The long, winding, and neglected road - Black students do not reality education parity in Southern state college and universities

Black Issues in Higher Education, Sept 17, 1998 by Jamilah Evelyn

Nettles added that the foundation did a comprehensive study of the public institutions in the South, but stressed that the research shouldn't stop there.

"The same kind of issues that SEF is raising on publics, we should also raise on privates and nationally," he said.

RELATED ARTICLE: Community Colleges Respond

WASHINGTON -- Community college hold strong as a postsecondary access point for African American students according to Miles To Go, the Southern Education Foundation's report on the status of minority education in the South.

Regionally, the report found that 39 percent of Black students in the public institutions in the nineteen southern states studied were at community colleges. In Mississippi, 61.2 percent of Blacks in higher education are at community colleges. In Alabama, the number is 51.3 percent.

However, Dr. Clifford Adelman, a senior research analyst for the U.S. Department of Education, said the foundation's report is misleading because the study didn't take into account all the Black students attending private historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in the South. Without them, he said, the report paints a picture that Black students go to community colleges at inordinately high rates.

"Black students are no more likely to go to community college than White kids. In fact, in the South they are less likely," he said. "And when you factor in all the Black students at private HBCUs in the South, you get that perspective,".

And anyway, said Dr. Belle Wheelan, president of Northern Virginia Community College, it's not such bad thing when students go to a two-year school.

"We are the college of choice when [Black students] can't get into four-year schools," she said. "They're still being productive, and they'll be able to get into the job market."

Dr. Jacquelyn M. Belcher, president of Georgia Perimeter College in Decatur, said it's encouraging to see Black at two-year institutions -- especially in light of figures showing a deline in the African American baccalaureate completion rate.

"How many finish a four-year degree?" she asks parents who tell her they're disappointed their child is at a two-year school. "Wouldn't you want them to have something?"

Wheelan said the higher education community traditionally has viewed two-year institutions as lesser schools, but people wouldn't think that community colleges provide insufficient training for African American students.

"One thing people don't understand is that most of the jobs available do not demand a four-year degree," she said. "Many African American students want to get a good job. They can do that by going to a community college."

Adelman added that the foundation, which appears to be dismissive of two-year colleges at some points in the report, does the public a disservice by not encouraging the community college movement.

"They beat up a community colleges just at a point when community colleges are offering the best opportunities," he said. "They implied that they are no-good places where Black kids get stuck. There are a lot of good community colleges in those nineteen states training students in the fastest-growing occupation for good jobs with good salaries.