A great education acts more like Weight Watchers than school

By Dr. Andre M. Perry
Contributing Columnist

This week, the Obama administration sent a message to U.S. postsecondary institutions to increase levels of racial diversity on their campuses. The Departments of Education and Justice jointly issued a 10 page guidance “to explain how, consistent with existing law, postsecondary institutions can voluntarily consider race to further the compelling interest of achieving diversity.”

The administration released the guidance on the heels of an affirmative action case that the Supreme Court may hear as well as an already entrenched GOP primary battle. Politics notwithstanding, this statement is overdue because more and more universities mirror the monolithic racial patterns of our high schools. Colleges are becoming expensive dormitories that house the 13th grade. As such, postsecondary institutions are essentially becoming finishing schools for a respective social class.

If almost by edict, the poor are encouraged to attend community colleges, the working class goes to the state comprehensive colleges, and the rich attend the private, selective four-years. This is why a supposed elite high school or college can be disconnected from its neighbors who may be stricken with poverty, crime and cultural depravity.

A lack of inclusion robs students and society of the benefits of diversity. The guidance correctly states that “interacting with students who have different perspectives and life experiences can raise the level of academic and social discourse both inside and outside the classroom; indeed, such interaction is an education in itself.” Neither the individual nor the community is transformed in the absence of diversity.

Individuals are graduating from college upon the same social stages they entered. That is why higher education must be transformative. We need poor people to be able to leap from poverty, and communities need privilege folks to fight social misery. Colleges shouldn’t continue to reinforce our current social milieu. In other words, colleges and universities must not only help students find jobs; they must shape them towards our country’s social goals. To meet these ends, colleges and universities should act more like weight watchers or alcohol anonymous rather than high school extensions.

When someone successfully exists a 12-step drug rehabilitation or weight loss program, he or she sees the world differently. Talk to a formerly obese person who lost more than twice their body weight. Their esteem is off the charts; that person has developed different social circles and a new attitude. Similarly, postsecondary institutions must be character-changing institutions. However, diversity is the catalyst for transformation in college.

Unfortunately, the Bush administration cautioned universities from using race as a factor for admissions. This led to practices that limit diversity on campuses. Statewide governing boards are controlling college enrollments in ways that stifle institutional freedoms to diversify student bodies. In Louisiana and other states, we’re creating a tiered public system that assumes that preparation neatly predicts graduation – this is the State’s corrective action for abysmally low six-year graduation rates. The theory of action is that a student should go to college based on his or her test scores.

Policymakers employ-ed this approach in spite of research that shows that GPA and SAT/ACT only predict for 50 percent of the variance of whether or not students move on to their second year in college. Yet, the Louisiana Grad Act stratifies students’ options for enrollment in public colleges based mightily on test scores, which effectually faults the student for their high school’s failures. The Louisiana legislation ignored years of research that says retention has much to do with universities’ inner workings. Faculty-student interaction, robust student affairs departments, on-campus job and research opportunities improve retention.

The current “tiering” practice leaves little room for challenging universities to enroll students based on diversity goals so we can change the communities that need it most. In addition, tiering widens the gap that already exists between universities and K-12 systems.

If colleges and universities don’t enroll a diverse group of students, they will not become the transformative institutions that change people, and we will continue to facilitate the social systems that made Katrina a great disaster. True higher learning will occur when colleges act more like Weight Watchers than finishing schools. But colleges need diverse student bodies to incite positive change.

This article was originally published in the December 12, 2011 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper