The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) governs intercollegiate sports under the premise of amateurism. That premise is incompatible with the idea of paying players. But "amateur" in no way means "nonprofit." The NCAA signed a 14-year, $10.8 billion contract last year with CBS and Turner Sports to air March Madness, the men's Division…

Rondell Gardner, a senior at Roosevelt Career and Technical High School--a school located in the heart of a city that's on life support--has a way out of Gary, Indiana. To him, it's an orange leather ball. Ancilla College (Indiana) has offered a scholarship; Indiana University Northwest has him on its radar; and Northern Michigan has expressed an…

This article discusses the effort of U.S. Rep. James Clyburn to help historically overlooked constituents and disadvantaged students get to go to college through his annual Rudolph Canzater Memorial Golf Classic. Elected to Congress in 1992 after a nearly 20-year stint as an appointed state official, he worked his way through the Democratic Party…

This article discusses the NASA-MUST (Motivating Undergraduates in Science and Technology) program which annually serves 115 students from diverse backgrounds. The program is in its sixth year. While the program is open to all students, a special emphasis is placed on those from groups that are underrepresented in STEM fields. Participating…

The accelerated master's degree in nursing program at the Georgia Health Sciences University, formerly the Medical College of Georgia, has seen its minority student enrollment grow from just a smattering when it launched in 2006 to 16 percent last fall. Incremental increases in minority student enrollment--GHSU's nursing program currently enrolls…

Since the economic downturn began in late 2008, more schools have slashed budgets, payrolls and services while trying to protect their core academic programs. Today, as the economic downturn persists, they are doing more of the same and coming up with ways to keep higher education a realistic goal for the masses. The author discusses how U.S.…

The Laurinburg Institute, the oldest historically Black prep school in the country, is a shell of its former self these days. Although the gym was condemned in the late 1990s after moisture caused part of the roof to fall in, the school still maintains its prestige in prep hoops. But a recent NCAA ruling is threatening to end that record. Last…

Collegiate sports, and athletic scholarships in particular, have served as portals to higher education for generations of African-Americans who may not have otherwise attended college. That's not the case for Latinos. Despite their growing presence in professional sports, Hispanics remain underrepresented in collegiate athletics. Scholars and…

This article discusses how the Ron Brown Scholars program has helped many students of color persist and fit in at elite institutions. Established in 1996 to honor the memory of Ron Brown, the first Black Secretary of Commerce who died in a 1996 military plane crash in Croatia while on a trade mission to Europe, the program each year awards $40,000…

This article describes how the benefactors of University of South Florida (USF) Latino Scholarship Program (LSP) support students in more ways than one. LSP, now in its 17th year, was started by the Latin Community Advisory Committee to the USF president to attract Hispanic students to the school. The committee didn't want to just provide…

It has been almost five years since Michigan voters chose to ban race-conscious programs from state-funded institutions. The impact of the decision was swift and painful for many, particularly in the state's public higher education landscape. Minority enrollment in public colleges--which was already low--plummeted in many categories as…

This article reports on the popularity of golf, which grew in Seoul after it held the 1988 Olympics, and the emergence and competitiveness of Korean golfers in which U.S. college coaches are now witnessing. According to Dr. Kyeyoung Park, an associate professor of anthropology and Asian American studies at the University of California, Los…

As a senior honors student at Weston Ranch High School in Stockton, California, last spring, Lakea Youngblood gained admission to the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of California, Los Angeles, California's two most sought-after public universities. While both schools offered the northern California native similar financial…

With the total price tag of a bachelor's degree from a top-tier U.S. college or university hovering around $150,000, even some of the most highly sought-after high school graduates are turning down universities like Yale and Stanford in favor of more economical options--community colleges. Skyrocketing tuitions and anti-affirmative action…

Undocumented immigrant students in California are eligible to receive only private scholarships that "[aren't] enough to support a very expensive education," says CCLC CEO Scott Lay. Dr. Gerardo E. de los Santos, CEO of the League for Innovation in the Community College, calls "serving the undocumented" one of the major…