Asian students missing from higher education agenda
More attention needs to be given to the needs of Asian American students, according to a recent study conducted by the Asian & Pacific Islander American Scholarship Fund and the National Commission on Asian American and Pacific Islander Research in Education.
The report, “The Relevance of Asian Americans & Pacific Islanders in the College Completion Agenda,” argues that the nation’s leaders need to make the student group an integral part of the U.S. education agenda in order to reach stated goals, like the Obama administration’s hope to have the world’s most-educated workforce by the year 2020.
“This report demonstrates the relevance of [Asian American and Pacific Islander] AAPI students to America’s college completion agenda,” reads the report. “There is a real urgency to ensure that all underserved students, including Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, have the knowledge and skills needed to fully participate in the 21st century workplace. While the national college completion agenda is largely focused on reaching a numerical goal, which is important in the context of the growing AAPI student population, this report also demonstrates that there are other higher education priorities that should not be ignored.”
The report’s authors made several recommendations for U.S. education officials to help them better address the wide ranging needs of the diverse AAPI student population. Some of those suggestions include: increasing the amount of resources that go to schools serving AAPI students, addressing language barriers, creating a shared vision for institutional change, additional research on the needs and priorities of the AAPI population, exploring public/private partnerships, and broadening said coalitions.
The report also highlights the problem of long-held, popular misconceptions about the student population. One of those myths is that the AAPI student community is doing well across the board and, therefore, doesn’t need assistance or attention as a group. The report states that this is simply not the case, making more research and resources necessary.
“Higher education policymakers and practitioners need to be mindful of the significant disparities that exist with regard to educational access and attainment,” reads the report. “For AAPI students, gaps in college participation and degree attainment are often concealed by comparisons between AAPIs and other racial groups, or by comparisons between AAPI sub-groups — many of which are being overlooked and underserved.”
The report found that East and South Asians were more likely to earn an undergraduate or advanced degree, while Pacific Islanders and Southeast Asians had a higher propensity to earn associate degrees as their highest level of education.
