Many of the nation’s best public universities are enrolling disproportionately few African-American and Latino students.

Flagship universities are the jewels in the crown of public higher education systems. They stand as beacons of affordable excellence for the students of their states. But when it comes to equitably serving the state’s residents, whose taxes fund these top-flight universities, many fall far short of their stated missions. Often there are big differences — defined by race — between who’s graduating from a state’s public high schools and who’s getting into its flagship universities.

A Hechinger Report analysis of national data shows that more than a third of U.S. states had at least a 10-point gap (including eight with a 20-point gap) between the percentage of their public high school graduates who are African-American and the percentage of their flagships’ freshman class who are African-American (in 2015, the most recent data available). For Latinos, 10 states had at least a 10-point gap. New York and Illinois were the only states that had double-digit gaps for both groups.

African-American students say their shrinking numbers on a campus that famously resisted integration contribute to a more difficult learning environment.

Read the full article about state flagship universities by Meredith Kolodner at The Hechinger Report.