Giving Compass' Take:

• Michael Cunningham explains how providing support to vulnerable kids starting in kindergarten can boost diversity in colleges. 

• How can funders identify and support successful youth support mechanisms? 

• Find out why high-performing, low-income students aren't making it through college


Among the most important issues in U.S. higher education right now is the lack of diversity in student and faculty populations.

The situation is particularly troubling in graduate education, where the lack of diversity is largely influenced by the history of deficient K-16 institutional support for underrepresented and minority groups, and consistently low levels of diversity among faculty members.

The time to diversify higher education is now, but we must do so by taking a step back and deconstructing the notion that we can fix the issue with a few tweaks to admissions or recruiting processes. We must approach longstanding, sometimes uncomfortable institutional issues with a multipronged and deliberate plan of action. This includes examining the full educational journey of a student and beginning to implement thoughtful solutions from kindergarten through graduate school if we want to challenge — and change — the status quo.

The best ways to provide K-16 students with the support that many of them haven’t experienced in the past are to teach and evaluate the whole student and to consider the intersectionality of classrooms.

When students at every level of education have strong psychological support groups, they are much more likely to succeed. For example, when low-performing students in a Louisiana district were provided a “learning support” program consisting of psychological and educational support to counter barriers to success, their graduation rate rose by over 8 percent. The district also saw a significant rise in overall academic success.

Read the full article about higher education diversity by Michael Cunningham at The Hechinger Report.