For Minorities’ Educational Needs, Funding Lags Far Behind Effort - Higher Education

For Minorities’ Educational Needs, Funding Lags Far Behind Effort - Higher Education: No one can change the past, but we have the power to change the future if we set our minds to it. Today more than 90 percent of the nation’s population growth is from people of color. Yet we are failing to address the educational needs of these individuals. In the words of Nelson Mandela, “Education is the most powerful weapon you can choose to change the world.” Why are we not using this weapon to address our country’s needs?

Among those attempting to fill the pipeline one student at a time include such individuals as Dr. Rick Cherwitz, founder and director of the Intellectual Entrepreneurship Consortium (IE) and professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Texas at Austin; Dr. Isaiah Warner, Vice Chancellor for Strategic Initiative, Boyd Professor, and Philip W. West professor of Analytical and Environmental Chemistry, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor at Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge; and Dr. Freeman Hrabowski, president of the University of Maryland Baltimore County. But they need help! What is required is not a village, but villages striving for the same thing. What are these individuals doing that others should emulate?