In higher education, lessons in equality: Towson University, a Maryland institution that has yet to produce a Nobel prize or a Rhodes Scholar, is gaining a national reputation for something else it doesn't have: a gap in graduation rates between whites and underrepresented minorities.
The suburban Baltimore school joins Virginia's George Mason University on a list of 11 higher education institutions nationwide where graduation rates for minority students meet or exceed those of whites, according to an analysis by the Education Trust, a Washington-based think tank that focuses on racial and ethnic achievement gaps.
It put Towson's graduation rate at 67 percent for white and black students and 70 percent for Hispanics. The report says the school has an overall graduation rate of 65 percent, higher than George Mason's 58 percent and the national rate of about 55 percent. (The overall rates include students who decline to identify themselves in a racial or ethnic group.)
'The goal has been, if you take them in, you should graduate them,' said Robert Caret, Towson president since 2003.
