UCLA Report Calls for Overhaul of Community College Transfer Process & Master Plan

Inside Higher Ed today pointed me toward the UCLA Civil Rights Project and its series of three reports critical of the transfer process from community colleges to four-year colleges.  One of the reports was co-authored by former UC President Richard Atkinson.

The summary from Inside Higher Ed is at:
http://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2012/02/15/racial-transfer-gap-california-community-colleges

A press release from the Civil Rights Project is reproduced below:

CRP Calls for Fundamental Changes in California's Community Colleges

Date Published: February 14, 2012

Almost 75% of all Latino and two-thirds of all Black students who go on to higher education in California go to a community college, yet in 2010 only 20% of all transfers to four-year institutions were Latino or African American. Pathways to the baccalaureate are segregated; students attending low-performing high schools usually go directly into community colleges that transfer few students to 4-year colleges. Conversely, a handful of community colleges serving high percentages of white, Asian and middle class students are responsible for the majority of all transfers in the state. California ranks last among the states in the proportion of its college students who attend a 4-year institution, which is a key factor in the state’s abysmal record on BA attainment. In a state in which half of all high school graduates are Black and Latino, this situation spells economic disaster for the future of the state.

February 14, 2012                Contact:  310-267-5562; crp@ucla.edu
--For Immediate Release--
                   

Civil Rights Project Reports Call for Fundamental Changes in California’s Community Colleges

--Los Angeles--Almost 75% of all Latino and two-thirds of all Black students who go on to higher education in California go to a community college, yet in 2010 only 20% of all transfers to four-year institutions were Latino or African American. Pathways to the baccalaureate are segregated; students attending low-performing high schools usually go directly into community colleges that transfer few students to 4-year colleges. Conversely, a handful of community colleges serving high percentages of white, Asian and middle class students are responsible for the majority of all transfers in the state.  California ranks last among the states in the proportion of its college students who attend a 4-year institution, which is a key factor in the state’s abysmal record on BA attainment.  In a state in which half of all high school graduates are Black and Latino, this situation spells economic disaster for the future of the state.

The California Community College system is not oblivious to these problems, but the newest report by the Student Success Task Force, Advancing Student Success in the California Community Colleges, falls far short of making recommendations that can turn the situation around, and fails to address the most urgent problems. Three studies released today by the Civil Rights Project at UCLA shed light on the mechanisms underlying California’s poor record of transfer from community colleges to four-year campuses and suggest what can and must be done to improve the capacity of the community colleges to help students of color gain BA degrees.

“It is time to have an honest conversation with the people of California about making improvements in our higher education system,” stressed Civil Rights Project Co-Director, Patricia Gándara.  “Either we make bold changes in the system or we consign the majority of our students of color to a life with few prospects, and we condemn the state to a future in decline.”

The first report, Building Pathways to Transfer:  Community Colleges that Break the Chain of Failure for Students of Color, by Patricia Gándara, Elizabeth Alvarado, Anne Driscoll and Gary Orfield, examines practices in five colleges with disproportionately high rates of transfer for students of color from low-performing high schools.  The study finds that a core of personnel in these colleges have lived the experiences of these students and dedicated themselves to the goal of transferring them. To a great extent, these staff rely on the college’s outreach efforts to prepare the students even before they arrive on the campus. 

Nonetheless, the success of even these higher-transfer colleges is limited because, like most other colleges in the system, they have not fundamentally changed the structural impediments to transfer posed by years of requirements for developmental education or remedial coursework.  The Civil Rights Project report calls for increased emphasis on outreach to low-performing high schools to prepare students for success in the community colleges and a radical rethinking of developmental education, reducing the remedial coursework barriers significantly. 

Co-Director Gary Orfield notes, “We were shocked to find that in colleges where many students need intensive counseling, counselors have faculty status and less than half of their time is spent on one-to-one counseling. This arrangement makes no sense.”

The second report, Unrealized Promises: Unequal Access, Affordability, and Excellence at Community Colleges in Southern California, by Mary Martinez Wenzl and Rigoberto Marquez, provides a very detailed analysis of all the high schools and community colleges in Southern California and shows overwhelmingly that segregated high schools with weak records feed students into heavily minority community colleges where few students successfully transfer. 

The report clarifies that California high schools are extremely segregated by race, ethnicity, poverty, and language background, and those schools offer less adequate curricula, fewer experienced and qualified teachers and much lower graduation rates. If the promise of fair access to higher education is to be realized, the report makes clear, then it has to happen in the community colleges. 

“Unfortunately,” says Orfield, “the community colleges tend to repeat the patterns of the low performing high schools, resulting in few transfers—this makes a mockery of the promise of equal opportunity.”

The third report, Beyond the Master Plan: The Case for Restructuring Baccalaureate Education in California, finds that California is one of the nation’s least successful states in terms of college completion. Researchers Saul Geiser and Richard Atkinson, the state’s preeminent analysts of higher education statistics, demonstrate the very powerful relationship between BA completion rates and beginning college at four-year campuses. The Master Plan is a failure, the report concludes, and requires radical change. 

Geiser and Atkinson further stress that California remains critically short of four-year public colleges, continually failing to expand them as the population soars.  They recommend, among other remedies, that some of the excellent community colleges be given authority to grant B.A. degrees, an important expansion of capacity at a far lower price than building new four-year campuses.  

“No state has bet its future so heavily on community colleges,” Gándara notes, “but these schools need resources and major reforms. Unless we make the colleges work for all Californians, we gamble with our future.”

Click here to download Building Pathways to Transfer:  Community Colleges that Break the Chain of Failure for Students of Color

Click here to download Unrealized Promises: Unequal Access, Affordability, and Excellence at Community Colleges in Southern California

Click here to download Beyond the Master Plan: The Case for Restructuring Baccalaureate Education in California

Source of Press release:

http://civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/news/press-releases/crp-calls-for-fundamental-changes-in-californias-community-colleges

LAO Report on Higher Ed Contains Significant Pension Recommendations

The state’s Legislative Analyst has released a lengthyreport on funding higher education which covers UC, CSU, and the communitycolleges (as well as CalGrants).  Thereport is essentially a response to the governor’s January budget proposal withregard to higher ed.

Generally, the report tends to disagree with the governor’sapproach which the Legislative Analyst views as giving too much autonomy to UCand the other segments with regard to enrollment and other matters.  On the other hand, it documents the trendtowards reduced state funding and thus seems to continue the pay-less/say-moreapproach which is odd on its face.

The Legislative Analyst does raise questions about thetrigger cuts proposed by the governor in case his tax initiative does not passin November.

There is a lengthy section on pension matters, especiallyfor UC which has not received explicit state funding for its pension for overtwo decades and which has had to divert other funding to deal with resumedpension contributions.  The report seemsto favor some state funding for the UC pension and – significantly - does notcondition it on UC being covered by the statewide plan proposed by thegovernor.  That is a step in the rightdirection if followed by the legislature in the final budget.  The report favors somewhat less of a pensioncontribution than UC has requested.  However,establishing the principle of some state responsibility would be an advance.

Excerpts from the pension portion are below:

Retirement Costs

The Governor proposes major changes to the way in which some retirementcosts are funded for higher education. For CSU, the Governor proposes to nolonger make base adjustments to reflect changing retirement costs. For UC, theGovernor proposes (1) a $90 million base augmentation that could be used forpension costs or other purposes, and (2) no out–year adjustments for retirementcosts. The budget proposes no changes to the way retirement is funded for CCC.

Background

CSU Pension Benefits. CSU employees are members of theCalifornia Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS)—the same retirementsystem to which most state employees belong. Funding for this system comes fromboth employer contributions and employee contributions. Each year, as is thecase with other state departments, CSU's employer contributions to CalPERS arecharged against its main General Fund appropriation. The employer contributionis based on a percent of employee salaries and wages that is determined byCalPERS and specified in the annual budget act. The Governor's budget annuallyadjusts CSU's main appropriation to reflect any estimated changes in theemployer contribution. For example, the Governor's budget reduces CSU's mainappropriation by $38 million due to a lower employer rate and lower payrollcosts in the current year. The CSU is expected to contribute $404 million toCalPERS in 2012–13.
UC Pension Benefits. Employees of UC (and Hastings) aremembers of the University of California Retirement Plan (UCRP). This retirementplan is separate from CalPERS and under the control of UC. Prior to 1990, thestate adjusted UC's General Fund appropriation to reflect increases anddecreases in the employer's share of retirement contributions for state–fundedUC employees. Starting in 1990, however, UC halted both employer and employeecontributions to UCRP because the pension plan had become"superfunded." Specifically, the plan at that time was enjoyingexceptionally strong investment returns, resulting in assets that exceededliabilities by more than 50 percent. This "funding holiday" lastednearly 20 years until the plan's assets had declined considerably andcontributions once again became necessary. In April 2010, both UC and itsemployees resumed contributions to the plan. The state, however, has notprovided UC with any additional funding specifically for that purpose.

Governor Proposes New Approach To Funding Retirement Costs

The Governor proposes two major changes related to funding for universityretirement plans:

• A $90 million base budget augmentation for UC that, according to the administration, "can be used to address costs related to retirement program contributions." The administration emphasizes that this funding is not being provided specifically to fund costs for UCRP. Rather, UC could use it for any purpose related to its state–related programs—including, but not limited to, UCRP.
• A new policy that the segments' budgets no longer be adjusted for changes in retirement costs in the future. Instead, state–related retirement costs would be funded entirely from the segments' unrestricted base appropriations.

Unclear Which Retirement Costs Are Affected. The Governor'sproposed language refers simply to "retirement costs." At the timethis analysis was prepared, the administration had not provided sufficientclarity on whether this would include costs for retiree health and dentalbenefits. For example, funding for CSU's retiree health care costs arecurrently bundled together with funding for other CalPERS retiree health carecosts. Since the administration has not yet indicated how it would split outfunding for CSU, we are unsure whether the proposal applies to these costs. Theadministration also was unable to provide information regarding base fundingfor retiree health costs for UC. For these reasons, our budget analysis onlyfocuses on funding for pension costs for UC and CSU.

UC Proposal Has More Merit,But Raises Several Questions

The request for pension–related funding for UC is more difficult andcomplicated than that for CSU. This is because (1) the state currently is notproviding any pension–related funding to UC, and (2) UC has full control overits pension system. To address the Governor's proposal, the Legislature shouldconsider the following questions:

• What is the main justification for the state to provide funding for UC's retirement costs? In other words, why is funding for these costs a state responsibility?
• Given that UC controls its own pension plan, are UC's pension benefits reasonable? How do they compare to the pension benefits the state provides state employees?
• How much funding should the state provide UC in 2012–13? More specifically, what methodology or calculations support the request for $90 million?
• Finally, should the state lock in the pension amount provided UC at the 2012–13 contribution level or provide UC with budget adjustments for pension costs in future years? …

Pension Costs Should Be Funded as Part of Workload Budget. Thestate currently provides funding for pension–related costs for all other stateagencies as part of a normal, workload budget. In other words, the stateprovides funding to state agencies for the salaries and benefits (includingpension benefits) related to their budgeted positions. Given that the stateprovides UC with funding for the salaries and benefits of some of itsemployees, it would make sense from a standard, workload budgeting perspectiveto also provide funding related to pension costs. As noted earlier, the statedid provide such pension–related funding to UC for many years prior to thepension holiday that began in 1990. (As we discuss in the nearby text box, thestate has repeatedly deferred a final budget increase for pension costs sincethat time.) Given that the university has had to restart its contributions toits pension plan in recent years, we find justification in its request that thestate also resume providing pension–related funding.
UC Pension Benefits Similar to State Employee Pension Benefits. Althoughthe state does not control UC's pension system, actions taken to date by theRegents have largely mirrored recent changes to state employee pensionbenefits. For example, the Regents have taken action to reduce pension costs inthe long term by increasing the minimum retirement age for new employees. Inaddition, …the Regents have approved increases to employee contribution ratesthat are beginning to bring them in line with state employee contributionrates, which are now generally 8 percent. (Some of UC's proposed employeecontribution increases are still subject to collective bargaining.) Additionalcontribution increases beyond July 2013 will also likely be necessary to reducethe plan's significant unfunded liability that has accrued due to thedecades–long pension funding holiday and recent market downturns.

UC's Estimate of State's Share of 2012–13 PensionCosts Is Overstated. The $90 million that UC requested from theadministration is only a fraction of the $255.6 million that UC estimates to bethe state's share for 2012–13. The UC states it requested the lower amount inrecognition of the state's severe fiscal shortfall. The university furtherindicates that it will likely seek the full amount of what it estimates to bethe state's share (which it calculates could rise to roughly $450 million) infuture years...

We find two issues that the Legislature should carefully consider withrespect to how the university has estimated the state's share of UC retirementcosts.

• First, we find that the request for $90 million in 2012–13 is overstated. …UC's estimate of the state's share of its 2012–13 retirement cost increase totals about $78 million. The UC appears to be requesting a greater amount because it believes that the state should provide contributions to account not only for incremental retirement costs in 2012–13, but also for part of the cost increases in the two prior years. We take a different view. The UC has managed—by both redirecting internal resources as well as increasing student tuition—to fund all of its employer contributions in both 2010–11 and 2011–12. If the Legislature were to provide funding related to prior years, the funding would in effect free up existing UC base funding for other purposes. In our view, given the state's fiscal shortfall, such an augmentation would be unwise.
• Second, the university's calculation of the state's share of retirement contributions includes employer costs related to tuition–funded salaries. From a workload budgeting standpoint, the state portion of retirement costs should only be related to state–funded payroll costs. Given, however, that the Governor's budget assumes no increases for tuition in 2012–13, the Legislature may wish to consider providing the funding for pension costs related to tuition–funded salaries in 2012–13. In future years, higher pension costs—just like any other UC cost—presumably would be covered by the General Fund and tuition fees in proportion to their current funding levels.

Timing Not Right to Lock In Base Funding for Pensions. Aswith the CSU proposal, now would be a poor time to choose to lock in a basefunding level for UC pensions, given that the Governor is separately proposingto modify public employee pensions to reduce costs in the long run. Inaddition, as noted earlier, UC intends to increase its employer contributionsover the next few years, although it has not yet reached agreement with all ofits union–represented employees on the employee contribution rate. In our view,the Legislature should carefully evaluate future requests from UC for pensionfunding on a year–by–year basis in the context of the university's currentpension benefit and contribution structure. In the long term, however, it couldmake sense to expect UC to fund its pension costs out of its base budget, giventhat the university's retirement system is separate from the state's. Thiscould only work once a reasonable funding level has been identified andcontribution amounts have stabilized.

Recommendations

…Recommend Restarting Budget Adjustments for UC. Asdiscussed above, we find that there is sufficient justification on a workloadbudget basis to provide UC with an augmentation that the university could useto address its pension costs. We recommend, however, that the Legislature onlyprovide funding for the incremental change in 2012–13 in UC's pension costs forstate– and tuition–funded employees—which we estimate to be $78 million. Thiswould mean reducing the Governor's request for $90 million in General Fundsupport by $12 million. In addition, we recommend that the Legislature adoptintent language in the budget specifying that in the future funding for UCretirement costs (1) shall be determined annually by the Legislature, (2) shallbe contingent on such factors as the comparability of UC's pension benefits andcontributions to those of state employees, and (3) shall not necessarilyinclude funding for tuition–supported employee pension costs or pension costsincurred prior to 2012–13.

The full report is at http://lao.ca.gov/analysis/2012/highered/higher-ed-020812.pdf

A video presentation of the report highlights is availablebelow:

New Plan Could Affect Transfers to UCLA

You may have seen anarticle in the LA Times about apossible change in direction at California community colleges.  UCLA says about 40% of its graduates(undergrads) are transfer students.  Notall of these transfers come from California community colleges, however.  But poking around on the web suggests that around90% of them are from the state's community college system.

The original Master Planviewed community colleges as colleges of last resort.  Anyone with a high school degree could enroll. (Indeed, some enrollees may not havehigh school degrees.)  If an enrollee goton an academic track (some courses offered are vocational/2-year terminal orrecreational), he/she could transfer to a CSU or UC campus.  The reality is that many students don’t getthat far.  Some community colleges seem to be more effective than others at producing transfers.

What the Times articlerefers to is a report – cover shown at right above - that proposes that communitycolleges in effect prioritize and focus on students who are making tangible progresstoward transfer.  The Times story is at:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-community-colleges-20120110,0,5859282.story

The actual report whichwill go to the legislature is at:

http://californiacommunitycolleges.cccco.edu/Portals/0/StudentSuccessTaskForce/SSTF_FinalReport_Web_010312.pdf

Data on 2011 transfers to UCLA are at:

http://www.admissions.ucla.edu/prospect/adm_tr/Tr_Prof11.htm

(Note that there is a difference between applicants, accepted applicants,and actual enrollees in the UCLA report.)

A more detailed analysis of the issue than appeared in the LA Times is at:

http://toped.svefoundation.org/2012/01/10/sweeping-changes-okd-for-community-colleges/

Free Textbooks from State Online Source?

Darrell Steinberg wants digital library of free textbooks (Excerpt 12/13/11)

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg announced today that he will push for legislation to create an online open source library to reduce the cost of course materials for college students across the state. The Sacramento Democrat framed the proposed project as an effort to lower costs for students struggling to cope with higher fees and tuition rates at California's public colleges and universities…

Steinberg said the average student spends $1,300 a year on textbooks, a figure his staff said is based on projections the University of California, California State University and community college systems provide to students for budgeting purposes. Under his proposal, materials for 50 common lower division courses would be developed and posted online for free student access. Ordering a paper copy would cost $20, compared to the $200-plus price tag carried by some books. Steinberg plans to seek $25 million to create his proposed Open Education Resources system, with some funding going towards soliciting course material contributions from academics, nonprofits, Silicon Valley developers and the book publishing industry to be shared freely within the system. A new council of faculty leaders from California's public higher education system would be tasked with selecting the courses for the first round of open source textbook development and reviewing and approving the materials added to the library...

Full article at: http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2011/12/steinberg-open-source-texbook-bill-would-lower-student-costs.html

It's great to be free:

PPIC Poll on Public Higher Ed in California

The charts above come from a poll taken by the Public Policy Institute of California available at:

http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/survey/S_1111MBS.pdf [Click on the table above to enlarge it or go to the report itself.]

You can interpret the charts as you like. As the saying goes, an optimist is someone who thinks we are in the best of all possible worlds - and a pessimist is also someone who thinks we are in the best of all possible worlds.

Out of the box on higher ed: Uh Oh

From the Sacramento Bee today (excerpt):

Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom railed against tuition increases and said Wednesday that the state's master plan for higher education is outdated, promising "a different narrative" for higher education by the end of the year.

It was unclear what the plan might contain or how Newsom, a Democrat, might propose to fund it.

"We're going to come up with some out-

of-the-box recommendations, is our hope and expectation," he told The Bee's Capitol Bureau.

Fifty years after the production of the California Master Plan for Higher Education, Newsom said he and officials are preparing to "try to create a different narrative for higher education as a system, as opposed to UC as a system, CSU as a system and community colleges." ...

Full story at: http://www.sacbee.com/2011/10/27/4010012/gavin-newsom-wants-pattern-interrupt.html

Note that the Master Plan's basic purpose was in fact to have 3 well-defined systems.

Sometimes it's best not to open a box:

Cal State-Westwood?

Gov. Pat Brown signs the Donahoe Act in 1960 implementing the Master Plan for Higher Education.

The LA Times ran an editorial yesterday, lamenting rising tuition at UC and the lack of state support. It also threw out some suggestions. Among them:

…The university also should consider a temporary policy that favors admission to students in the immediate geographical area for a certain percentage of new undergraduates. That way, more students could live at home and avoid the hefty cost of a dorm. UC campuses are not usually commuter schools, but troubled times call for a willingness to make sensible changes…

Actually, many undergrads enter UC and UCLA as transfer students from local community colleges which are a) inexpensive and b) allow living at home. CSU campuses are also an option. Indeed, that was what the Master Plan was all about, i.e., differentiating the three higher ed segments. The LA Times’ suggestion above is essentially a kind of Cal State-Westwood, Cal State-Berkeley, etc., idea.

The real story here is that President Yudof came to the Regents in September with a proposal for a multi-year schedule of tuition increases in the light of failing state support and that the Regents did not go for it – or for any other solution. (The audio of that session was posted yesterday on this blogsite.) It appears that the old adage about not calling the question before counting the votes was ignored in that episode.

Is the Regents non-action on the Yudof proposal the result of a lack of confidence in the President of UC? Until now, the Regents pretty much endorsed presidential proposals for tuition hikes. In any event, what needs to happen is not implementation of some ad hoc suggestion such as that made by the LA Times. Rather there needs to be a process involving UC (not just UCOP but the faculty and Academic Senate), the Regents, the governor, key people in the legislature, various interest groups in the state, and others that is aimed at looking at the budget outlook and negotiating an accord. The Regents are evidently tired of being in a reactive mode in which the state cuts the budget and tuition is hiked in response – with the Regents then getting the blame.

The full LA Times editorial is at http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-ed-uc-20111009,0,5898256.story

Golden Silence?

Our colleagues at CSU and the community colleges feel the need to be outspoken about the impact of state budget cuts and possible upcoming “trigger” cuts to higher ed. Somehow, UC is not being quoted in the various news articles about this recent trend in public complaints. Is UC’s silence golden? Contrary to the headline on yesterday's post on this blog, maybe more needs to be said.

Example 1:

Outgoing SF State President Slams Governor: Brown "doesn’t seem to appreciate high-quality education in California”

Story at http://www.baycitizen.org/education/story/outgoing-sf-state-president-slams/

Example 2:

California is witnessing a slow and steady decline of its prized systems of higher education specifically because legislative Republicans have blocked efforts to raise taxes to pay for them, the community college and state university chancellors said Monday in a blunt and sobering back-to-school message.

Story at http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/08/22/MNH11KPC7C.DTL

Meanwhile, local editorial writers need some education of their own. They continue the notion that the less the state decides to pay UC, the more say it should have. Here is an example (excerpt):

The University of California's latest move offers a teachable moment about cognitive dissonance: The university plans to hand out pay raises to faculty and other staff, even as UC officials hike tuition and bemoan state funding cuts. UC should jettison the raises and focus on controlling costs instead of boosting expenses. UC President Mark Yudof announced last week that the university would offer merit pay hikes -- generally worth 3 percent of pay -- to faculty and nonunion staff earning less than $200,000 a year. Newly hired or promoted employees, along with those earning more than $200,000 a year, would not be eligible for the additional pay.

But UC administrators apparently need a remedial course in public relations. The university could take few steps more likely to stir public anger than announcing pay raises on the heels of budget cuts and student fee hikes. Undermining public good will is a bizarre approach for a university that depends on public support…

Full editorial at http://www.pe.com/localnews/opinion/editorials/stories/PE_OpEd_Opinion_D_op_22_ed_ucraises.386b723.html

“…depends on public support” UC budget $20 billion. State support $2.5 billion. Repeat: UC budget $20 billion. State support $2.5 billion.

Silence isn’t golden for UC as long as the $20-$2.5 message is not being endlessly repeated. Otherwise, folks will think we have nothing to say:

Higher Ed Dream Act (One of Them) Signed by Governor

Gov. Brown signed AB 130 by Assemblymember Gil Cedillo (D-Los Angeles) – Student financial aid: eligibility: California Dream Act of 2011. The new law allows illegal alien children who have been raised in California to receive financial aid in public higher education institutions (UC, CSU, community colleges). However, the aid to which the law refers is private scholarship money.

The issue of such aid has arisen in the controversy over tuition increases at UC. Although the university provides assistance to lower-income students, it cannot do so with public monies including tuition money to illegal alien students. Protests over UC tuition increases have noted that these students are not protected by UC tuition assistance programs and so pay whatever increases occur.

A more far-reaching bill is still in the hopper that would allow Cal Grants and other public aid to go to such students. Brown indicated he would likely sign that bill when it arrives.

A bill signing ceremony can be found at:

Watch live streaming video from asmdc at livestream.com

Data on California Higher Ed

Inside Higher Ed today pointed me towards a report on data concerning higher ed in California from the Institute for Higher Education Leadership and Policy (CSU-Sacramento). The report covers the three systems of higher ed (CCs, CSU, UC) although often not breaking out the three separately.

For example, the chart above (from Figure 14 of the report) shows that while college-going directly from high school by race is qualitatively in line with stereotypes, the main gap quantitatively between whites, Latinos, and blacks occurs at the K-12 level, i.e., dropouts and late high school finishers. (Asians are substantially above the other three groups.) The chart will be clearer if you click on it.

You can find the full Institute report at http://www.csus.edu/ihelp/PDFs/R_Consequences_of_Neglect.pdf