ollment of Black students had reached its historic peak. The predominately Black colleges and universities felt the initial effects and reaped the benefits of these programs.The attack on affirmative action began with the Reagan/Bush administration decision to not enforce certain federal policies on affirmative action. During this era, "substantial reallocations were made in federal student aid programs, with a significant impact because most minority college students depend on some form of federal financial aid" (Wilkerson, The Masks of Meritocracy and Egalitarianism, p.65). The decrease in federal support for minority student financial-aid programs has certainly hurt the access of minority students to institutions of higher learning. Furthermore, their generally inferior socio-economic status continues to be severe deterrents to obtaining a higher education. For example, "approximately 31.5% of Blacks and other non-Hispanic minority families in the U.S. live below the poverty level" (Wilson, The Black Community in the 1980s, p.456). Similarly, about 28% of Hispanic families live below the poverty level (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1985, 1987). The results suggest that affirmative action policies implemented by colleges during the 1960s and early 1970s were successful in encouraging the enrollment of Black students. Increased funding of scholarship award programs would provide a mechanism for reversing the recent downward trend in minority enrollment in institutions of higher education.The aforementioned statistics have serious implications for family resources available to support the funding of higher education and for the preparedness of minority students to succeed in college once they get accepted. Minority families, in general, earn substantially less than White families in the United States. Thus, fewer families resources are available to provide exposure to as many learning experiences for minority children outside of ...
