Race, Ethnicity, and College Success: Examining the Continued Significance of the Minority-Serving Institution
Source: Educational Researcher 42(3): 115-128, April 2013.
This article evaluates student postsecondary outcomes by race and ethnicity in Texas’s large minority-serving institution (MSI) sector utilizing state administrative data from 1997 to 2008.
At the enrollment stage, the authors find that race is an important predictor of college enrollment, despite controlling for detailed precollege characteristics.
However, the authors find that at the college-completion stage, Hispanic and Black students who initially enroll in a four-year institution showed no difference from their White peers in six-year graduation outcomes.
The authors conclude that Hispanic-serving institutions are particularly critical locations for Hispanics while the non-MSI community colleges emerge as key institutions for Black students, signaling important implications for how historically Black colleges and universities might address recruitment and transfer strategies.