January 18, 2013

Minority students will likely comprise 45 percent of the high school graduating class of 2020

In its new report, “Knocking at the College Door,” the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education projects that 45 percent of high school graduates in 2020 will be minority students, up from 38 percent in 2009. According to the report, the number of white and African-American students will decline, while the number of Asian-American/Pacific Islander and Hispanic students will rise precipitously. While the supply of high school graduates will decline a bit in the next decade, it is expected to stabilize at three million students per year. Of course, this large number masks the individual experiences of states: in Texas, Colorado, and Utah, for example, the number of high school graduates is expected to increase by 15 percent before 2020, while Michigan, Maine and New Hampshire are projected to have 15 percent fewer high school graduates in that same time frame. Washington State is expected to have moderate growth in the number of high school graduates, on the order of about five percent by 2020. The trend can already be felt at the University of Washington, where 51 percent of the 2012 entering freshman class was minority students (including Asian-American students). Underrepresented minorities at the UW comprised 17.4 percent of the freshman class of 2012.

Universities are already beginning to respond to the expected increase in minority students by analyzing their admissions criteria and financial aid policies, and assessing the new resources they will need to meet the needs of this growing group of students. As higher education student demographics become more diverse, colleges will focus increasingly on raising educational attainment among underrepresented minorities.  Universities also want to do better in reaching out to high school seniors and graduates during the application process, as underrepresented minority students often have less access to information about the college application and financial aid processes.

To read more about the report, and how universities are responding to it, please read the Chronicle’s analysis or the full report.