Here are three reports that you should know about this month.

1. A report from the Center for American Progress shows that “the doors to America’s top public colleges remain firmly closed to the vast majority of black and Latino undergraduate students.” In 2014, almost 20 percent of white students and 31 percent of Asian students attended the most highly selective institutions, but only 9 percent of black students and 12 percent of Latinos were attending these selective public universities. Meanwhile, “black students were overrepresented at community colleges in 44 states, while Latino students were overrepresented in 39 states.”
2. Hunger on Campus draws on a survey of nearly 3,800 students at 34 two- and four-year colleges across 12 states. The results: 22 percent of respondents have the very lowest levels of food insecurity, and 13 percent of students at community colleges are homeless. The survey also revealed that more than half of all first-generation students (56 percent) were food insecure. The report is a product of four campus-based organizations: the College and University Food Bank Alliance, the National Student Campaign Against Hunger and Homelessness, the Student Government Resource Center and the Student Public Interest Research Groups.
3. Four competency-based education models—and their cost to students and institutions—are examined in a new report from the rpkGROUP funded by Lumina Foundation. Included in the report is the Kentucky Community & Technical College System’s Learn on Demand initiative. The findings suggest that “CBE programs do offer an opportunity to bend the higher education cost curve by lowering the cost of instructional delivery and potentially offering students faster pathways to demonstrate content mastery,” according to the report’s authors.

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