and it

is also intensely personal. i like castro and the commissioner and so many others are first generation. as an immigrant from argentina, i was low income and my high school did not encourage me to consider college. i attended the california community colleges and two of the university campuses and university of california berkeley and did post doc at university of michigan. here i am. i'm proud to have the opportunity to public higher education to be lifted and launched into an interesting and consequential life. part of my support came from the federal government in what was then called the national defense student loan. thank you very much. >> thank you, mr. chairman members of the commission i'm

not -- he had to attend to his wife this morning due to a family illness. i'm happy to be here today, by way of background comprised of 12 institutions, three research universities and two regional higher education centers one specialized research institution and one virtual university. we are we believe a microcosm of higher education across the united states in a small degraphic state. in that vein we experience a lot of -- we have a lot of takes on programs i'm going to speak about. in a moment i'll offer thoughts on these programs and their funding but let me begin by thanking the commission for holding these hearings, it's very timely. with the reauthorization of higher education act coming up

chancellor kerwin has repeatedly said it is a national disgrace that students and families coming from the lowest quaurtile of income graduate 9 to 10% chance of graduating college. students from the upper income core tile graduated 85 to 90%, that is unsustainable as a society. while there are many complex reasons why more low income students don't complete a college degree obviously the volume of financial aid dollars and efficacy of these programs that make these dollars available are critical to expanding success rates for these students. there are roughly 7,000 that participate in the federal pel grantor student loan programs. many of these also participate in one or more of the scog federal work stutddy and per kins loan programs.

i'll speak to these three programs then turn my attention to the various trio programs. >> let me start by noting that there are very positive impacts to these programs. i know there are proponents of rowling programs into one loan, one grant to make the process more stream lined and while that may sound great in theory, speaking to our campus based people on the front line who deal with students this doesn't hold true in practice. the benefit to campus based programs is they are just that they are campus based and they really are student based. the institutions know their students and have flexibility under program requirements to award the funds accordingly. because of that the relatively small dollars vested in these programs have a verily high return and graduation rates for under represented students.

these programs level the education playing field for underresourced students and often deciding factor about a student completing his or her degree. but they are woefully under funded and many students are not able to take advantage of that. i'll cite an example, towson, annual cost of attendance for in state student including housing, room and board is $24,688. here's how towson student aid breaks down from the most recent funding levels of fy 14. pel grants are the largest source. more than $20 million reaching nearly 5,300 of those 20,000 students. institutional need based grants directly from towson, $16

million impacting 4,500 students. state grants through maryland higher education, $11 million that's 4,000 students. then you have scog $500,000, touching 313 students. work study, $440,000 reaching 337 students. you can see the difference. looking at the example of towson, consider how many more low income underrepresented students could be reached with additional funding and/or improved formula for more equitiable distribution of these funds. and as chancellor white pointed out, the formula on some of these, it says what is the cost of attendance and what is the family expected contribution. if you have a very high cost of attendance institution and very low expected family contribution, where do you think the money is going to go?

it's going to go to institutions who have very high tuition. it really doesn't -- it makes sense in theory if you try to think about the need there but it doesn't serve the vast majority of students well. this approach often results in suboptimal allocation of funding. there are often funds returned to institutions but not allowed to be recycled to other institutions. the proposed allocation formulas for the national association of student financial aid administrators and department of education would place greater emphasis on the neediness of each school student populations unlike the current formula. we also want to make one point very clear we're all for making every program effective spending every dollar as efficiently as possible and putting the money where it can do the most good for students, but given the small contribution of federal work study and scog overall, the

impact of any change to the efficacy of these programs would be minimum mall. to significantly increase their impact there needs to be substantial increase funds for these programs. congress hasn't appropriated new per kins fundsing since nfy 2006. they have been relending funds and old institutional matching funds. at this point i'm want to quickly turn to the trio programs. they frankly have been a wonderful success. we have participated in upward boun student support services and they have tremendous graduation rates it is clear they are a vital access for low generation students but they have also received cuts in recent years you might say they

are flat funded but if it's not keeping up with inflation it's a cut. as a nation we need to do more much more to support higher education access and completion for low income underrepresented minority and first generation college students. sadly because of low completion rates for low income students the claim that america is the land of opportunity and upwardly mobile society now are beginning to ring hollow. we thank the commission for taking on this very crucial issue and the future of our country. >> dean miller. >> good morning, my name is scott miller financial aid, university of virginia. thomas jefferson founded it in

1819 with the goal to advance the ideas of democracy. today the university is comprised of 11 schools with 15,400 under graduates and 6400 graduate students, 70% of our undergraduate students are virginia residents. we would like to share part of the university's approach to graduation and the partial role that campus based funds play in the process. reviews the students academic credentials and extracurricular involvement to select the strongest candidates for our student body. office practice -- the ability are -- in the fall of 2003 uva president john kas teen challenged student financial services too develop a program to change the socioeconomic diversity of the university. our office suggested meeting

100% of demonstrated financial need and university's board of visitors approved access uva in february of 2004. the practice of meeting need for all students in state and out of state, began with an entering class in the fall of 2004. the university of virginia is one of two public universities with the policy and commitment to meeting 100% of demonstrated need for all students. if a student is admitted to the university, finances should not be an issue to those with financial need. in order to meet 100% of demonstrated financial need, the university reviews student's eligibility for financial aid from all sources, beginning with federal, then state and finally institutional. in the first year of access uva federal sources made a 42% of the ago reagreegregate university need, they spent 30% of ago agree gat need of its own money

for need based grants. for '13-'14. 46.1 million to meet the financial need of $100 million for under graduate population. federal sources have dropped to 33% and state sources have dropped to 6%. for the same time frame, campus based funds from dropped from 18% of demonstrated financial need to 5%. access uva helped to increase the percentage of students with financial need from 23% to 34% of our under graduate population and our pell grant population increased from 5% to 13%. to demonstrate further commitment, the university through the recently enacted affordable excellence program set a goal of $1 billion for endo youed scholarship. once reached they would create $50 million each year for scholarships and will help offset the shortfall from the decreased commitments from federal and state sources.

some concerns arose some high achieving low income students because of information in the media about increases in the cost of the tuition, misunderstanding about the avail abltd of financial aid and fears of college loan debt, many low income first generation college and unrepresented students are not receiving advice and support they need to identify and enroll in colleges where they will persist to degree. with lasting consequences not only for those students but also for the nation. 25% of low income students will never go to college. college access studies have found the complexities of college and financial aid applications are a serious barrier for low income students many of whom are the first to consider college. the national student to guidance counselor ratio of 467 to 1,

means the average student spends 20 minutes per year talking to a counselor. according to the department he have education 90% of the fastest growing jobs require post secondary education yet the u.s. lags behind other nations. to assist with these other issues, the university began the virginia college advising corps in the fall of 2005. they place a recent university graduate in a high school in virginia for two years to support the work of the high school counselor by helping all students not just those interested in the university of virginia. other sponsors and by the americorps program. 17 advisers serve in 19 partner high schools and it became the model for the national college advising corps now present in 14 states and 423 high schools. for 15-16 the number of advisers

who received campus based funds was 65%. advisers use a near peer mentoring model. they can relate to someone not much older from them and may have come from a similar background. college advisers help students identify and apply to post secondary programs that serve them well academically and socially increasing the likelihood that they will earn their degrees. based on an independent evaluation when looking at high schools served by a college adviser compared to seniors at noncollege schools students served by advisers are 32% more likely to apply 23% more likely to have heard of pell grant and 13% more likely to submit the fafsa and 17 more likely to attend a financial workshop. they are just two of the many initiatives that the university of virginia has utilized to

increase access to higher education. after we meet and demonstrate financial need we'll tell you about efforts regarding persistence and graduation. >> my approach would be the following, if and when the funding is in place, let's look at what students have a piece of mind to accomplish. i will begin with the question, most universities have support services to facilitate entry persistence and graduation. these programs include peer support programs and faculty mentored programs and arc demic advising and among others.

what is different at the university of virginia that enables these same students the same program to yield substantive outcomes. one, there's a clear and explicit strategic position which i will give you nks two, the strategic position must have strek consistentcy with the equally high expectations of the university. three, strategy effectiveness and four as a result our programs work because horizontally they are sin kronized around leadership and identity and academic performance. and vertically they all rise to the explicit and clearly stated strategy.

high graduation rates must align with correspondingly high graduating grade point averages. translation, for over 20 years, has led the nation among the fractured institutions with the highest graduation rates something around 83 to 88%. yesterday's figure came in at 86% for this past year. what we want to do is create an alignment which would add the grid for a state graduate. there must be a strategic consistency between the program and the implement the strategic goals and objectives on pt institution. translation, the university of virginia generally expects the

student to graduate within eight semesters. from dramatic efforts must use this expectation to guide the strategic implementation. secondly, in addition, students are generally expected as collected who can both contribute to life and benefit from it. thirdly, strategic position must precede operational effectiveness of the programs to ensure success. all programs must synchronize and design efforts to make that expectation happen. the point here is that graduate rates look good for the university but they don't put food on the table. grade point averages do. and that's why the alignment is so important. next these three, student

leadership and identity indifference, student academic performance with high gpas matter, at the end of the day you want students to have -- to become the leaders that the university set out to create. two, it matters an african-american student knows why he or she is a teacher of that particular origin. and third student academic performance must allow students to create for greater access to more opportunities when they graduate. when you put all of these together, you will have a set number of programs that make these things happen. our program gets the students started. retention programs follow which we call the grad style program and includes faculty et cetera and cultural center also

fosters kulcultureal programs to create a background and sense of identity and difference while they are the school. and lastly the stem areas to be emphasized because what many courses like economics and statistics sub serve, students going on to graduate and workplaces if and when you've done this well you'll discover is that the graduation rates will continue to stay high and students who are in the cohort of 3.0 to 3.4 increases and with

that in minds, let's go to the slide that gives you the gpas. the next one -- all the way to the end. there it is. here, for example, in the 3.4 to 4.0 range, i give you ten data points and 2006 students graduated in that cohort with 10.4 in the 3.4 to 4.0 range. today it's 20.7. in the 3.0 to 3.99 range, 2006, it was 27% today it's 61%. put them all together in 2006,

students graduating in the 3.0 to 4.0 range 27.4. today as we're speaking it's 81.7%, more than double that gpa. so key is focus, focus, focus and keep strategic position in line and all the programs will follow. thank you for the attention. >> dr. pendakur? >> commissioners, i want to start by saying thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today. my name is vijay pendakur, associate vice president for student affairs at cal state university fullerton. my testimony aims to support and

augment earlier testimony of chancellor white on the impact of federal funded programs on educational attainment for minority students, specifically through the lens of cal state fullerton. chancellor white often says and i firmly believe that access without the opportunity to succeed is not true access. a meaningful education means not only getting your foot in the door but being empowered with the support to persist and succeed all the way through to graduation. enrolling in college is a critical step for minority, low income and first generation students but this is only the first step in a long educational journey. along which these students face proportionally greater social, cultural and economic barriers than other students. at cal state fullerton we have an intimate understanding of the barriers they face and we have a proven record of giving them not just access but a collegiate experience with the possibility of great success. as one of the largest campuses in the largest state university system in the nation, cal state fullerton is a model comprehensive university for inclusion, proudly serving a diverse student body. we are a designated hispanic serving institution and an asian american and native american

pacific islander serving institution. 63% of our 38,000 students identify as native american, black, hispanic, asian and pacific islander or multi-ethnic. 43% of our undergraduates are pell grant recipients and 57% are first generation college students. yet at cal state fullerton we recognize that access alone is not enough. we are also a national model for student success, ranked first in california and tenth in the nation for graduating latinos and fourth in the nation for graduating underrepresented minority students. furthermore, our students graduate with less debt than the average public university graduate and earn higher salaries over time. these historic achievements are a foundation for even further growth. beginning in 2012, cal state

fullerton's president mildred garcia initiated a strategic planning process to establish a metric driven plan to guide our institution towards the goal of becoming a national model for how becoming a public university can boost graduation rates through thoughtful efforts to keep students connected to their education and empowered on their way to a degree. i have detailed many of the relevant strategic plan activities in my written testimony but want to highlight several initiatives that might be of particular interest to the commission today. cal state fullerton is proud to house six trio and gear-up programs which consist of educational talent search, upward bound, two gear-up grants, student support services and the mcnair scholars program. educational talent search, upward bound and the two gear-up grants serve nearly 4500 students who attend local high schools with the highest need and schools that enroll the majority of their students in

free and reduced lunch programs. these pre-college programs have a profound impact on the student participants and our assessment results speak to these programs' success, with over 90% of the participants enrolling in college after they finish high school. beyond establishing a strong pipeline for access, cal state fullerton also offers programs to bolster student success and educational quality for our first generation and underrepresented college students. our student support services program aims to increase the college retention and graduation rates of participants through academic advising, tutoring, financial aid advising and other financial services. student support services serves 160 undergraduate students who come from first generation low income or disabled backgrounds. and the participants achieve a six year graduation rate that is nearly 16% higher than the institutional average. in addition to our student support services program we also run a mcnair scholars program committed to empowering higher risk and underrepresented students with access to graduate education. nationally, only 11% of doctoral degree recipients in 2013 were from historically underrepresented racial backgrounds. programs like the mcnair scholars work to expand our nation's population of highly trained intellectual leaders by creating a pipeline for greater diversity and future doctoral degree recipients. by showcasing our innovative

approach to fostering greater access in the community while also creating a campus ecosystem conducive to retention and graduation, cal state fullerton can be seen as a case study for what may be possible at the national level. we are already achieving great things with our past and current initiatives, but without continued and expanded federal support, these initiatives are unsustainable. the current limitations in federal funding disproportionately affect the students that rely most heavily on programs and grants from the federal government. these limitations are adding additional obstacles for students on their pathway to transformative learning and degree completion. we are also keenly aware that these limitations and obstacles to students can easily be remedied. we believe that a return to the year-round pell grant program

would serve as a powerful driver for our students to finish their college degrees in a timely manner. my president, mildred garcia, often speaks about higher education being a private good and a public good. having just watched -- having just finished spring commencement, i watched 60,000 family members and friends celebrate the achievement of a private good, the attainment of a college degree. when our newly minted titans advance in the work force, raise productive families and contribute to uplifting their communities, they are achieving the public good that higher education has to offer our society. it is our moral imperative to protect and institutionalize the programs that ultimately result in equitable outcomes, not just equitable enrollment. this is one of the key civil rights issues of our time. commissioners, thank you for the opportunity to testify today. i welcome any questions you might have. >> thank you. dr. hamilton? >> good morning. thank you, commissioners, for the opportunity to present before this important commission. my assigned task, i'm derek hamilton, associate professor of economics and urban policy at

the new school which is a university of new york. my assigned task was to examine the possible civil rights impact that access to and completion of higher education has on minority higher social mobility. my comments are going to focus on the racial wealth gap and the role or lack of role that higher education plays in providing economic mobility to address the racial wealth gap. why focus on wealth. wealth is the paramount indicator of economic well-being. wealth provides economic opportunity and security to take risks and seals against financial loss and some wealth provides people with the initial capital to purchase an appreciating asset which in turn generates more wealth from one generation to the next. wealth is also the economic

indicator in which blacks and whites and other ethnic groups have consistently been most disparate. in the economic recovery period following the great recession, the census reveals the typically black family owned a little more than a nickel, six and seven cents respectively for every dollar in wealth held by the white family. the typical black family has a little over $7,000 in wealth while the typical white family has close to $112,000 in wealth. research and public policy has focused primarily on higher education as the driver of upward mobility. however, education alone does little to explain differences in wealth across race. it's more likely the case that wealth differences across race explain educational attainment differences. nonetheless, the conventional wisdom is that to address racial disparity, blacks need to simply get over it, stop playing the victim role, stop making excuses and take personal responsibility for racial inequality. it is as if the passage of the civil rights legislation conventional explanations for racial disparity have evolved from biological to cultural determinant.

the implication of this rhetorical shift is a shift away from public responsibility towards the condition of black americans and other ethnic and racial groups. for example, although affirmative action is designated as a positive anti-discrimination policy aimed at desegregating elite institutions, including elite university admissions, a common perspective is that affirmative action amounts to reverse discrimination, where unqualified blacks take the admission slots for qualified whites. this argument underscores white entitlement to pervert social positions and assumes that whites generally are qualified while by default, blacks generally are not qualified. this ignores the historical advantage and protected access that whites continue to hold via

admission preferences for university legacies and other channels which serve as examples of hidden forms of affirmative action for privileged groups. it also ignores the well-documented evidence from experimental psychologists involving the phenomenon of serial type threat, serial type boost and serial type lift. they collectively demonstrate that outcomes on high stakes standardized tests like the s.a.t. underestimate the achievement of college readiness for test takers from groups socially stigmatized as cognitively inferior while correspondingly exaggerate the scores f