Land-Grant Institutions Alleged to Drift from Their Public Missions: While many land-grant flagships strive to keep costs low for students, they have not been as successful in yielding high graduation rates, and, as a result, many students—including high numbers of Blacks and Latinos—fall through the cracks.
Dr. José Cruz, the vice president for higher education, policy and practice at the Education Trust, a nonprofit organization that pushes high academic achievement and seeks to narrow opportunity and achievement gaps—especially among minority students from pre-kindergarten to college—says that most of the nation’s land-grant institutions have neglected their mission to educate diverse populations in favor of recruiting high-achieving students from relatively wealthy families who can help the schools climb in national rankings.
