To meet this commitment, colleges must pledge to:
- Apply an equity lens to all budgetary decisions, focusing on spending tied to the institution’s core mission and on ways to scale evidence-based approaches to increasing access and success.
- Develop a sustainable pool of resources to fund student services, which are often first to be cut in times of budget shortfalls—when students need them most. This strategic financing white paper, commissioned by the Policy Leadership Trust, has useful recommendations.
- Support inclusive regional development by doing business with minority-owned companies and treating them fairly.
Equity initiatives are not quick or easy undertakings. It’s incumbent on college leaders, faculty, staff, and trustees to commit to the long-term work of dismantling flaws in campus structures.
Yet, institutional efforts alone will not eliminate racial disparities in completion rates and career outcomes. Ultimately, it will take broader and deeper structural change across the nation’s education ecosystem, in the world of work, in safety net programs, and in our social compact.
Public policy at the federal, state, and local levels can play an important role. Historically, higher education policy has served as both a catalyst of—and an impediment to—racial equity and economic mobility. In future blogs, the Trust will offer practitioner-informed policy recommendations for strengthening equitable attainment of postsecondary credentials that are valued in the labor market.
For more from the Policy Leadership Trust, see our first blog in the Practitioner Insights for Recovery series.