Why Colleges Already Face Race-Related Challenges In Serving Future Students

Today, more Americans graduate high school and go on to college than ever before. But as the country becomes more diverse — the Census Bureau expects that by 2020 more than half of the nation's children will be part of a minority race or ethnic group — are colleges and universities ready to serve them?

"If you look at the past 50, almost 60 years, you see we have made a lot of progress as a country in terms of high school seniors deciding to go to college in the 1.5 years after graduating," says Andrew Nichols, director of higher education research and data analytics at the Education Trust, a nonprofit. "And that isn't just white students. It's also for black and Latinos. You're seeing that increase for everybody."

The National Center for Education Statistics reports that in 2015, 88 percent of seniors – nearly 3 million students – graduated high school. By the following October, 69 percent of them – or more than 2 million people – were enrolled in college.

But where are they attending? And do they graduate?

"There's a great deal of stratification in terms of where students are enrolling," says Mamie Voight, vice president of policy research at the Institute for Higher Education Policy. "African American, Hispanic, and low-income students tend to be more highly concentrated in community colleges and in for-profit colleges more