Students' college experience consists of more than just what they learn in the classroom. While academic achievement is what earns students degrees, the life skills they acquire exclusively through interaction with peers can be just as valuable in shaping their life. Years after graduation, they will be shaped more by their relation to others than by their ability to recall all the amendments to the United States Constitution in order.
A more diverse university community promotes a greater exchange of ideas and a better appreciation among students for alternative ideas to their own. Those who encounter peers with varying backgrounds learn to respect differing viewpoints in a way that classroom learning simply cannot promote.
The UW System is seeking to achieve such diversity through Plan 2008. The Plan, which consists of seven goals that would improve diversity as well as some suggested means of reaching those goals, aims to allow more minority students to earn a UW education. One way of achieving the goals laid out in the Plan, the Lawton Minority Undergraduate Retention Grants, is under attack.
One of the Plan's stated goals is to \close the gap in educational achievement, by bringing retention and graduation rates for students of color in line with those of the student body as a whole."" Unfortunately, UW-Madison is far from seeing that goal achieved. While nearly 80 percent of students who entered the university in the fall of 1999 were either still in school or had graduated after four years, barely 60 percent of minority students either graduated from or stayed at the university over that same time period. Furthermore, the percentage of minorities who had been retained or had graduated after four years was virtually the same for students entering in 1993, meaning the university's efforts to retain the minority students who come here have had little effect.
The Lawton Grants aim to keep minorities in the UW System by giving select students up to $3,000 per academic year for up to four years. Last year, 292 minority students at UW-Madison received Lawton Grants, getting a total of $736,141.
The Lawton Grants help students stay in school. The grants allow minority students, many of whom come from inner-city and lower-income backgrounds, to better afford school and make it easier for students who might otherwise be unable to afford the seemingly constant rises in tuition.
Those who oppose the grants feel that they are completely based upon race, which, if true, could be seen as racial discrimination. However, the grants take into account other factors, such as ability to afford tuition and academic achievement. The Grants not only help to achieve Plan 2008's goals of minority retention, they also speak to another goal: ""Increase the amount of financial aid to needy students and reduce their reliance on loans.""
Furthermore, as W. Lee Hansen, a UW-Madison economics professor and an opponent of the Lawton Grants, pointed out in a letter he wrote to the Board of Regents in 2001, the primary and secondary education available in the inner-city public schools minorities often attend is usually of lower quality than the education available in predominantly white, suburban public schools. This makes retention of minority students at the university even more important, as often the pool of applicants from urban public schools whose student body is primarily made up of minorities is even slimmer.
Achieving the goals laid out in Plan 2008 will not only make this university a better place to learn and live, it will also enhance diversity throughout the state and eliminate the need for programs such as the Lawton Grants for the next generation. While the Lawton Grants are by no means perfect, they are a way to improve the university climate and the atmosphere of the state as a whole at a relatively small cost. While we would like to see a world where Plan 2008 and the programs accompanying it are not necessary, the Lawton Grants are as good a system as any for helping to move the state and the university in that direction.
