Inside Higher Ed
by Kery Murakami
February 1, 2021
For years, researchers and higher education advocates have been frustrated by the lack of good Education Department data on how students of color and those with lower incomes are being let down by the nation’s higher education system.
“It’s hard to solve racial equity problems if you can’t see them,” said Clare McCann, deputy director for federal higher education policy at the progressive think tank New America, and formerly a senior policy adviser at the department during the Obama administration.
However, progressive advocacy groups say an executive order President Biden signed on his first day in office instructing the Education Department and all federal agencies to examine whether they are perpetuating systemic racism could have profound effects on the experience of students from underrepresented groups at colleges and universities.
In interviews, they said the order could eventually bring a range of changes, including the department providing data broken down based on race and income to allow researchers to pinpoint when, from applying for financial aid to dropping out or graduating deep in debt, the system is failing students. The review of its policies over the first 200 days of the administration could bring broader changes, say advocates like McCann, from requiring more from institutions to support students of color, improve campus climates for minorities and undo long-standing disparities in the abilities of historically Black colleges and universities and Black researchers in general to get federal grants.