African-American college completion: good strategy, big challenge

A new Courier-Journal editorial spotlights an important effort to increase the number of African-Americans graduating from Kentucky higher education:

The Kentucky Community and Technical College System, where many Kentuckians begin their journeys to bachelor's degrees, sees the problem and is taking up the challenge of doing more to increase the number of black college graduates.

So, starting on Feb. 27, the so-called “Super Sunday” initiative will get underway. The multi-faceted outreach effort will see all of the 16 community college presidents fan out to visit black churches across the commonwealth. The presidents will directly address the congregations and are partnering with the churches to host college fairs designed to introduce their institutions and to bring communities up to speed about the offerings at Kentucky's community colleges. Information about financial aid and student support services will be available.

The C-J contrasts African-American students earning 6.5 percent of recent Kentucky bachelor's degrees with African-American residents being 7.5 percent of Kentucky's total population.

Actually, that understates the problem.  African-American students were 10.1 percent of our 2009 high school graduates (the latest year currently available), and we should surely be aiming to see those graduates moving right on to collecting higher-level degrees in similar proportions.