Equity in Math Opportunity

High school math requirements contribute to inequity in access to college, in particular the value placed on calculus, even though it is not an essential course for students who are seeking non-STEM degrees. The boost earned by students who are fortunate enough to have access to calculus, a benefit unequally distributed across our high schools, is problematic. 

If education is the great equalizer in this country, then mathematics might be the great divider. In 2019, only six percent of Black and nine percent of Latinx high school students earned credit in calculus, compared to 18% of white students and 46% of Asian American students. Similarly, students at schools in the highest-income quartile are three times as likely to take the course as those in the bottom half. Yet calculus exerts a big influence on students’ college prospects: selective colleges routinely view it as a gold standard in admission. 

As states contend with creating racially inclusive student bodies in a post-affirmative action world, they must address the outsized role that mathematics courses play in restricting access to college. A solid grounding in mathematics is crucial in the 21st century. Calculus is one way to build such a foundation. But so are advanced courses in areas such as statistics and data science, which foster critical thinking skills, are indispensable for achievement in college and beyond, and are often more aligned with students’ interests and the fields they will pursue. 

States and education systems must equalize access to calculus and make other rigorous courses more available for students whose aspirations do not rely on proficiency in calculus. No single course should have so much sway over admissions decisions—and certainly not one that is not a required course for most majors or out of reach for many historically underrepresented students.

Recommendations

• Adopt policies to automatically place students into advanced math courses based on students’ prior performance to provide equitable access to advanced courses. 
• Require school districts to publish annual disaggregated data on advanced math course-taking patterns to ensure transparency in participation rates and opportunities for intervention.
• Define and implement measurable benchmarks aimed at increasing access to and success in advanced math courses for underserved student groups.

Dual Enrollment

What is dual enrollment?

Dual enrollment is a program that allows high school students to take college-level courses and earn college credits while still enrolled in high school. This program provides students with the opportunity to advance their education by experiencing college coursework and gaining college credits before graduating from high school.

Dual enrollment represents a promising lever for increasing educational equity, given its large scale and demonstrated effectiveness for increasing college access and success among its participants. Black, Latinx, and other minoritized students benefit from dual enrollment participation, yet these and other underrepresented students often do not have meaningful access to these programs. Strong dual enrollment programs have the potential to raise college enrollment rates among high school graduates and improve college-attainment rates for students who participate.

Dual enrollment programs are widespread nationally, but access to dual enrollment coursework is uneven and replicates existing educational inequities. Compared to the overall composition of secondary school enrollment, students with disabilities, English learners, American Indian, Black, Latinx, multiracial, and Pacific Islander students—and men across all these groups—were underrepresented among dual enrollment participants during the 2017-18 school year. 

The scarcity of qualified high school instructors is a significant barrier to expanding access to dual enrollment, particularly in underserved rural and urban Title I high schools. Expanding the instructor pool is essential so that students are not excluded from taking dual enrollment courses based on their local high school’s access to qualified instructors.

Recommendations

• Conduct intersegmental audits of existing dual enrollment policies to better understand the dual enrollment structures, where substantial variations in state and local contexts may exist related to access to dual enrollment. Data collection could help inform strategic changes to systematic policies that disproportionately impact students of color.
• Develop policies that explicitly define underrepresented groups and set clear metrics for access and success in dual enrollment.
• Allocate state funding to cover tuition and fees for dual enrollment programs, recognizing that traditional financial aids like Pell Grants are not available to dual enrollment students.
• Establish baseline models for dual enrollment programs focusing on credit hours, integrated supports, and coursework structure to ensure consistency and quality.
• Align teacher pipeline initiatives and certification efforts to increase the number of qualified dual enrollment instructors. Employ state and federal funding to support high school instructors in completing required graduate coursework.
• Promote dual enrollment in underserved K-12 districts like Title I schools, stressing cost and time savings for students and equity in education by granting college credit based on course performance, not high-stakes tests.

Direct Admissions

Direct admissions (sometimes also referred to as automatic, flipped, guaranteed, or proactive admissions) flips the script on the traditional college application process by altogether eliminating the need for students to apply. Rather than asking students to collect and submit an immense amount of information that most colleges and universities do not need and will not use to make admissions decisions, direct admissions practices utilize information that is already available, such as students’ high school GPA, course grades, and/or standardized test scores that are stored in state or district databases.

Navigating the college application process requires substantial levels of financial, social, and cultural capital that are inequitably distributed across racial and ethnic lines. Latinx, Black, underrepresented Asian American and NHPI, and AIAN students in the U.S. run this gauntlet without the same access to information, support, and financial assistance as their white and wealthier peers, and strategies to support students in this process tend to target students who are already advantaged. 

Ten states in the U.S. and hundreds of institutions nationwide have instituted direct admissions programs. The broad diversity of adopters shows that direct admissions is not a politically charged tool: Democratic and Republican leaders alike have endorsed these policies because they are a low-cost, low-touch way to signal college-going (and, in turn, workforce development) opportunities and to reduce the administrative burden on students and families. When effectively paired with other equity-minded practices, direct admissions can help level the playing field for Latinx, Black, underrepresented Asian American and NHPI, and AIAN students while also benefiting first-generation students and those from low-income backgrounds.

Recommendations

• Advocate for the inclusion of four-year institutions in direct admissions programs to counteract “undermatching” and ensure equitable access.
• Encourage participation of private, nonprofit institutions, explicitly excluding for-profit counterparts, to focus on institutions with better resources and outcomes.
• Implement measures to prevent access reduction by discouraging extra requirements (e.g., portfolio submissions) within direct admissions programs.

College-Preparatory Coursework

Access to college-prep coursework in high school plays a critical role in shaping students’ ability to attend four-year colleges, especially selective institutions. However, systemic barriers continue to limit opportunities for Latinx, Black, underrepresented Asian American and NHPI, and American Indian/Alaska Native (AIAN) students. Rigorous courses, such as Advanced Placement (AP), International Baccalaureate (IB), and dual enrollment (DE), are often central to college admissions decisions, particularly in states like California, where completion of A-G coursework is required for admission to public universities. Despite the importance of these courses, white students enroll in them at significantly higher rates, according to 2021-2022 federal data. These disparities restrict postsecondary access and success for many minoritized students. The following college and university policy recommendations aim to address these inequities by supporting high schools in expanding equitable access to rigorous, college-prep coursework.

Recommendations

• Ensure every high school in the state offers at least one college-bearing credit program in each of the four core subjects and a foreign language.
• Standardize complex applications for rigorous courses by implementing holistic student profiles and ensuring advising practices do not disproportionately exclude students of color.
• Eliminate burdensome application and eligibility processes for advanced coursework by requiring school districts to implement holistic and inclusive advising practices, such as student profiles that consider interests, goals, and barriers, and by establishing state-level monitoring to ensure these processes do not exclude or disproportionately impact Black and Latinx students.
• Fully fund dual enrollment programs and cover all associated costs to eliminate financial barriers that hinder low-income and racially minoritized students from participating.

Financial Aid Completion

The completion of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) is the portal to multiple forms of financial assistance, and longstanding barriers for students and families trying to complete it exacerbate inequities in college enrollment and affordability. 

Each year, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) provides students who file the FAFSA with approximately $112 billion in federal grants, work-study employment, and loans to help pay for college or career credential programs. And each year, millions of eligible students do not complete the FAFSA for a variety of reasons that range from the complexity of the process to being unaware that it exists. As a result, they are forgoing financial aid award opportunities that would reduce the financial burden of attending college. In 2021, only an estimated 53% of graduating high school seniors nationwide completed the FAFSA by June 30, the official deadline. In most states, students attending high-poverty school districts are less likely to complete the FAFSA, compared to their counterparts in wealthier school districts. 

Over the past few years, states, cities, and school districts around the country have been increasing FAFSA completion rates through numerous mechanisms, including universal FAFSA completion policies, FAFSA and student-data sharing agreements with high school counselors and administrators, FAFSA completion challenges, and other FAFSA completion support programs. While none of the mechanisms alone is enough to solve students’ financial challenges, they all play a role in fostering a college-going culture and in making college more affordable for all students.

Recommendations

• Pass a statewide policy that mandates FAFSA completion along with an opt-out provision.
• Create and invest in statewide programs that support students and families in completing and submitting the FAFSA.
• Allocate funding for enhanced outreach in low-completion high schools and high-poverty areas, including compensation for staff assisting with financial aid applications and providing overtime pay.
• Require all high school students to apply for college financial aid before graduation and provide state-level support, either through legislation or education department policies, to ensure widespread completion of these applications.
• Support statewide FAFSA completion challenges that incentivize schools to support students in applying for financial aid.
• Build or strengthen a statewide longitudinal data system that can provide up-to-date and accurate student-level data on FAFSA completions directly to high school counselors and administrators.

Federal-State Funding Partnership

States and the federal government spend hundreds of billions annually on higher education, but the lack of a direct funding relationship between them hinders efforts to lower college costs, reduce student debt, and enhance institutional quality. To address these issues and create a system where students can earn a four-year degree without incurring debt, there is a need for increased need-based grant aid and new, equitable investments in public colleges. State disinvestment and funding disparities, particularly affecting institutions serving low-income and minoritized students, exacerbate rising tuition and debt. A successful solution involves creating a federal-state funding partnership tailored to individual state needs, incentivizing states to reinvest in public institutions, and ensuring equitable funding. Such a partnership would require significant effort but is crucial for reducing costs, improving quality, and increasing graduation rates.

A successful federal-state partnership must be designed with the express purpose of enabling states to reinvest in public institutions, to maintain investment across economic cycles, and to provide more equitable funding across public institutions. A federal-state partnership is also an unprecedented opportunity for the federal government to incentivize, equip, and support states and institutions to reduce costs, improve educational quality, and increase completion rates.

Recommendations

• Provide an affordability guarantee to students and families, ensuring all students, especially low-income students, many of whom are racially minoritized students, have the financial resources they need to cover their college costs (including expenses beyond tuition) without taking on too much debt.
• Increase and stabilize funding for public higher education by incentivizing states to increase investments in public higher education and to maintain state funding across economic cycles.
• Develop formulas to increase resource equity across public colleges and universities—especially those that serve many low-income students and racially minoritized students—with the funding they need to provide both a high-quality education and sufficient student supports.

Transfer

Every year, hundreds of thousands of students in the U.S. enroll in community colleges, with a majority aspiring to transfer and complete a bachelor’s degree. Among the 1.4 million students entering a four-year college or university in fall 2022, 38% were doing so as transfer students. 

Transfer from a community college to a four-year institution is a distinct component of higher education and has long been envisioned as an accessible and affordable route to a bachelor’s degree and beyond. A robust transfer pathway is also critical to ensuring equity in higher education. Nationwide, community colleges are open-access institutions, enrolling approximately 9 million students annually—nearly 40% of all undergraduates—and providing an entry point to college for millions of students every year. Large numbers of students who are Latinx, Black, underrepresented Asian American and NHPI, and AIAN, as well as students who are low-income, English language learners, and from other minoritized populations, enroll in community college. Community college enrollments nationally represent 39% of all Black undergraduates, 48% of all Latinx undergraduates, 52% of all AIAN undergraduates, and 34% of all NHPI undergraduates.

Community college transfer pathways have immense potential for advancing equity in higher education by providing a route to a four-year degree for Latinx, Black, underrepresented Asian American and NHPI, and AIAN students, but this potential has been squandered. Misaligned policies and practices between postsecondary institutions create barriers for transfer students, with disproportionate impacts on students from minoritized backgrounds. 

Too few transfer-intending community college students ever transfer to a four-year institution, and far fewer complete their bachelor’s degrees. Barriers in the transfer process disproportionately thwart students from marginalized groups. Nationally, approximately 80% of new, associate degree-seeking community college entrants intend to transfer, but only 31% ever transfer to a four-year institution, and only 13% complete a bachelor’s degree within six years.

For the community college transfer pathway to realize its potential for advancing equity, state leaders must support their students by removing major barriers to transfer student success that disproportionately impact students who are from minoritized backgrounds.

Recommendations

• Strengthen the community college transfer pathway by establishing statewide and institutional transfer enrollment and success goals, with details for specific student subgroups that are disproportionately impacted by ineffective transfer systems. 
• Create stronger on-ramps to transfer pathways by defining a statewide vision for equitable high school dual enrollment, and by funding dual admission models where transfer-bound students are recruited into community college on a bachelor’s degree pathway in partnership with a four-year institution. These models should include aligned supports and advising from the partnering institution.
• Adequately fund community colleges to ensure institutions can provide additional resources for transfer students, including student success courses and strengthened advising and counseling.
• Fund the creation of transparent, student-facing websites that capture how transfer students fare at institutions (publicizing the average number of credits by institution/program of transfer graduates) to allow potential students to make more informed college choices.
• Examine and promote the use of disaggregated transfer student outcome data among state, system, and institutional leaders to understand how well Black, Latinx, AIAN, NHPI, and other minoritized populations are being served throughout the state in order to identify and adopt policies and practices to increase equity in transfer outcomes.
• Establish and maintain major-specific transfer pathways and ensure they are utilized and honored by community colleges and four-year institutions.
• Phase out institution-to-institution articulation agreements in favor of more comprehensive state- or system-wide transfer agreements including clear course equivalencies, shared general education requirements, common course numbering across two- and four-year institutions, and guaranteed transfer policies.
• Adequately fund state financial aid and transfer student-specific financial or institutional aid to improve transfer students’ understanding that a bachelor’s degree is financially within reach.

Black Student Success

Black student enrollment in postsecondary education has declined by 8.4 percent since Fall 2019, one of the steepest declines among all racial and ethnic groups. Significant disparities also persist between Black high school graduates and their white peers in immediate college enrollment rates. For decades, researchers and advocates have highlighted the systemic barriers Black students face in accessing, navigating, and completing college. In response to the heightened racial reckoning of 2020, many institutions publicly committed to advancing racial equity and improving outcomes for Black students. However, these commitments must be matched with concrete policy action. As colleges and universities work to fulfill their missions of equity and inclusion, they must implement policies and practices that center the lived experiences and intersectional identities of Black students. Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) continue to lead in educating and graduating Black students despite receiving fewer public resources. State policymakers must ensure equitable investment in HBCUs as part of a broader strategy to advance racial equity. Ultimately, building a student-centered postsecondary system requires that state policies reflect and respond to the needs and realities of Black students across all institution types.

Recommendations

• Create a Black-Serving Institution designation for colleges with at least 10% Black student enrollment and demonstrated equity outcomes.
• Establish a governing board to oversee and support Black-Serving Institution efforts.
• Require public colleges to develop equity plans with clear goals to eliminate Black student success gaps.
• Fund dual enrollment programs at every high school and ensure proportional Black student representation, including offering in-person options.
• Launch a statewide center for Black student excellence to lead strategy, provide resources, and offer professional learning.
• Waive tuition and fees for undergraduates from households earning below the state median income.
• Build and fund cradle-to-career data systems with race/ethnicity disaggregation to track student outcomes from K–12 to career.