Thousands of low-income, minority students missing out on college-prep classes

(courtesy photo)

Only 3 percent of low-income and African-American high school students in Michigan are enrolled in Advanced Placement (AP) classes that help them get a toehold in college. That’s one of the lowest rates in the nation, according to a study conducted by Education Trust.

The AP gap puts an estimated 12,000 poor and minority kids a step behind as they enter college -- and could prevent some from getting admitted to more prestigious universities.

“Access to these college-level courses in high school is an important part of preparing students for higher education,” said Amber Arellano, executive director of Education Trust-Midwest, the Michigan-based affiliate of Education Trust in Washington. “We must work to ensure that students of color and low-income students are participating equitably.

“These students are our future,” Arellano said, “and we can’t leave them behind.”

Advanced Placement classes are college-level courses that offer high school students the potential of earning college credits if they perform well enough on AP tests given at the end of the course.

Those college credits can lessen the cost of earning a degree -- some students enter college with a semester’s worth of credits or more.

Also, students who don’t take AP classes offered in their high schools could be at a disadvantage when applying for admission to elite universities, many of which examine whether applicants took the most rigorous courses available to them

According to the study, about 8 percent of Michigan’s high school students were enrolled in AP classes in 2010, compared to 12 percent nationally.

About 3 percent of low-income students in Michigan were enrolled, compared to 13 percent of their richer peers. Overall, 10 percent of white students were enrolled, compared to 3 percent of African Americans. The national rate of AP enrollment among low-income students is twice as high as Michigan’s rate.

Those figures are both a symbol of the achievement gap with which Michigan schools are struggling, and an exacerbating factor, said John Austin, the Democratic president of the State Board of Education.

“We need to up the numbers of all students participating in these advanced courses,” Austin said. “All forms of early college credit-taking improve the chances of college completion.”

Two potential ways to narrow the gap are to eliminate the financial burden of the classes (some AP tests have a student fee attached in Michigan schools), and to make AP classes an opt-out option rather than an opt-in.

Minnesota has not only closed the gap, but reversed it, with 18 percent of low-income students taking AP classes and 14 percent of non-low-income students participating.

“Some states made it part of a strategy to focus on early college credit, through AP classes or early college,” Austin said. “We (in Michigan) haven’t figured out how to fund early post-secondary credit.”