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Undergraduate Experiences and Post Graduate Outcomes
The third area of research for the Choices Project addresses the problem of the low number of African American and Latino students who attend college, as well as the factors that influence the number of those students who graduate and achieve post-graduate success.
Affirmative action was implemented as one way to address the problem of under-representation of African American and Latino students attending college, and to open higher education choices. Yet with affirmative action dismantled in California, the country's most diverse state, the number of African American and Latino students in higher education remains low. Given this, it is imperative to identify individual, family, group, institutional characteristics, and experiences that are associated with college student persistence and academic achievement.
Colleges with well-developed student support programs and a critical mass of African American and Latino students have higher persistence and achievement rates. The Choices Project asks students to point to critical sources of encouragement and support as well as to identify factors such as financial aid, study abroad, and other resources and programs that improve educational access and success.
In the absence of absence of affirmative action, achieving educational equity in K-12 schools becomes more important than ever as the primary means of helping greater numbers of African American and Latino students to attend college. Ideally, African American and Latino students as well as other underrepresented students will gain access to college going-cultures in their K-12 schools, supported by adequate resources and well-trained teachers. These features are common in schools for whites and Asians, middle and upper class students and generally students who are successful at entering and graduating from college.
Finally, as Choices Project researchers we take up questions about African American and Latino involvement in graduate and professional education. Previous research illustrates patterns of under-representation in advanced degree opportunities for African Americans and Latinos. Awareness of these disparities is the first step towards bringing about change in minority student participation. We aim to understand how to better provide and facilitate access to college and university programs of teaching, medicine, law, and other professions where graduate study is a prerequisite. Such understanding may help to implement strategies for the increased admission, retention, and degree attainment of African American and Latino students in graduate and professional education environments.
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