This article in Diverse Education informs us that the Ford Foundation has chosen Nevada as the first state to participate in its “Educational Equity and Postsecondary Student Success” project. The plan is to raise college-graduation rates (especially among minority, low-income, and first-generation students) by examining graduation rates from a “systemwide perspective.”
The problem is that systems don’t graduate students. Students graduate themselves — or not. Minority, low-income, and first-generation students who are adequately prepared for college and have the discipline to complete their coursework graduate; many others in those groups, however, are ill-prepared and disengaged. Nevada’s higher-ed system can’t do anything to change that. Neither can the Ford Foundation.
Naturally, the higher-ed establishment likes this program. Spending Ford money to generate some publicity can’t hurt. The chancellor justifies the program, saying, “If students can’t get the education they need to enter the work force, they will wind up in the social system or the prisons.” But students can get whatever education they’re willing to work for, and those who don’t graduate from college can still find employment and avoid becoming welfare dependents or criminals.