The number of minority students _ Blacks, Hispanics, Asians and American Indians _ enrolling in degree and continuing education programs has grown since the 1980s. Alongside those gains have come increased numbers of ethnic studies programs and minority support services on campuses. But disparities in educational achievement for students of color _ in particular African-American and Latino students and low-income, urban students _ has widened.

According to the Journal of Higher Education, blacks and other non-Asian minority students attending predominantly white colleges are less likely to graduate within five years, have lower grade-point averages, experience higher attrition rates and matriculate into graduate programs at lower rates than white students.

For some, this achievement gap is purely economic." I see friends who couldn't do more than one or two years at Northeastern and had to leave because they couldn't afford it,'' said Nadine Yaver, a Northeastern junior studying criminal justice. ``Disproportionately, it has happened to blacks and Latinos.''

Minorities from low-income backgrounds often find themselves an anomaly on campus. Richard Kahlenberg, author of ``America's Untapped Resource: Low-Income Students and Higher Education,'' said the gap between college enrollment rates of low-income students and those of middle-class and affluent students remains as large as it was in 1965, when the Higher Education Act was instituted.

``If you look at the breakdown by economic status at the 146 most selective universities, we have a 3 percent representation from low-income students and a 74 percent representation from the most affluent. So you're about 25 times as likely to run into a rich student as a poor student on the nation's elite campuses,'' he said. [more]

•  The number of blacks and Hispanics in college has increased significantly since 1991, but these minorities continue to be less likely to attend college than whites, according to a national higher education survey released Monday.
• College enrollment nationwide among blacks 18 to 24 years old rose 37 percent, to 1.8 million, from 1991 to 2001. Nationally, the number of Hispanics attending college climbed 75 percent, to 1.5 million, during the same period, according to the American Council on Education's 21st annual report on minorities in higher education. [more]
• Historically black colleges a strong draw for many students [more]