������Ƶ

Over the past 50 years, gaps in college attainment have remained stubbornly persistent for students of color, even as the share of college students who are non-white has increased.¹ Additionally, even many public universities have increased the prices they charge to the lowest-income students; over half now charge a net price of more than $10,000 to those from families earning less than $30,000.² It is clear that a commitment to increasing access to a quality higher education for disadvantaged students will require more than the small-scale, fragmented efforts currently happening across the nation.

The federal government must instead invest its dollars more wisely, in a coordinated network of providers engaging in promising and proven practices. It must evaluate the impact and outcomes of students engaged in those programs and readjust—reinvesting, not slashing, federal dollars—to meet the impressive challenge ahead of them. And it must make new investments in testing, measuring, and learning what works, and disseminating those interventions to providers, if it has hope of breaking a decades-long cycle of failing to maximize the potential of these federally funded programs. Students’ futures, especially for low-income students and students of color, depend on it.