https://www.northernpublicradio.org/post/report-highlights-higher-ed-inequity-chicagoland
JUL 17, 2019
PETER MEDLIN – WNIU News
Even with Chicagoland students in the same income range, white students have a much greater chance of getting a degree than students of color.
That’s according to a new report from the non-profit Partnership for College Completion. The group just released a report highlighting college access and success disparities in northern Illinois.
It finds gaps exist regardless of academics and have more to do with race and family income levels.
More than 70,000 college-goers applied for financial aid in the region in 2017. More than 40% were black or Latino. But in that year, students of color received fewer than 3,000 degrees at local public four-year universities.
The report recommends institutional changes at schools like remedial education and advising reforms, and also policies like increases in need-based financial aid — especially because of the first-come first-served nature of MAP grants.
“This absolutely has a disproportionate impact on students who are the first in their family to go to college, of course, low-income students, and students who are attending high schools that aren’t as well equipped to make sure that students know how to complete FAFSA and know that they have to complete it very early,” said Lisa Castillo Richmond, Managing Director of the PCC.
According to the Illinois Student Assistance Commission, over 100,000 Illinois students every year who are eligible for MAP funding receive nothing.
The report also talks about Illinois’ issues with students leaving the state for college.
“We are also concerned about the students that are applying for financial aid and applying to college and then at the time of matriculation or are not showing up at any institution, whether it’s inside or outside of the state,” said Castillo Richmond. “And we think of this as the more acute challenge for the state.”
Among FAFSA-filing students, white students are the most likely to leave while Latino students are by far the least likely to leave the state.
