Resource Archive

This message manual contains research-based language and guidance for anyone communicating about racial equity in education after high school.

There are a variety of actions employers can take to make meaningful improvements in education and employment outcomes for Indiana’s Black population. This report provides options for small, medium and large employers, as well as accompanying policy recommendations

This report is the result of a months-long project funded by Lumina Foundation that seeks to reimagine college admission and financial aid through an equity lens. The report recommends a series of actions for admission and financial aid practitioners, educational institutions, and state and federal agencies and policymakers. And it urges further, deeper study and…

Issues of racial inequality and injustice are center stage in America today—especially the position and treatment of Black Americans. This report from the American Enterprise Institute presents evidence on long-term differences in opportunity by race.

Stark differences by race and ethnicity exist in student borrowing trends are well known, but real progress depends on setting up a different conversation. This collection explores the complexities of student debt; focuses on systems change and not blaming individuals; puts experts of color at the center; and emphasizes important differences among Black, Hispanic, and…

American colleges and universities are deeply unequal when it comes to their finances. A small handful of colleges hold the vast majority of wealth and financial resources—and these colleges enroll far too few low-income students and students of color. But what would happen if the tables were turned? What if colleges serving the nation’s lowest-income…

The economic challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic compel us to forge new pathways to high-quality credentials. Such pathways can provide short-term learning aligned to in-demand jobs, helping individuals return to work as soon as possible while offering clear routes to further learning in the future.

As the nation grapples with the issue of equity, a new report from Civitas Learning provides insight on how best to promote equitable opportunities for success among college and university students—not years down the road, but now.

Increasing the racial and ethnic diversity on college campuses is a key component of any broad policy agenda aimed at reducing structural inequality, but access to higher education does not always equate to graduation and equal labor market opportunities, says this report from the Urban Institute.

The Hub (also known as the Drucker Institute) has developed a lifelong learning system with the aim of supporting the resiliency of individuals, economies, and communities. The first version of the lifelong learning system launched in South Bend, Indiana in June 2020 – under the name “Bendable” – is stewarded by the St. Joseph County…

While the COVID-19 pandemic and the police killings of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and Rayshard Brooks have shined a bright light on systemic racism in U.S. public health and policing, there is less awareness of the many ways systemic racism limits educational opportunity for Black and Latino people. This report from The Education Trust explores…

A new report from Gallup says that just 21 percent of Black college graduates nationally strongly agree that their professors cared about them as a person, compared with 34 percent of white graduates.

A report from the American Council on Education examines the 2015 racial crisis at the University of Missouri–Columbia and the steps taken by the institution to increase its capacity for diversity, equity, and inclusion over the last five years.

Equalization of institutional resources and quality does not mean a reduction in diversity or excellence, but it does mean embedding the consideration of equity issues in every step of institutional recovery and rebuilding.

Racial equity is achieved when race can no longer be used to predict life outcomes. Read Research for Action's evaluation of Lumina's TIE (Talent, Innovation, and Equity) grant program.

Colleges and universities around the country have been reforming their mathematics requirements, rejecting the traditional one-size-fits-all mathematics courses in favor of a range of options that align with students’ fields of interest. This report from Just Equations, a project aiming to improving math policies, looks at whether implementing new math pathways strategies can improve math…

The promise of American opportunity has always been in sharp contrast with our nation’s legacy of racial discrimination and oppression. At Lumina Foundation, we pursue racial equity and its foundation of diversity and inclusion to combat systemic patterns of racism that foster injustice.

The ethnic and racial diversity of the residents of the United States of America is one of the country’s unique strengths; however, Black, Latinx, Pacific Islander, Native, and certain Asian American workers face wide racial inequities in educational attainment, employment, and income. Immigrants, the majority of whom are people of color, face similar inequities in…

Profound changes in the economy, in society, and in educational systems and institutions require equally profound changes in the way we regulate the sector and assess the quality of college degrees and other credentials earned after high school. This report, which aims to be at least a first step in that change effort, proposes three…

A concise collection of DEI resources, highlighting areas where many grantmakers often use consultant support.

This 2019 Indicators Report and the earlier reports compile historical statistical data from the nationally representative government statistics including the Census Bureau household studies and the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES)-sponsored high school and college longitudinal studies which track college entrance and completion by family income, socioeconomic status, and race/ethnicity. The 2018 and 2019…

A rising share of undergraduates are borrowing to pay for college. Some 39% of undergraduates took out a loan during the 2016 academic year, compared with 26% in 1996.6 The pattern of borrowing by students has radically shifted since 1996. In 1996, students that were in poverty were the most likely to borrow (33%) and…

Stark racial disparities in college completion result in part from the fact that underfunded colleges with lower graduation rates disproportionately enroll underrepresented students of color. Half of these students enroll at community colleges, which receive less than $9,000 in state and tuition revenue per student and collectively have a graduation rate of 25 percent. A…

Affluence secures opportunity, even for students with low early achievement. Even when they start with bottom-half math scores, kindergartners who have families from the highest quartile of socioeconomic status (SES) often receive the material support they need to increase their scores, earn college degrees, and work in good entry-level jobs as young adults.

Far too many students from low-income families, students of color, and first-generation students face unnecessary barriers to success in college and the workforce—barriers created by systems that were not designed with them in mind. Now is the time to act. Through the reauthorization of the HEA, there are opportunities to make meaningful change across the…

Actions the federal government can take to address disparities in borrower outcomes and make higher education equitable for all.

This report explores the evolving state of race and ethnicity in postsecondary education and shows that while the number of students of color in the nation’s college and university campuses continues to rise, gaps in access, attainment, and debt levels remain. The study includes scholarly essays to provide further insight into the issue.

Public colleges and universities have a moral imperative to serve all of the people of their states, and that includes the Indigenous peoples of that land and states where college campuses exist. Honoring these moral imperatives and upholding sovereignty are fundamental to making Native students visible at institutions of higher education.

Through conversations with Lumina Foundation grantees, Hattaway Communications sought to better understand how grantees communicate about equity and inform an equity frame for the foundation and the field. 

A guide to advance racial equity in philanthropy aims to make justice a core practice and goal of grantmakers. Rather than other popular approaches like“colorblindness,” universal approaches, diversity, etc.

More than 900,000 black undergrads are enrolled at public colleges across the U.S. This report provides a status of these students at every four-year public institution in the nation.

Colorado is the second most-educated state in the nation. Fifty-six percent of adults have a high-quality certificate, associate’s degree, bachelor’s degree, or higher. Yet, Latinos are not sharing equally in the good fortune, according to a report from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. The study shows only 19 percent of Latinos…

More students of color are graduating from college in Indiana, but big gaps still remain in college enrollment rates and college readiness, according to a new equity report from the Indiana Commission for Higher Education.

This brief tells the story of Lumina Foundation’s and states’ efforts to promote an equity agenda for higher education, featuring the 2015 Equity Policy Academy— which focused on improving educational equity for students from historically underserved groups—as a turning point. Based primarily on interviews with Lumina staff and key state leaders from the five states…

More California students are graduating from high school, but far fewer make through college with a degree or credentials, says a report from California Competes. Other key findings in the study: Hispanics in California earn the lowest median wages of all racial/ethnic groups, but they also show the largest improvements in high school completion and…

In this case study, Lumina Foundation and NewSchools Venture Fund, two grantmakers represented on Grantmakers for Education’s Equity Impact Group, offer up strategies and learnings on their recent journeys in embedding diversity, equity and inclusion into their organizational cultures, grantmaking practices and field-building efforts.

Supplement to National Student Clearinghouse's Signature 12 report provides six-year completion rates, including degree and certificate completion, disaggregated by race and ethnicity for students who began postsecondary education in fall 2010.

This report from the Southern Education Foundation examines developmental education approaches that it says serve as major barriers and disproportionately impact Black students in higher education. The report also provides opportunities for success that are often overlooked.

More Black students are enrolling in four-year colleges and universities than ever before. But what happens to these students after they arrive on campus? Do they obtain the degrees they are seeking? Not so much, says this report from The Education Trust. About 4 in 10 (41 percent) Black students who start college as first-time,…

These ten commitments are actions state chiefs can take to create a more equitable education system in their state.

This brief from MDRC catalogs various strategies and practices that colleges and universities are using to successfully increase engagement, persistence, and college graduation rates for men of color.

Today, more than ever, successful second chances depend on high-quality postsecondary education. And that’s what this issue of Lumina Foundation Focus is about. It goes behind the walls of the nation’s correctional facilities to examine postsecondary programs that serve the people who need those programs most.

Foster youth continue to face unique challenges in their pursuit of a postsecondary credential because of entangled policy initiatives and an inconsistent spectrum of support, contends this report from the Education Commission of the States. Of the 415,000 youth in foster care, 46 percent will earn a high school diploma and less than 3 percent…

Black college graduates owe $7,400 more on average than their White peers ($23,400 versus $16,000, including non-borrowers in the averages), says this paper from the Brookings Institution. Over the next few years, the Black-White debt gap more than triples to $25,000, the paper suggests.

Black and Latino students are underrepresented in the country’s most selective public research universities, according to a report from the Center for American Progress. As many as 193,000 Black and Latino students would have enrolled in these institutions in 2014 had student representation been proportional, the report states. As a result, the report says minority…

A policy brief from the State Higher Education Executive Officers and Complete College America reviews data from 30 states to look at student success across race and ethnicity categories through the postsecondary education pipeline. The report includes strategies for boosting success and closing achievement gaps.

A report by The Pell Institute and the University of Pennsylvania’s Alliance for Higher Education and Democracy examines trends in U.S. postsecondary enrollment by family income, race/ethnicity and family socioeconomic status.

More African Americans are going to college, but they are overrepresented in majors that lead to low-paying jobs, says this report from the Center on Education and the Workforce. The report shows 6 percent of African Americans with a bachelor's degree majored in pharmacy and 5 percent chose architecture and engineering—two majors that lead to…

Excelencia in Education provides a wealth of historical information, statistics, and current trends on Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs) in this new report.

America’s top colleges and universities would be better off instituting an admissions preference for low-income students because such students—even when they are high-achievers academically—now face unjustified barriers and make up just 3 percent of enrollment at the elite schools, according to this report from the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation.

What institutions do—how they dedicate resources and support students—matters, states a new report from The Education Trust. The study highlights institutions that are achieving twin goals of increasing overall graduation rates while closing gaps through intentional efforts to help underrepresented students arrive, transition, and thrive in college.

The collective impact framework can empower people to make a real difference in communities around the world, but the five conditions (a common agenda, shared measurement systems, mutually reinforcing activities, continuous communication, and backbone support organizations) are missing a critical dimension: equity.

A recent study from the American Council on Education takes an in-depth look at how legal challenges to race-conscious admissions are influencing admissions practices at selective colleges and universities around the country.

This report from CLASP details specific resource disparities in the nation's 100 largest school districts and the impact of those disparities on postsecondary preparation.

A report from the Campaign for College Opportunity calls for a concerted, strategic effort to produce better educational outcomes for Black students, including a new statewide plan for California higher education, a redesign of pre-college level courses, re-enrollment of adults with some college but no degree, and allowing public universities to use race/ethnicity as one…

Taking out student loans to pay for college is now the “new normal,” but how does the shift to a debt-based system impact the nation’s historical commitment of ensuring everyone, regardless of race or class, afford college? This question is the centerpiece of a new report from Demos.

This report from the William T. Grant Foundation offers strategies to help more youth move beyond "some college" and achieve their full potential.

On the heels of several national tragedies in Ferguson, Staten Island, Cleveland and Michigan, grassroots advocates nationwide have been joined by ever growing numbers of people of conscience in demonstrations all across the country, fiercely proclaiming “All Lives,” and more specific to the current cases of injustice—“Black Lives Matter.” We fiercely agree.

Rising costs and lower government aid have made it even more difficult for lower-income students to obtain a college degree today than 45 years ago, concludes this report from the Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education. The study draws on Census Bureau statistics and educational data to make what it says…

Above-average scores on college entrance exams may be better predictors of GPAs and graduation rates in college, but a new study from the National Bureau of Economic Research says that relying on those scores in admission decisions could significantly reduce the number of minority and low-income students on campus.

A new report from Jobs for the Future examines equity concerns in competency education through the lens of family income, exploring the effects and implications, as well as proposing potential mitigations.

While access to higher education is increasing overall, students of color and low-income students experience higher student loans and time-to-degree levels and lower degree attainment than their peers. This report from the Center for American Progress profiles three public universities that are successfully reversing this trend through need-based funding, successful student support programs, and institutional…

Black college graduates take on significantly more education debt than their White counterparts, says this study by Gallup. The report shows that half of Black students who graduated from 2000 to 2014 graduated with more than $25,000 in debt. By comparison, 34 percent of White graduates reported similar levels of debt.

New research reveals African-American and Hispanic enrollments at America’s 193 most elite colleges would more than double if the top ten percent of every class were guaranteed admission and students from low socioeconomic backgrounds were given an admissions boost.

The higher education system is more and more complicit as a passive agent in the systematic reproduction of white racial privilege across generations. This report analyzes enrollment trends at 4,400 postsecondary institutions by race in the past 15 years.

As a component of the College Board’s The Educational Crisis Facing Young Men of Color Initiative, the experiences of 92 African American, Asian American/ Pacific Islander, Hispanic/Latino and Native American students from 39 institutions across the country were explored to learn how they get ready, get in and get through college.

By 2008, the College Board and its members recognized that a number of issues clouded the educational landscape, posing formidable challenges to students enrolling and succeeding in college.

The last 15 years of the Annie E. Casey Foundation's 60-year history has included the inception and growth of an internal affinity group aptly named RESPECT. Initially convened as an informal place for staff concerned with issues of racial equity, class, and power to exchange ideas and concerns within the context of the Foundation's work…

In the postindustrial economy, educational attainment, especially postsecondary educational attainment, has replaced the concept of class as the primary marker for social stratification. Since World War II, access to education beyond high school has become the main mechanism driving access to middle-class earnings and status.