Advertisement
Hennepin Technical College has information in seven foreign languages on its Web site. St. Cloud State University is running full-page ads in Spanish, Somali and Hmong newspapers in the Twin Cities.
Normandale Community College has hired people who speak Spanish, Somali and Russian.
“We are seeing a steady increase of students of color,” said Geoff Jones, Normandale marketing and communication director. “Little by little the community starts to get more information about our institution and it builds. It is not something you can measure, but over time you start to see steady increase in the enrollment.”
The push comes as the number of Minnesota high school graduates is expected to drop by about 10 percent over the next several years, with most of the decline among the white population.
“One of the reasons that we’re reaching out to culturally diverse students is that most of the decline is among the white population,” said Mike Lopez, associate vice chancellor for student affairs of the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system. “If you look at the percentage of students in schools K-12, students of color are increasing.”
Earlier this year, the Legislature approved $22 million to MnSCU to improve and expand recruiting and retaining groups that are traditionally underserved, which includes poor and minority students.
Those efforts could be working. Last fall, St. Cloud State saw a 21 percent jump in the number of freshman students of color. Students of color now make up 6.4 percent of the 16,000 students at the college, but the school is aiming for 8 percent by 2010.
Abdimalik Askar, a former outreach coordinator for the Metro Alliance higher- education network, said there’s still more to do.
“It is essential for these institutions to hire staffs from these communities,” Askar said. “So many students and parents I talk to don’t even know that there are colleges like Alexandria Technical Colleges or Dakota County Technical College.
“If they have more staff from the underrepresented communities they can reach out to more students than ever before,” he said.
