Closing the Gaps and state budget cuts were among the topics discussed at the Coordinating Board's quarterly meeting, Thursday, July 29.
Regular readers will detect nothing surprising regarding the status of these subjects. Obviously the two are related. Closing the Gaps becomes more problematic when tuition rises due to budget cuts. Also, with less money available for student aid, fewer students will be able to go to school. However, the statistics regarding Closing the Gaps, at least so far, are generally favorable, and it's too early to predict the impact of the recent Regular Session of the Legislature.
Here's the latest, based on a published media interview with Commissioner of Higher Education Raymund Paredes.
"We are making very substantial and significant progress," Paredes said in a telephone news conference Tuesday. "We are ahead of our goal in terms of participation. We are ahead of our goal in terms of completion."
The statewide 2010 target for participation in higher education was 403,000, and the report says Texas had 486,000 students. The statewide number of people completing their higher learning was also promising: 176,600 earned degrees or certificates, whereas the target was 171,000.
The students are enrolled at public, private and for-profit institutions offering degrees.
"We still have some very substantial challenges," Paredes said, explaining that statistics show that Hispanics and African-American men are below targets.
Participation among Hispanics was 207,800 in 2010; the target was 236,600. The 2015 goal is 438,700. The 2010 success rate fell below expectations also: 47,800 Hispanics completed their educational program, compared with the target of 50,000, according to the coordinating board.
While African-Americans showed the highest participation when measured by enrollment divided by total population, there was a disparity among African-American women and men, with 8.1 percent of women participating versus 5.1 percent of men, according to a preview of the report.
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