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

commissioner narasaki. >> yes. i forgot this. i hope it would be someone from an hbc testifying, and apparently they were able to come. so my understanding in pockets of some hbcu down i think was in alabama or mississippi, they were telling me that actually hbcus these days have a large percentage of non-african-american students attending. and the hbcus into doing a lot of remediation support. so i'm just wondering if any of you have expertise to comment on the hbcu system? >> there is a general truth to what you say. there has been an expansion in the non-african-american component in hbcu enrollments. there's a broader problem with hbcus which is there has been a very significant decline in enrollments at a large number of schools in recent years. and this is you know it's getting to the very serious point and some institutions. i giving specific examples but it probably wouldn't be appropriate. >> i don't have a lot of information. what is your exact question i'm sorry, could you repeat the? >> i'm interested in the percenta

but as commissioner narasaki said yesterday there are other communities such as the indian communitynd 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. does 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 bifurcate the 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

narasaki. yesterday's panel which we held for a bulk of the day talking about these issues of per persistence and completion and the impact it may have on minorities' mobile. today's session is 17 distinctive speakers, all of whom provide us with an array of view points on the topics. we have four panels today. the first panel is federal government officials discussing per innocent programs. panel two will consist of the university system heads. we're going to share their experience and perspectives and the last two panels give us viewpoints of various scholars. before we proceed with the housekeeping of how we're going to run the panels and in due time and to the speakers we want to give our commissioner roberta achtenberg an opportunity to share a few words. it was her concept paper and efforts that resulted in yesterday and today's briefing. so commissioner achtenberg. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i appreciate the courtesy. the premise of today's exploration and yesterday's, as well, is as fo

commissioner narasaki? >> i had hoped there would be someone from an hbcu testifying and apparently they weren't able to come. so my understanding, i was talking to someone who had an hbcu down i think it was in alabama or mississippi. they were telling me that actually hbcus have a large percentage of non-african-american students attending. and the hbcus end up doing a lot of remediation support. so i'm just wondering if any of you have expertise to comment on the hbcu system. >> there is a general truth to what you say. there has been an expansion in the non-african-american component in hbcu enrollments. there's a broader problem with hbcus which is there has been a very significant decline in enrollments at a large number of schools in recent years. and this is -- it's getting to the very serious point. i could name specific examples. but it probably wouldn't be appropriate. >> i don't really have a lot of information. what is your exact question? i'm sorry. could you repeat it? >> i'm interested in th

madam vice chair followed by commissioners narasaki and heriot. >> thank you very much, mr. chair. this question would be to all of our panelists. as educators and others have looked out and reviewed pathways to higher education for our poor, our first generation college, our underrepresented 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 is any data out there and whether this is a trend that you see merit in or what do our statistics and our information tell us. >> well what i would say is that in these are fairly new programs, not in all cases but we hadn't seen them as systematic programs, one of the challenges is that public education in our country belongs to the states. and a few places that i've lived, i had the pleasure of learning there were more school districts than counties which all have different calend