Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
Keystone Crossroads: Rust or Revival? explores the urgent challenges pressing upon Pennsylvania's cities. Four public media newsrooms are collaborating to report in depth on the root causes of our state's urban crisis -- and on possible solutions. Keystone Crossroads offers reports on radio, web, social media, television and newspapers, and through public events.Our partner stations are WHYY in Philadelphia, WPSU in State College and witf in Harrisburg. Read all of the partner stories here.Pittsburgh’s WQED joins the collaboration as an associate partner. Support for this project comes from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Penn Research Highlights Vital Role of Community College in Serving Minorities

Lindsay Lazarski
/
WHYY

Community colleges educate almost half of all college students in the country. And a new report by University of Pennsylvania researchers finds these institutions play an oversized role in educating blacks, Latinos and Asian-Americans.

Twenty-two percent of the country's 1,100 community colleges serve mostly racial and ethnic minorities.

And those those under-resourced schools, known as minority-serving institutions, serve more than half of minority college students, said Marybeth Gasman, director of the Penn Center for Minority-Serving Institutions.

"One of the things we tried to do was elevate the role of minority-serving institutions, which get almost no attention," she said. "We wanted people to understand their contributions, where they are in the country, what kind of students they're serving, and how they're meeting workforce needs."

Read more of this report at the website of our partner Keystone Crossroads.